Another day, another journalist claiming that Valve is killing SteamOS (amongst other things mentioned) and it couldn't be further from the truth. I'm going to be pretty blunt in this one, because it needs to be.
I give you this sensationalist piece from Softpedia titled "Valve Is Killing Its Projects by Abandoning Them, Including SteamOS".
While it's true SteamOS hasn't turned into the almighty force some hoped, here at GOL, I always said it would never be a big success overnight and it would take a long time. That hasn't changed and SteamOS is still very much alive. In June of this year, Valve did a major update to SteamOS that dropped AMDGPU-PRO in favour of Mesa, it had a big Kernel version bump and more. Only a few days later another SteamOS beta was released with more updates. The development is ongoing and you can hardly call something that was updated majorly only a month ago, as something that's being abandoned.
They quite literally have no idea what they're talking about. I don't think Valve has ever said anywhere they were pouring money into OpenGL and Vulkan development. Valve did actually help to kickstart Vulkan, Valve has also hired developers to work on Linux graphics drivers. The public Mesa mailing list is extremely active, with patches from all sides flowing in every day, with the Valve developers doing quite a bit of work. Anyone following it knows this, they would too if they looked. They should know too, since they report on Mesa. Only recently one of the Valve developers finished up the OpenGL multithreading code in Mesa, which can give big performance gains in certain games.
The bit about developers not being heard of any more is also strange. It takes a long time for a brand new API to gain traction, but it is gaining with Vulkan games being released. Croteam have thrown their weight behind it, so has Feral Interactive. Not a massive amount sure, but again, it takes time. Games already in development won't throw out their entire renderer for Vulkan, but new games have a good chance of using it.
No one really knows if Half-Life will continue or not. Apart from that, the other examples are all still sold and worked on. SteamOS, as mentioned, is regularly updated. The Steam Controller is constantly updated with new awesome features, there's even been hints of a second revision. The Steam Link is still selling well with plenty of people rather happy with it. It's not quite likely any of them will follow the path of Half-Life, there's nothing whatsoever hinting at it, they're pulling speculation out of their backsides here with no sources to show for anything they're saying. It's bottom of the barrel reporting.
No, it hasn't. Vulkan 1.0.55 was released only yesterday and last I checked there's more Vulkan games than there is DirectX 12 games on PC. What part of that has slowed down considerably? It hasn't, not at all. I'm also unsure as to what they mean by "integrated VM solutions", I'm going to assume they're really trying to sound smart, but missing the mark. They likely mean wrappers, but so many things come under that banner and wrappers aren't necessarily a bad thing.
I'll be honest here, I really don't like Softpedia and I think their reporting is quite often terrible. They reported on the iCloud hack that happened some time ago, by using one of the stolen images of a celebrity in their article—just awful.
I often end up feeling like we're one of the few sites that won't scaremonger for traffic, because it's stupid. It's an article where clearly research just hasn't been done, but hey it makes a good headline to click right?
I won't blindly stick up for Valve or any company, as every company serves their own agenda. However, Valve are very clearly and often quite publicly still supporting Linux, SteamOS, Steam Controller and so on. I will gladly report on it when there's signs they are dumping something, but there's no such signs yet. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I give you this sensationalist piece from Softpedia titled "Valve Is Killing Its Projects by Abandoning Them, Including SteamOS".
While it's true SteamOS hasn't turned into the almighty force some hoped, here at GOL, I always said it would never be a big success overnight and it would take a long time. That hasn't changed and SteamOS is still very much alive. In June of this year, Valve did a major update to SteamOS that dropped AMDGPU-PRO in favour of Mesa, it had a big Kernel version bump and more. Only a few days later another SteamOS beta was released with more updates. The development is ongoing and you can hardly call something that was updated majorly only a month ago, as something that's being abandoned.
QuoteValve also promised to put a lot of money in the development of OpenGL and Vulkan, so that Linux could feature the same type of performance with games running on Direct3D, on Windows. That is also a really quiet front, and after some initial success, developers are not heard anymore.
They quite literally have no idea what they're talking about. I don't think Valve has ever said anywhere they were pouring money into OpenGL and Vulkan development. Valve did actually help to kickstart Vulkan, Valve has also hired developers to work on Linux graphics drivers. The public Mesa mailing list is extremely active, with patches from all sides flowing in every day, with the Valve developers doing quite a bit of work. Anyone following it knows this, they would too if they looked. They should know too, since they report on Mesa. Only recently one of the Valve developers finished up the OpenGL multithreading code in Mesa, which can give big performance gains in certain games.
