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Latest Comments by CatKiller
As of January 2024 - 75 of the Top 100 most played Steam games work on Steam Deck
6 January 2024 at 11:18 am UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: Purple Library GuySo I make it 4 games that are both Unsupported (but not because of Anti-cheat) and Bronze or worse. So, 4 games out of 100 that just don't work because they don't work. A couple more if you count Unsupported + Silver. That's not bad. Shows that most of the problem is Anti-cheat, and it's a significant problem.

Just spelling it out: the thing that makes it a significant problem is that there's nothing we can do about it.

Wrong file format, using APIs we don't have? We can fix that. Abusing those APIs or being otherwise broken or janky? We can work around that.

But embedding itself in a kernel that we don't have to detect the most miniscule differences between its running environment and a specific known version of exactly Windows so that it can refuse to run? There's nothing we can do about that - and we also don't want to make it easier for people to cheat. We're entirely at the mercy of game publishers that don't give a fig about us, and who aren't at all interested in detecting cheaters on their servers rather than looking for software tampering on other people's computers - which would remove the issue entirely.

MSI teasing a handheld gaming PC like the Steam Deck
5 January 2024 at 10:40 am UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: PenglingI was in the netbooks community back in the day, and the way things went was downright ugly - not just from how manufacturers were strongarmed into killing the product-category, but also in how shills were sent out to undermine communities from the inside. I really hope that history doesn't repeat itself.

They're certainly going to try.

But whereas Microsoft could kill netbooks to protect their desktop OS monopoly (ultimately clearing the field for iPads to break their desktop OS monopoly), Valve's device is already here, already great, and they aren't selling it to make money off hardware sales. If Microsoft kill all handheld PCs but the Deck, Valve wins; if OEMs keep churning out handhelds that show that Linux is better than Windows, Valve wins; if OEMs give up on Windows and make Linux handhelds, Valve wins; if Microsoft makes Windows as good as Linux and people still get all their games from Steam, Valve wins. The threat to Valve's Deck initiative only really comes if Microsoft brings out the big guns: their own handheld that runs the Xbox-tweaked version of Windows that can only run games from Microsoft's Store - which has just been juiced by the biggest acquisition the gaming industry has ever seen. That could go either way, especially as part of their offensive to get the Microsoft Store on Android and iOS via their Epic stalking horse. Even then, the Deck represents the open PC gaming ecosystem vs the locked-down Microsoft-only ecosystem that Valve have been endeavouring to protect since Windows 8.

MSI teasing a handheld gaming PC like the Steam Deck
5 January 2024 at 10:14 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Luke_NukemValve are open to helping OEM's support SteamOS, but I suspect that the OEMs want it to be more of a one-way street with Valve doing all the work.
The OEMs are also likely to want a big bag of money from Valve.

Baldur's Gate 3 wins Game of the Year in the 2023 Steam Awards
5 January 2024 at 8:25 am UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: Anzaif you get past the few baffling AAA wins
Not "baffling;" trolling.

They're Boaty McBoatface.

MSI teasing a handheld gaming PC like the Steam Deck
4 January 2024 at 7:04 pm UTC Likes: 11

Quoting: PhiladelphusValve did say with the Deck that they were trying to spark a new wave of handheld PCs, and they sure seem to have succeeded!

Every one of those handheld customers is buying their games on Steam, and for every new model the whole industry is saying, "yeah, Windows isn't as good as Linux."

MSI teasing a handheld gaming PC like the Steam Deck
4 January 2024 at 6:20 pm UTC Likes: 11

Quoting: fschauppIMHO, I'd not even bother to finance a manufacturer/vendor not using Linux.

They'd notice it being sold, but not running ChimeraOS instantly afterwards - maybe a call to Steam or ChimeraOS (or both) to support options to make it more obvious/visible to the manufacturer?
Maybe via Steam hardware survey or a "statistics option" in the e.g. ChimeraOS setup, to report the usage of a proper OS, (or a kind call to action after the setup/first launch to make the manufacturer aware)?

Why would they care? They've got a big bag of money from Microsoft for making the thing and selling it at a price that competes with Valve, they've got your money for purchasing the thing, and you've voluntarily removed yourself from any ongoing support that they might be inclined to provide.

The only thing that would make any difference to the OS that they use is hordes of people not buying their Windows hardware and letting them know that they lost the sale to their Linux-providing competitors, and the lost revenue from that being bigger than the big bag of money they got from Microsoft.

SteamOS 3.5.12 Preview and new Steam Deck Beta and Steam Desktop Beta released
4 January 2024 at 1:50 pm UTC Likes: 7

QuotePrivate games will no longer show on family sharing accounts

That's quite the whoopsie.

Here's the top Steam Deck games for December 2023
3 January 2024 at 3:11 pm UTC Likes: 2

At some point I'll probably try Witcher 3, but my copy was a GOG key that came with my GPU so I'd need to set up Heroic and stuff, and I haven't really been arsed.

In the meantime I'm playing Beyond A Steel Sky on the Deck (and I'll probably play Kona after that if they've fixed the achievements by then) and I'm playing Parkitect on my desktop, so there's no rush.

Linux hits nearly 4% desktop user share on Statcounter
3 January 2024 at 3:06 pm UTC

Quoting: mad_mesaSo if Steam is set up to contribute stats to statcounter at least for the public facing pages Deck users would be automatically showing up in large numbers from normal operation, and if not Deck would still not be entirely invisible.

It isn't. Valve have their own tracker and that's it.

Linux hits nearly 4% desktop user share on Statcounter
3 January 2024 at 1:55 pm UTC

Quoting: JordanPlayz158Where did you get this info, wasn't difficult to get waydroid installed and working on my linux distro?
Waydroid boots up Android in a container, and needs to be installed separately. As I understand it, neither of those are true for ChromeOS or Windows - they can run Android applications out of the box.