Latest 30 Comments

That's the part I miss from these modern games - by making matchmaking and server infrastructure dependent on the publisher, we lost so much

Yes, so much yes. I had lots of fun in CoD 1 and 2. Until some... Black Ops 2 maybe? ... was doing automatic match making. Bye FPS.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I honestly feel spoiled for choice in games... I understand why some devs want to use kernel level rootkits anti-cheat mechanisms, but personally I don't find any competitive gaming that interesting anymore, these days.

Yeah, I grew up playing deathmatches in the likes of Duke3D, Quake, UT, Tribes, etc., and yeah, cheaters suck, but... I could always switch to a different dedicated server with some obscure mods or host my own. When the server OP is watching someone obviously cheat in-game, it's easy to just ban them and move on, because these servers were (and in many cases still are!) run as a community effort, with volunteers keeping the peace.

That's the part I miss from these modern games - by making matchmaking and server infrastructure dependent on the publisher, we lost so much. So if a multiplayer game doesn't let me host my own dedicated server I can opt to password-lock to my friends, I'm honestly just not interested. Give us standalone dedicated server binaries (hell, I'm even running one right now for Empyrion via wine), and let the community sort it out, no kernel rootkit shenanigans needed.

Of course, the real reason behind all this is so they can protect their investment in microtransactions and loot box garbage, so I'm not surprised they don't want little Timmy cheating in that fancy $$$ golden weapon skin without paying them for the privilege.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I imagine it will be super easy to either dual-boot or run a Windows VM.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I don't think it matters what anti cheat solutions Valve implements. They can already compile their kernel with eBPF(https://ebpf.io/) support. Then each game could dynamically program (or Valve could) the kernel for anti cheat. Okay, but that doesn't happen, as of yet. That's because, as game devs have stated, they just can't battle the cheaters on two fronts. Maybe one day Valve will offer a compelling solution that reduces the load of the game devs. I doubt it though, it's PC, so no matter the eco system, Windows or Linux, it's a free-for-all by design. As long as these games do peer 2 peer match making and hosting, I don't think any of this will change.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

"XR"? Extra reality? Extended reality? Extreme reality?

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

What about those multi-kernel features proposed to Linux?

We could have a dedicated kernel for running certain games with all the accesses and trust needed by the anti cheat.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

NOICE! Made it default… let's see how this goes

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Since several comments have asked about the price of the Steam Frame, several of the "hands-on" videos that have come out since the announcement, quote Valve as saying the Frame will be slightly less than the price of the Valve Index.
The Valve Index was (before the current U.S. discount) sold at 749 USD (headset + controllers - base stations; if including the base stations, it was 999 USD), so somewhere slightly lower than that should be the price of the Frame next year.

As for the Steam Machine, they've said it's going to be priced "more like a PC" than a console, which I take to mean that it'll be more expensive than the current-gen consoles. The current average price of the different Xbox and PS models is 565 USD (with "Pro" models going up to $750), so I'd imagine the Steam Machine will be priced similarly to the Steam Frame, probably a bit cheaper.

With no more information given, those are the best ballpark-numbers I can give.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Sorry for becoming off topic, but as your choice matched my curiosity and hesitated between those 3 distro. I'd like to thank you a lot for your detailed answer clatterfordslim. I like it leightweigt with some ease to use, I might get tempted by cachyOS or return to xubuntu, I'll decided when the SSD will be in the PC :p
Is cachyOS working easily out of the box with old windows games if you tried any?

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I will be honest by saying that behind the anticheat on battlefield 6 lies a strategical step toward blocking valve from punishing those greedy studios in order to restrain our liberty and fullfil their secret desire of overwhelming power of people who just want to have fun freely.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

.01%

Presenting misinformation as fact because you "feel" that your exaggeration is true.

^^ Instantly loose all credibility in seconds, Do Not Collect 200 Or Pass Go. ^^

--

Regarding "Walled EAC Gardens" on Steam.
This is really simple.
Developers follow incentives.
Valve needs to incentivize developers to get their shit together.

If your game doesn't FULLY work on the new 2026 STEAM MACHINE, you are ineligible to be in the FEATURED GAMES BILLBOARD on the HOMEPAGE.

STEAM HOMEPAGE is a place for games COMPATIBLE with Steam Hardware.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

the name station is a bit ironic

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

"Fix Steam Link freeze for users with AMD video cards ("Error 250")."