The bit about developers not being heard of any more is also strange. It takes a long time for a brand new API to gain traction, but it is gaining with Vulkan games being released. Croteam have thrown their weight behind it, so has Feral Interactive. Not a massive amount sure, but again, it takes time. Games already in development won't throw out their entire renderer for Vulkan, but new games have a good chance of using it.
QuoteValve is becoming famous for two things. One is the easiness of which they make money from their Steam Platform, and the other is their started and failed projects. The most famous of them is the Half-Life series, which ended abruptly and it feels abandoned. It’s quite likely that SteamOS, Steam Controller, and Steam Link are following the same path.
No one really knows if Half-Life will continue or not. Apart from that, the other examples are all still sold and worked on. SteamOS, as mentioned, is regularly updated. The Steam Controller is constantly updated with new awesome features, there's even been hints of a second revision. The Steam Link is still selling well with plenty of people rather happy with it. It's not quite likely any of them will follow the path of Half-Life, there's nothing whatsoever hinting at it, they're pulling speculation out of their backsides here with no sources to show for anything they're saying. It's bottom of the barrel reporting.
QuoteThe development of Vulkan, an open source alternative to Direct3D, has slowed down considerably. Games are still being developed for Windows systems and ported to Linux with the help of integrated VM solutions, which greatly decrease performance.
No, it hasn't. Vulkan 1.0.55 was released only yesterday and last I checked there's more Vulkan games than there is DirectX 12 games on PC. What part of that has slowed down considerably? It hasn't, not at all. I'm also unsure as to what they mean by "integrated VM solutions", I'm going to assume they're really trying to sound smart, but missing the mark. They likely mean wrappers, but so many things come under that banner and wrappers aren't necessarily a bad thing.
I'll be honest here, I really don't like Softpedia and I think their reporting is quite often terrible. They reported on the iCloud hack that happened some time ago, by using one of the stolen images of a celebrity in their article—just awful.
I often end up feeling like we're one of the few sites that won't scaremonger for traffic, because it's stupid. It's an article where clearly research just hasn't been done, but hey it makes a good headline to click right?
I won't blindly stick up for Valve or any company, as every company serves their own agenda. However, Valve are very clearly and often quite publicly still supporting Linux, SteamOS, Steam Controller and so on. I will gladly report on it when there's signs they are dumping something, but there's no such signs yet. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: GuestWho reads softpedia anyway? lolHeh, sadly a number do. Some tech sites often read them, then write their own articles parroting what they say.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: lovemytux
Unfortunately, people being wrong on the internet are sometimes influencing our real lifes.
5 Likes, Who?
SteamOS is not dead and people were so curious about it when it is released because they don't care about using Windows for gaming.
They are using Windows because all games are there.
SteamOS announced at 4 years ago , also Steam Client for Linux released at that time. Before Steam , gaming on Linux was not a real thing because 25-30 games maybe available for Linux.
Today we have 3000+ games but sadly more of them are indies and we are lacking of AAA's. That is keeping Windows gamers away from Linux+SteamOS.
Some would say Wine is a savior but i'm against it. Wine is the last resort and it has so much missing feature when compared to Windows ( obviously ) but most important thing is : Wine is not providing ease. Sometimes you need to apply tons of patches , fixes for a single game.
A gamer is a simple creature. It seeks for simple click install and then click play. So Wine or POL , Lutris are not providing that.
When we start to get AAA's by companies themselves without performance losses everything will change but AAA devs are not into because if they do it they will create a serious platform that can compete with Windows and when it happens it means that : They must prepare a Linux version and that equals extra work for them.
So Windows being superior when it comes to AAA stuff , that is related to devs attitude. They don't want to deal with any other platforms , they're already dealing with Windows , Xbox and PlayStation.
Why did i not include OSX to that ? Because that place is limited by Apple's preconfigs so even if they port all the games that won't run as expected when it compared to Windows and Linux hardware freedom.
They are using Windows because all games are there.
SteamOS announced at 4 years ago , also Steam Client for Linux released at that time. Before Steam , gaming on Linux was not a real thing because 25-30 games maybe available for Linux.
