SteamOS Official Thread.

Tony Williams · 28 Jan 2014 at 04:23

What is game support like is all games or half supported in Linux? Got Steam + MINT and gunna try more games.

On my desktop

Boomstick777 · 31 Jan 2014 at 16:34

Hands-on: Steam's in-home PC game streaming beta already feels like magic

Last night I played Assassin's Creed IV on a 2006 MacBook—the cheap, white plastic kind. It's a machine with a 1.83GHz processor and 4GB of RAM, and it might as well have no graphics card at all. It's a machine that was long ago relegated to backup status, good for word processing and Web surfing, and little else.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2092...-streaming-beta-already-feels-like-magic.html

uncle_rufus · 31 Jan 2014 at 17:55

Wow! I'm impressed that its reasonable at this stage...

I don't think the article said but I would have been interested to know whether it performed better over a decent wired connection (I'd guess it would be significantly better)

Has anybody installed SteamOS onto a machine with less than the specs say? I've got a crappy old laptop with only 3Gb RAM and i3 and a 320Gb drive which technically falls under what they say (dedicated GPU, 4Gb RAM and 500Gb drive), but is that really a hard limit or can I go ahead and give it a try anyway? I already am on the Streaming beta...

Phantom Shadow · 31 Jan 2014 at 18:11

uncle_rufus said:
I don't think the article said but I would have been interested to know whether it performed better over a decent wired connection (I'd guess it would be significantly better)

Can't remember where I read it but I remember someone did a test between wired and wireless for latency when using the streaming, the wired connection was a night and day difference to the wireless connection.

uncle_rufus · 31 Jan 2014 at 18:29

Well if I or anyone else can confirm that SteamOS is installable to a system that doesn't meet their minimum spec I will be more than happy to give it a go and post my findings here in detail, and I have a solid wired network I can use to test it

uncle_rufus · 3 Feb 2014 at 19:27

Update:

Guys! It works!!!

So it turned out I couldn't install SteamOS to my crappy laptop, and I ended up just putting regular Debian on it instead. Decided to install the Steam client just on the offchance and it turns out the in-home streaming works regardless of how Steam has been installed

It's not been running for very long, but here's the setup:

Streaming (main) PC
3770K, 16Gb RAM, GTX670, Crucial M4 (and some of the games are on a Samsung 500Gb F1) running Windows 7

Stream-ee Laptop
A Dell Inspiron 15R, not a beast by any means (think it cost about £400 3 years or so ago). First or maybe 2nd gen i3, 3Gb RAM, no graphics card whatsoever just the iGPU in the i3 and a little 320Gb drive in it, battery is completely dead so it must be permentantly tethered to the charger

Running Debain Wheezy

Network
The main PC is plugged into a cheap-ish TP-link 8 port Gigabit switch with a CAT-6 cable. BT Home Hub 3 is plugged into the switch also via a Gigabit cable. The laptop doesn't have the latest and greatest wireless tech so we're looking at standard 2.4GHz wireless channel. I do also have a pair of powerline adapters which are currently going from the switch to a raspberry pi in my living room, so once I have a chance I'll give the streaming a try over that connection instead. More on that later.

Test #1: Electronic Super Joy (over Wifi)
Figured let's not go crazy right off the bat and start with a basic test, so this caught my eye. It ran perfectly fine, and I couldn't notice any problems with input latency (and it's the sort of game it would notice). I couldn't play it very well at all on the keyboard on this laptop but still it was off to a good start

Test #2: Bioshock: Infinite (over Wifi, because why the hell not)
Complete opposite end of the spectrum, I just got so excited that it worked at all, so I decided to go balls out and see what happened. Sadly I couldn't get the game to launch, because for whatever reason the game always takes quite a while to fire up on my rig upstairs, and this was hitting some sort of timeout on the stream and quitting.

Not to be defeated I tried firing up the benchmarking utility instead. After a moment it loaded up a stream showing the command prompt that comes up when you run the utility, and after I selected "User" to run the utility with my normal settings (everything totally maxed + DX11 special stuff) it was off!!!

The first part of the demo ran absolutely perfectly, with no obvious slowdown. However once it got to the scene with the big crowd of people in there was one huge noticeable bit of slowdown and awful judderiness. Based on my other experiences with this laptop for streaming I feel as though it's most likely just due to the crappiness of the wireless, so I'll repeat this test in a bit with the powerline adapters instead and see what happens.

One slight problem was that once the demo finished it popped up a dialog with "Do you want to save the benchmarking results Yes/No/Cancel" and the streaming wasn't able to show me this, I eventually had to pop upstairs to manually close the dialog.

So apologies for the big post, but it works!!! If anybody has anything in particular you want me to try now that I have a working set up please post it below and I'll be happy to oblige. You can use the link in my sig to see what games I have if you want to suggest one to try, and I'll post back here with the results of my testing with a wired (well, powerline) connection once I get around to it

First impressions really good though

Phantom Shadow · 4 Feb 2014 at 01:41

Got an email today saying I'm in the streaming beta, must give it a go

Boomstick777 · 17 Feb 2014 at 23:49

CD Projekt May Bring The Witcher 3 to Linux if SteamOS Succeeds

http://segmentnext.com/2014/02/17/cd-projekt-may-bring-witcher-3-linux-steamos-succeed/

Boomstick777 · 14 Mar 2014 at 11:38

Crytek embraces Linux and SteamOS

Valve's Steam Machine consoles are getting a shot in the arm from Crytek, which has promised native Linux support in its latest game engine.

The fourth-generation CryEngine is being used in several upcoming games, including Evolve, Homefront 2 and Star Citizen. It also powers the Xbox One launch title Ryse: Son of Rome. CryEngine's newfound Linux support doesn't necessarily mean these games are coming to Valve's Steam Machines, but it could allow for Linux ports in the future.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2107242/crytek-embraces-linux-and-steamos.html

Boomstick777 · 3 Jun 2014 at 15:50

Homefront: The Revolution coming to Linux and SteamOS

The next entry in the Homefront line of games is set to be delivered in “The Revolution”, a game previewed today by Crytek UK. This game’s first preview announcement trailer shows cenematics, but is indicative of what we’ll be seeing for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC in 2015. This game will almost certainly be detailed at length at E3 2014.

http://linuxgamenews.com/post/87626...tion-coming-to-linux-and-steamos#.U43gcSgd2pI

Boomstick777 · 12 Jul 2014 at 23:38

The Original Darksiders Is Coming To Linux & SteamOS

From the looks of things, the guys over at Nordic Games had their hands full for the last few days since it seems like the original Darksiders game might be making its way over to Linux and SteamOS. The coming of Darksiders on Linux and SteamOS was revealed by Leszek Godlewski, who is a programmer over at Nordic Games, via his Twitter account.

http://asidcast.com/index.php/2014/07/original-darksiders-coming-linux-steamos/

stopper · 13 Jul 2014 at 19:51

Old news now. You should use http://www.gamingonlinux.com/
The guy running this site is the fastest at publishing all the important Linux-gaming news out there.

GoogalyMoogaly · 12 Oct 2014 at 14:15

I can't find a way to change the resolution.
Does it exist? If so, where?
What resolution does it default to?

phill1978 · 12 Oct 2014 at 17:49

GoogalyMoogaly said:
I can't find a way to change the resolution.
Does it exist? If so, where?
What resolution does it default to?

it should be in the settings under display??

also is anyone else using the script to have it as a login option on debian/mint/ubuntu ? i.e on username/password login choose unity,gnome,SteamOS, session . doing this give you the full compositor and all the tweaks same as a SteamOS only install.

GoogalyMoogaly · 12 Oct 2014 at 23:29

phill1978 said:
it should be in the settings under display??

also is anyone else using the script to have it as a login option on debian/mint/ubuntu ? i.e on username/password login choose unity,gnome,SteamOS, session . doing this give you the full compositor and all the tweaks same as a SteamOS only install.

only way I could find to do it was to enable the option to get to the Linux desktop and do it from there.
Turns out it was 1080p anyway.

Can't say I'm overly impressed with SteamOS on first impressions.

phill1978 · 14 Oct 2014 at 00:02

GoogalyMoogaly said:
only way I could find to do it was to enable the option to get to the Linux desktop and do it from there.
Turns out it was 1080p anyway.

Can't say I'm overly impressed with SteamOS on first impressions.

Its not too great. I suppose its their first attempt, when the first console gui's were out they took at least two generations to get right. It works, it launches game.

Still ive said it a thousand times, all they needed to do to get people interested was create their own Debian distro, supply it with two login options.. KDE or Openbox ( like crunch bang) and then integrate their client and controller with a docky style launcher and desktop updates.. kind of like a hybrid desktop.

if you use antimicro for controlling the keyboard and mouse in linux using a 360 controller you soon realise that with a bit of work the steam controller would have easily been enough.. in fact they could have just switched to hidpi mode and streamlined the whole thing whilst keeping a useful desktop.

but they didn’t. what they are doing is making a pc console ..

Swarfega · 14 Oct 2014 at 11:40

Had to give up trying to get SteamOS to work on my MicroServer. In the end resorted to Xubuntu with the Steam client which worked fine. I thought the SteamOS would be majorily lightweight like Arch but with the essential software/drivers installed. SteamOS still seemed to have a lot of bloat underneath.

Home Streaming was pretty decent but not decent enough to be usable IMO. I only tested Borderlands 2 and a non-steam game (Guild Wars 2).

Oh Ed not again. · 14 Oct 2014 at 11:45

So how far on has this come from it's initial release? Must admit I've totally lost touch with it's progress due to other projects and happenings in life.

uncle_rufus · 14 Oct 2014 at 15:04

Some things are certainly better than others...

Streaming Civ V to my little laptop from my main rig and kicking back on the sofa is pretty awesome - and the fact that occasionally there is a little bit of lag doesn't really matter so much in a slower paced game such as this

phill1978 · 14 Oct 2014 at 21:28

Swarfega said:
Had to give up trying to get SteamOS to work on my MicroServer. In the end resorted to Xubuntu with the Steam client which worked fine. I thought the SteamOS would be majorily lightweight like Arch but with the essential software/drivers installed. SteamOS still seemed to have a lot of bloat underneath.

Home Streaming was pretty decent but not decent enough to be usable IMO. I only tested Borderlands 2 and a non-steam game (Guild Wars 2).

Do you run an Nvidia card ?

if so on some games ( not all, and if you have an average cpu) it works really well. For me, it took my 50 - 60 fps a bit stuttery now and then to always over 60fps and mostly 90fps and a much smoother overall experience

Set this in the launch options:

LD_PRELOAD="${LD_PRELOAD} libpthread.so.0 libGL.so.1" __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 %command%

it offloads some CPU stuff to the GPU so there is less shuffling about and it works well if your GPU is good but your CPU is weak. You can try it on pretty much any game some will go slower some much faster and smoother.

thanks