Anything that improves AMD GPU support is very welcome. I know on Windows Nvidia is defacto but on Linux AMD is much more comfortable, and Linux Steam VR has been an area in need of some Quality of Life improvements, thou I haven't tried my Index lately since I lent it out.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

The name "KOMODO STATION" reminds me of "OKAMA GAME SPHERE"

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

As my age progresses i do not play so many games anymore - I've even stopped playing on my PS5.
I just don't bother about free games anymore.
At the moment I'm playing mostly Oldschool Runescape and if I want some variety, i check what I've installed on my too big Steam Library. I have so many unplayed or unfinished games.
But yet, here I am waiting for nostalgia games like HoMM: Olden Era, Moulder, Hark the Ghoul or Mina the hollower.
I've even installed TES2: Daggerfall not long ago.
What is wrong with me?
Why am I not excited anymore?
When did I lost my passion for gaming?
It's like the games are just an occupational therapy for filling out my empty life.
Click here, work there, a new level, a new skill, oh - shiny!
(don't worry about me, I'm already in therapy.)

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

@Lofty Yes, I already did that with some friends a couple of years ago, but that works only for experienced users. Otherwise you end up installing the client on every friends pc... more hassle than its worth.
Many casual gamers don't even know what an IP address is and they do not care. Such things must be as simple as getting a beer out of your fridge;)

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I’m surprised I still have to state the obvious here for certain people. Just because Linux has a low user share, doesn’t mean it won’t have cheat vendors and cheaters using it because they can get away with it.

It only takes one person with cheats to potentially ruin hundreds (thousands etc) of online matches.

So both can be factually true: low users, high cheats. Developers won’t be saying this kind of thing repeatedly if it was a flat out lie and no Microsoft aren’t paying them to do so, pure FUD.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I agree that this would excellent, but it won't happen, because there's no money in LAN servers

Again, developers have to go back to the roots. Instead of selling nonsense like skins/items nobody needs for 2 bucks they can develop great DLCs which really enhance the gaming experience for say 25 bucks. And guest what? When the hoster (the one who started the server) has the DLC installed, all other friends need that DLC too.
Boom, the dev earns much more money within seconds/minutes.
Quality makes money... selling trash, not.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I continue to call bullshit on these 'devs' statements about the amount of cheaters using Linux. Their numbers sound comically inflated.

Please do not forget that kernel level anticheat is not the holy grail against cheaters.
When BF6 came out this one streamer had access to a cheat ... only took hours.

The more money is involved the more cheating there is.

On the other hand - counter strike, a game that is also a trading platform runs on linux.

I agree with you, to say such a thing is to lie :

- It’s a vector for cheat developers.

- When we stopped support for Linux, we saw more cheat users exploiting Linux, than actual legitimate users.

- If a game supports Proton or Linux, they’re not serious about anti-cheat.

Globally, Windows represents 66% of PC users and Linux only 3%.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

Steam users on Windows accounted for 94.84% in October 2025, compared to 3.05% of Linux users at the same time.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey?l=french

This statement must be true :

- When we stopped supporting Linux, users made up less than .01% of the total player base.


Developing cheat software for Linux isn't profitable either...

For this reason, there are no cheaters softwares under Linux.

There is no difficulty in running an anti-cheat system under Linux, unless one deliberately refuses to do so.

Windows has always engaged in unfair competition against Linux, and this continues ;-(

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I wish it was actually called the 'gabecube' lol, gamecube was the first thing I thought of when I saw the reveal

Gabecube! Lol!

This said my first reaction was: "Now it really looks like a Steambox".

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Wasn't interested in the steam machine..... until now.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

@johndoe i wonder if software such as tailscale could be used to create easy mesh networks over VPN where by a home computer can host the players and others join on the same network (also by using tailscale clients)

There has been a huge increase in computing power & stable internet since the LAN-to-WAN days , and with things such as tailscale (wireguard) you don't need a cloud server or a great deal of technical knowledge.

i mean you can use steam for 'remote play' and play a co-op game, it's not quite the same as i think it doesn't cater for 16+ players in one remote play session (but i could be wrong)

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Fixed Alone in the Dark (2008)

let's fucking GOOOOOOOOO!!!

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

What Valve (or third-party) would need to do here is simply an easy way to make the LAN-Server reachable

I agree that this would excellent, but it won't happen, because there's no money in LAN servers. None of your friends will shell out actual money for skins/inventory tabs/hats/upgrades if they're playing local.

Maybe I'm wrong there though. Maybe there's a way to allow that monetisation, but it still works in a LAN-party, as well through Steam Networks. That would be cool.