Today we have 3000+ games but sadly more of them are indies and we are lacking of AAA's. That is keeping Windows gamers away from Linux+SteamOS.
Some would say Wine is a savior but i'm against it. Wine is the last resort and it has so much missing feature when compared to Windows ( obviously ) but most important thing is : Wine is not providing ease. Sometimes you need to apply tons of patches , fixes for a single game.
A gamer is a simple creature. It seeks for simple click install and then click play. So Wine or POL , Lutris are not providing that.
When we start to get AAA's by companies themselves without performance losses everything will change but AAA devs are not into because if they do it they will create a serious platform that can compete with Windows and when it happens it means that : They must prepare a Linux version and that equals extra work for them.
So Windows being superior when it comes to AAA stuff , that is related to devs attitude. They don't want to deal with any other platforms , they're already dealing with Windows , Xbox and PlayStation.
Why did i not include OSX to that ? Because that place is limited by Apple's preconfigs so even if they port all the games that won't run as expected when it compared to Windows and Linux hardware freedom.
0 Likes
QuoteIt’s now 2017, and Valve hasn’t released a proper new game or IP in a very long time.Really? No "IP".... what about the Oculus Rift (Orignally a copy of the Steam Sight), htc vive (we know that), steam controller (in house). The force behind vulkan?
/me shouldn't have read the article.
0 Likes
Quoting: lovemytuxI always enjoy that picture and there's of course a certain element of that here. However, as I stated in another comment people really do read and re-post Softpedia, a lot. The problem is when you have many bigger tech sites parroting that SteamOS, Steam Controller and so on are dead or dying, it's not going to help us at all is it? For me, to ignore this type of completely utter nonsense would be a disservice to the community.
GOL stands here as a beacon of hope, as always. I enjoy what I do and I think it's important we note when people are flat out wrong, as I clearly showed.
8 Likes, Who?
This cat is no more a journalist than Softpedia is a journal.
We should all have such failed projects. We could fail our way into an early retirement on a Caribbean island paradise.
Last edited by Nanobang on 19 July 2017 at 11:46 am UTC
Quotetheir started and failed projects. The most famous of them is the Half-Life series
We should all have such failed projects. We could fail our way into an early retirement on a Caribbean island paradise.
Last edited by Nanobang on 19 July 2017 at 11:46 am UTC
2 Likes, Who?
As a recent SteamOS convert, I can highly recommend it. I love it so much more than having Ubuntu installed on my HTPC.
2 Likes, Who?
I have mixed feelings about this... Yes, the Softpedia article has a lot of inaccuracies and no, Valve is not (directly) killing SteamOS. But I think the key here, that the article gets right, is
It seems there's a bunch of Linux developers working at Valve that keeps puhing updates and patches, but they are on their own now, after the initial marketing push. They are contributing in making our os better, we owe them much, but is this enough? Maybe yes... I'm reasonably happy with the state of things, we have a great platform and even a lot of games to play natively. On the other hand it seems something is really missing...
QuoteThis entire complacency might have something to do with the flat organizational scheme inside Valve that basically lets developers work on anything they want. With no clear future direction imposed for the company, Valve looks more and more like a rudderless ship, going each way and not finishing any of the projects.
It seems there's a bunch of Linux developers working at Valve that keeps puhing updates and patches, but they are on their own now, after the initial marketing push. They are contributing in making our os better, we owe them much, but is this enough? Maybe yes... I'm reasonably happy with the state of things, we have a great platform and even a lot of games to play natively. On the other hand it seems something is really missing...
2 Likes, Who?
cRaZy-bisCuiT Jul 19, 2017
As already said, some of the information is true to some extend. I think Steam for Linux, SteamOS and the controler could already be more famous then they're. Actually part of the problem is already us: Honestly, who did buy a steam machine, a steam controler or uses SteamOS here in the forum? It will only be very few people. And we're already the ones who are into Linux. So what is the user base they so actually aim for?
On the other hand everything that Liam says is right: Developement is still very active, maybe even more then it ever was, when it comes to mesa... Still im interested to see where things will be going to. (;
On the other hand everything that Liam says is right: Developement is still very active, maybe even more then it ever was, when it comes to mesa... Still im interested to see where things will be going to. (;
0 Likes
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me