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

[V4NT0M]

From my experience linux offers no improvement in general operations or internet browsing.

I would only ever recommend someone use Linux over windows 7 if they did not want to pay for an OS an all they wanted to do was browse the internet. In which case with distros like jolicloud for laptops/netbooks it's excellent considering it's free. Still there is plenty of hardware that just doesn't work with it though, which was one of my major grumbles when running it on a netbook.

Anything more than that has to be windows for me, not really had a lot of use out of MACOS.

 

[PermaBanned]

I am sorry Gabe but competition is the reality of the real commercial world. Having another competitor doesn't mean your business will automatically suffer, but it does mean that you will have to try harder at retaining consumer's custom. As far as I can tell at this stage it is all a knee jerk reaction. At no point have MS suggested or even hinted at the App store being the only source for customers to purchase software.

I'm sorry, are you talking about the competition to steam in the Win8 app store or are you talking about the competition to Windows in Linux? It cuts both ways you know.

From my experience linux offers no improvement in general operations or internet browsing.

Security, speed, ease of use? I don't think there's any hardware your 'average joe' would have that there's just down right no support for. The quality of support for some devices is certainly up for debate, but it's pretty easy to get up and running. A lot of it is much easier too, graphics card drivers, printing etc. It's just amusing at this point that Windows requires an 'ethernet driver'

 

[V4NT0M]

I don't think there's any hardware your 'average joe' would have that there's just down right no support for.

Could not use the multitouch on my netbook's trackpad. I spend a lot of time searching for the support or external drivers/software. Found nothing, it may sound like a trivial thing but it is a thing, especially when as I said above I noticed no real improvement in speed and actually flash and general browsing was much slower.

You'll probably blame it on this or that and say you should have tried this or that, but that's the thing, I didn't have to do anything with windows, to quote that famous rival company 'it just worked'.

Security, speed, ease of use?

I did not find linux any easier to use than windows. People always talk about security with windows/linux/macos but honestly it's a buzz word, most of the security issues people experience are through stupidity or ignorance which translate to all OSes.

It's just amusing at this point that Windows requires an 'ethernet driver'

I'm not sure that an operating system downloading or using a driver from the HDD for an ethernet device is really something that keeps me up at night. You can probably list 10 reasons on how linux handles ethernet or ethernet drivers better than windows. But I've nether thought to myself "dang, I know what windows could do without, an ethernet driver!".

'average joe'

This is your main problem with anything to do with linux at the moment, sure, the world is moving towards using pretty much everything online. But your average joe does not even know what linux is and pretty much all of them will be trying to download windows programs for them and wondering why they don't work. To them it's all the same.

 

[Glaucus]

What stubborn path, exactly? Supporting Linux is stubborn? No, letting Microsoft do whatever they want and having everybody just accept it is stubborn. Technology changes. Companies rise and fall. But the power of choice lies with the users, not with the companies. If they make changes that the users don't like then the users are going to stop using it, if there's a better alternative. And that's what Valve are doing here. They're helping to make the alternative better. For years the main thing holding many people back from Linux has been the gaming support.

Just because Windows 8 is the way it is doesn't mean that everybody has to use it or else. Gabe doesn't like it, so Valve are offering another alternative. At no point have they said they'll stop supporting Windows.

And you don't think people would at least dual boot if that was the case? Please, i think you underestimate the gaming community's love affair with Gaben

Do you have a source for Android becoming more 'locked down'? The platform has always been open, some manufacturers do their very best to undo the good that does but that changes nothing about Android itself.



No, they can support Windows without 'embracing' Windows 8. It's up to users what they want to do then.

No plan to distribute ARM games? Well, it's likely that the rumoured 'Steam Console' would use ARM. But what does that have to do with a decision to support Linux? Linux has ARM support. So does Windows, last i checked.

I have no idea what 'live tiles' are, but Steam already does that.

Would help if you actually read what I said, it would also help if you knew what arm is and how steam can't sell arm on windows RT without going through the store and that current games can't run on arm, so I can't see a steam console using arm either(combined with the fact the leaked info says intel i7 which is x86 and not arm at all) Arm is also the biggest growing games market and the experts predict will be taken over by the big publishers, with what this forums deems PC games and won't be limited to casual games.
You should look at live tiles and see that it's basically a full screen start menu that is live, ie gives you live information. A steam live tile would be great. It could tell you a lot of information from the start screen, without going into steam software fully.

I have never said branching into Linux on its own is bad, but if you combine it with what they have being saying about win8 its very much worrying and stubborn.

They are limiting their current and even more importantly future profits, they also do not have full control of most of the games they sale, how do you think it would effect steam if developers ditched steam and went on windows store?
steam should have jumped on early, been a metro partner and released an app at launch and got a massive reduction in price and have all that advertising power.

 

[Glaucus]

Edit DP

 

[Aedus]

1 thing I'll say is that Gabe is an extremely smart business man.
He knew about digital distribution being the future before others, and look how much of a wedge Steam has of the market share.

Maybe Gabe believes that the way that windows is going, it will become too much of a closed platform and people will be turned away from it, and he's trying to possibly show that Linux can be a viable gaming platform as well.

Another theory is that Steam was at 1 point apparently developing it's own console/PC, which could use Linux for it's platform, which may be why they're starting to make big developments for it? Who knows.

I'll remain sceptical, but I know Gabe is too smart for his own good, it will be interesting to see where this leads.

 

[JHeaton]

You should look at live tiles and see that it's basically a full screen start menu that is live, ie gives you live information. A steam live tile would be great. It could tell you a lot of information from the start screen, without going into steam software fully.

As much as I still haven't been able to get comfortable with Windows 8's new UI, I do agree with this. If they could integrate it in such a way then that would be pretty awesome.