But I doubt it'll happen.

From the sounds of it Valve aren't going to go super aggressive on the pricing. I wish they would though as it would really shake things up.

Sony, MS and Nintendon't all provide hardware as loss-leaders against their walled-garden stores. I suppose, in a sense, Steam is also a walled-garden, in so far as you need a PC to use it... but I doubt Valve will be happy burning money to create a loss-leader. Honestly, if the original Steamdeck launch is anything to go by, it's clear that Valve don't have a manufacturing capacity to create a loss-leader! If they loss-lead the price on Steam Machine and demand goes through the roof - they could find themselves with months- or each years-long supply shortage (ala PS5).

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I used my Steam Controller so much I wore out the thumbstick and broke some of the plastic surrounding the stick. I also broke one of the shoulder buttons and had to have somebody 3d print a replacement part. In the end, I bought a barely used second hand controller. So I will definitely be grabbing the new Steam Controller.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I feel like the user base needs to triple before they will even look our way. 3% is a great start.. But we need closer to 10% imho. For that to happen the Steam Machines would have to be very competitively priced. From the sounds of it Valve aren't going to go super aggressive on the pricing. I wish they would though as it would really shake things up.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

The hope is that the Steam Machine would help push developers to just abandon kernel level anti-cheat and think of smarter ways to prevent cheating. I mean, seriously, we're in the age of AI, kernel level anti-cheat will not be able to stop someone using AI to cheat without even changing a single bit in the game's code that kernel level anti-cheat can detect. The only way to do real anti-cheat is by a combination of server based AI enabled anti-cheat system + community reporting system.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Just going to take a moment to once again steal this joke, because I love it too much not to beat it to death.

There's a very good name that nobody seems to be capitalizing on, and that's making it the Orange Box.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I realize most Linux folks don't like the Ubi launcher (or seemingly any non-Steam launcher for that matter) but, for what it's worth, I installed the Ubi launcher as a non-Steam game in Steam, logged in once and installed the game without any issues, and then added "uplay://launch/5405/0" to the Steam launch options.

Now when I click Play Fenyx in Steam, the Ubi launcher automatically starts up, minimizes itself to the taskbar, and takes me straight into the game - no interaction with the Ubi launcher needed, except to click the close button when I exit the game. In fact, the majority of the wait time is spent waiting for Steam to start up...

Frankly, I've always thought this worship of the Steam client and aversion to other launchers a bit silly, especially for free games: in the end, I spend 99.999% of my time in-game, not staring at a launcher, whether Steam or otherwise. Normally I wouldn't even use Steam to launch non-Steam games on my desktop (Wine with DXVK works fine), but in this case Proton seems to fix problems with cutscene audio.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I think it's fairly likely what will happen in the next 2-3 years is they'll make EAC work on Steam OS. Essentially all it needs is to boot in secure boot mode with a signed kernel and a module that does the verification. It will piss off a lot of purists, but it can happen. It won't work on all Linuxes of course, but it can work on these devices.

Without some form of remote attestation this won't prevent the kernel from lying towards user space (including to root!) that it has indeed booted into secure boot mode, and is signed. (an example in that direction is how microg bypasses the signature requirement of googleplay in that case the android rom has been modified to lie about the microg signature) On windows being closed source this is much easier to achieve since MS has tight control over who can install drivers, sure it ain't perfect but do pull something of like lying about secure boot and signatures you'd first need to find an kernel exploit.

Anyway that out of the way I think it is my turn to call the devs who want kernel level anti-cheat lazy, because it is the lazy solution to cheaters. Cheating isn't going away and the best you can hope for is that most people don't notice it (and think that those people who where really good where just some people who are playing at a lower rank then they are actually capable of for funsies (aka smurfs)), kernel level anti cheat just moves the cheat to hardware (a raspberry pi and some advanced image analyzing can do a lot here on the low end, a PCI-e low level RAM debug card with hacked firmware does a lot on the high end). On top of that note that really obvious cheating is pretty easy to prove even without kernel level anti-cheat, and thus that kernel level anti cheat is mostly a way for devs to go "see we are doing something about those cheaters!" without having to spend a lot of actual effort. (Also that "more linux users where cheaters than legitimate" statistic is fishy, how would you know if your anti-cheat tech didn't work? If it was just that the reports on cheating dropped maybe it was just because more linux users reported cheaters? Or some kind of placebo effect where a lot of players where like "sure can't be a cheater since they banned linux users"?)

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment