Valve's optimizations make Linux port of L4D2 outperform Windows version

durbs said:
... godawful 3rd rate fragmented OS. Its a good server OS but absolutely stinks as a desktop and has a niche userbase who are allergic to spending cash.

Guess MS must have REALLY upset them with their new App store to get them sticking a load of cash on a 3 legged horse.
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Erm... I'd lay money that the majority of regular Linux users aren't so inclined because it is free.

Anyway, what does it matter to you? More choice is better for everyone
 
durbs said:
I read this a few days back and thought why?? Why are they pouring money and resource into a godawful 3rd rate fragmented OS. Its a good server OS but absolutely stinks as a desktop and has a niche userbase who are allergic to spending cash.
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Why? Because none of that is true.
 
would be nice to see another OS more mainstream than Microsoft, they have no competition and that is never a good thing for us the users.
 
linwelin said:
would be nice to see another OS more mainstream than Microsoft, they have no competition and that is never a good thing for us the users.
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OSX is arguably a better OS than Windows and has seen decent support for gaming recently.

Between Win, OSX, PS3, XBox, Wii, Android, iOS, DS/3DS, Vita etc I dont think theres any need for another gaming platform really.
 
The humble indie bundles have proved that linux users are in fact inclined to spend more money than other OS users.

It's just lack of overall user base which things like this will help solve.
 
Hmmm, Gabe sees another method of digital distribution that might actually succeed in providing competition, immediately has a bit of a fit, sulks, takes his ball somewhere else to play and shoots for headlines.

This will be the same Gabe and Steam that won't let you resell the games you've bought despite rulings they have to by now saying you only "subscribe" to the games service, not actually buy any games as well as choosing to disable your account if they decide to so you lose access to ALL (potentially hundreds of £s worth) of your games on steam. Interesting to see them try to potray themselves as the friend of choice and the customer. Anyone ever tried to decide they don't want to use steam anymore but do still want the games they've bought?

10 out of 10 to him for stomping off th the moral high ground and taking steam fans with him though. Whilst it's good to see Linux get some support I can't imagine why a Linux version of steam would dent Windows or OSX (or any of the console gaming platforms) in any meaningful way beyond Linux advocates. Pragmatically it's not like we're short of gaming platforms and I longer term I can't see how the Linux community is going to be a big fan of Gabe/Steams view of DRM and locking everything down, steam games and the controls that go with them seem the antithesis of the Linux philosophy to me.
 
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durbs said:
I read this a few days back and thought why?? Why are they pouring money and resource into a godawful 3rd rate fragmented OS. Its a good server OS but absolutely stinks as a desktop and has a niche userbase who are allergic to spending cash.

Guess MS must have REALLY upset them with their new App store to get them sticking a load of cash on a 3 legged horse.
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It could just be a case of making their game engine more appealing to developers, presumably they do license it out. Once they have it all up and running they'll have an engine capable of running on multiple OSes and distributed through a common platform. I can imagine something like that would be quite a sales point.


Athanor said:
This will be the same Gabe and Steam that won't let you resell the games you've bought despite rulings they have to by now saying you only "subscribe" to the games service, not actually buy any games as well as choosing to disable your account if they decide to so you lose access to ALL (potentially hundreds of £s worth) of your games on steam. Interesting to see them try to potray themselves as the friend of choice and the customer. Anyone ever tried to decide they don't want to use steam anymore but do still want the games they've bought?
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It's a discussion for another thread but I'm almost glad that they are taking that stance as I believe the EU ruling could be very damaging to digital distribution in general, not only Steam.
 
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Antar Bolaeisk said:
It's a discussion for another thread but I'm almost glad that they are taking that stance as I believe the EU ruling could be very damaging to digital distribution in general, not only Steam.
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I could go with that, but if that's the case his postering on the MS store just seems little more than not wanting any real competition. That in itself is not a bad thing in business, except if you then try to take the moral high ground with "my closed system is good for customers, yours is bad for my bank bala... ermm... customers".
 
Excellent idea


Ideally steam will cobble together a steam optimIsed distro that users can dual boot too from a pc or mac and have a truly gaming oriented OS

Can't see it being any different playing games in a steam Linux to the current steam setup other than needing to boot into your gaming OS
 
Delta12 said:
Excellent idea


Ideally steam will cobble together a steam optimIsed distro that users can dual boot too from a pc or mac and have a truly gaming oriented OS

Can't see it being any different playing games in a steam Linux to the current steam setup other than needing to boot into your gaming OS
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I doubt they would do that, given the amount of work involved and the existence of perfectly adequate noob-friendly distros already ;)
 
Useless figures are useless. Max numbers on hardware not being pushed, nothing about the spikes and number of low fram rate bits, which is far more important than ultimate fram rate, far better to have a lower but tight average frame rate, than a super high frame rate, that stutters often.

There's a lot of hype, but I can't see it working, I would bet most people aren't going to dual boot, it's to much hassle and I doubt most people would want to ditch windows for Linux in the first place. On top of that I don't think most people. Will want to forgo an app store. App stores have proved hugely successful on iOS and android and I'm sure on windows it will be equally successful.
Th only thing I can see happening is being reasonably ok in the shot term and shooting themselfs in the foot in the long term.
 
PermaBanned said:
Pfft, please. Linux had the 'app store' before it was cool ;)
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And where the Linux phones and tablets? Or do you really think people are going to buy two/three sets of apps. As time goes on people are going to be more and more locked into ecosystems, especially as apps develop and get more powerful and as such more expensive.

To me, it's steam worried about the future, but rather than thinking it through and planning for the future, they are panicking. Computer use is changing and some companies will be left behind if they don't cotton on. The only good thing is, it's a slow change. So time to reverse their current trend or branch out in even more ways.
 
Glaucus said:
And where the Linux phones and tablets? Or do you really think people are going to buy two/three sets of apps. As time goes on people are going to be more and more locked into ecosystems, especially as apps develop and get more powerful and as such more expensive.

To me, it's steam worried about the future, but rather than thinking it through and planning for the future, they are panicking. Computer use is changing and some companies will be left behind if they don't cotton on. The only good thing is, it's a slow change. So time to reverse their current trend or branch out in even more ways.
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Thing is, you don't have to 'buy' most Linux apps. As for phones and tablets, i'm not seeing the relevance here? But you do know Android is based on Linux, right? And it's extremely likely that at some point they will share apps.

A lot of people seem to be making out that this sudden affinity for Linux is all about the Windows 8 "app store". And sure, it might have something to do with it. But lets be honest here, that's not the only thing not to like about Windows 8, is it? And the lack of it isn't the only thing to like about Linux. Whatever the motivation, it's hard to see how this could be a bad thing. I think the best case was made by Stallman who suggested that accepting Steam's DRM on Linux could lead to it becoming the norm.

What 'plans for the future' would you have them make? Team up with Microsoft and promise to only ever support their monopoly in return for a large sum of money? Not attempt to show them that there are consequences for not listening to your users?
 
If Microsoft hadn't locked DirectX down to Windows and encouraged developers in that direction, we'd be seeing more OpenGL games which run seamlessly in Linux. I remember playing Unreal Tournament (one of the few natively cross-platform games available in 1999) even better in Linux than Windows 98.
 
On its own it's not a bad thing, but e whole direction and what they saying is a bad thing. If they carry on this stubborn path, they will do themselfs out of huge sales, they have to come up to date and realize computers both hardware and how we use them are changing.

For a start big companies Microsoft want, they negotiate a special price. 30% is a joe blogs rate. They could also make a complaint to the eu on anti competitor and get a ruling against apple, ms and android. Even android is slowly getting more locked down as they realize bad apps are not good publicity.

Consequences, MS will do fine, steam does not own most the games, they are still going to be available on windows. Again I can not see most users switching to Linux so what is steam going to do? Eventually ditch windows and as such half the developers ditch steam and they have far fewer users? That's the path they are starting to take and unless they change course I can't see it being good for steam, or for us.
 
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Glaucus said:
Consequences, MS will do fine, steam does not own most the games, they are still going to be available on windows. Again I can not see most users switching to Linux so what is steam going to do? Eventually ditch windows and as such half the developers ditch steam and they have far fewer users? That's the path they are starting to take and unless they change course I can't see it being good for steam, or for us.
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I don't see this as being a way for Valve to get away from Windows, this is an inclusivity move not an exclusivity move. Why make a push to get your games onto one platform only to abandon another. Regardless of that it would also be a pretty poor business choice to abandon the largest OS in the market.
 
Antar Bolaeisk said:
I don't see this as being a way for Valve to get away from Windows, this is an inclusivity move not an exclusivity move. Why make a push to get your games onto one platform only to abandon another. Regardless of that it would also be a pretty poor business choice to abandon the largest OS in the market.
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Inclusive is great, but taken with their other comments, it does not read that way, the longer they leave switching to the new era the harder it will be. What they going to do when metro becomes the standard? Either they embrace it or they pull windows support.

With their current plan, they have no way to distribute arm games, which is a massive growing market and they could have broken into that and by the sounds of it, they aren't even going to make a win8 app, which is a shame. Think what they could do with live tiles, tell you which friends are online and all the other stuff. Wouldn't cost them anything either, make the app free and x86 can't be sold through the market anyway.
 
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