I'd actually like to see them open up the client a little bit in such a way that you could read the download progress, friend info etc. and pipe it out to conky or another status monitor, should they really get this going on Linux, but I doubt it would happen sadly.

 

[Spenty]

1 thing I'll say is that Gabe is an extremely smart business man.
He knew about digital distribution being the future before others, and look how much of a wedge Steam has of the market share.

Maybe Gabe believes that the way that windows is going, it will become too much of a closed platform and people will be turned away from it, and he's trying to possibly show that Linux can be a viable gaming platform as well.

Another theory is that Steam was at 1 point apparently developing it's own console/PC, which could use Linux for it's platform, which may be why they're starting to make big developments for it? Who knows.

I'll remain sceptical, but I know Gabe is too smart for his own good, it will be interesting to see where this leads.

Why does Gabe get mentioned all the time? He has a team behind him and I bet some of them are just as smart as him.

 

[PermaBanned]

Would help if you actually read what I said, it would also help if you knew what arm is and how steam can't sell arm on windows RT without going through the store and that current games can't run on arm, so I can't see a steam console using arm either(combined with the fact the leaked info says intel i7 which is x86 and not arm at all) Arm is also the biggest growing games market and the experts predict will be taken over by the big publishers, with what this forums deems PC games and won't be limited to casual games.
You should look at live tiles and see that it's basically a full screen start menu that is live, ie gives you live information. A steam live tile would be great. It could tell you a lot of information from the start screen, without going into steam software fully.

I have never said branching into Linux on its own is bad, but if you combine it with what they have being saying about win8 its very much worrying and stubborn.

They are limiting their current and even more importantly future profits, they also do not have full control of most of the games they sale, how do you think it would effect steam if developers ditched steam and went on windows store?
steam should have jumped on early, been a metro partner and released an app at launch and got a massive reduction in price and have all that advertising power.

Are you talking about that locked UEFI boot key thing for certain ARM systems? Thankfully that doesn't apply to all ARM systems, just ones where the manufacturers want to display a little sticker on the box.

You can't seriously be saying that the only viable option is to stay exclusively on Windows because the platform is becoming more locked down and you will be forced to use Microsoft's own store?

A full screen tile for information that only requires a tiny amount of space? No thanks. I'd prefer actual tiling.

Not a lot of people like Windows 8. Subscribing to this doesn't make them 'stubborn'. If somebody does something you don't like you don't 'jump on early' and attempt to capitalize on it. I don't know why you're so keen on giving Microsoft yet more money

 

[Glaucus]

Are you talking about that locked UEFI boot key thing for certain ARM systems? Thankfully that doesn't apply to all ARM systems, just ones where the manufacturers want to display a little sticker on the box.

You can't seriously be saying that the only viable option is to stay exclusively on Windows because the platform is becoming more locked down and you will be forced to use Microsoft's own store?

A full screen tile for information that only requires a tiny amount of space? No thanks. I'd prefer actual tiling.

Not a lot of people like Windows 8. Subscribing to this doesn't make them 'stubborn'. If somebody does something you don't like you don't 'jump on early' and attempt to capitalize on it. I don't know why you're so keen on giving Microsoft yet more money

Arm is a totally different CPU architecture, x86 stuff does not run on arm. Mobile phones and most tablets have arm CPUs, it's the fastest growing market and the general consuls is that the big game developers are going to jump all over it in the coming months/years.

I have not said anything about staying exclusively to windows, again actually read what I have said. Extending to Linux is great, extending to linux and saying what they have been saying about windows8 is not great at all. It limits their potential massively, if they stick to this route. It's only when you combine the creating Linux and what they've been saying that it becomes a problem.

Plenty of people like windows8 and a lot of people have little choice as they have what Os is installed on their pc at purchase and more wooringly, is win9 will be more of the same, so again if steam stay on this path, it is not good.

 

[PermaBanned]

Arm is a totally different CPU architecture, x86 stuff does not run on arm. Mobile phones and most tablets have arm CPUs, it's the fastest growing market and the general consuls is that the big game developers are going to jump all over it in the coming months/years.

I have not said anything about staying exclusively to windows, again actually read what I have said. Extending to Linux is great, extending to linux and saying what they have been saying about windows8 is not great at all. It limits their potential massively, if they stick to this route. It's only when you combine the creating Linux and what they've been saying that it becomes a problem.

Plenty of people like windows8 and a lot of people have little choice as they have what Os is installed on their pc at purchase and more wooringly, is win9 will be more of the same, so again if steam stay on this path, it is not good.

Yes, thank you. I am familiar with ARM. Which should be capitalised. I don't really see the relevance though. It's not powerful enough to run high end games. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing what it can do, running older games. But it's not really relevant to this discussion... at all. There are ARM ports of Linux and Linux software.

If Microsoft stay on that path that it's not good. It only takes so many bad decisions for your users to start abandoning you. Just look at Gnome 3. I really don't get your argument here, you're saying that they should support Windows because it's changing?

Do you want them to praise Windows 8? Would you rather they lie about what they think of the platform? Why?

 

[Aedus]

Why does Gabe get mentioned all the time? He has a team behind him and I bet some of them are just as smart as him.

Coz he's da baws.

 

[Glaucus]

Yes, thank you. I am familiar with ARM. Which should be capitalised. I don't really see the relevance though. It's not powerful enough to run high end games. Don't get me wrong, it's amazing what it can do, running older games. But it's not really relevant to this discussion... at all. There are ARM ports of Linux and Linux software.

If Microsoft stay on that path that it's not good. It only takes so many bad decisions for your users to start abandoning you. Just look at Gnome 3. I really don't get your argument here, you're saying that they should support Windows because it's changing?

Do you want them to praise Windows 8? Would you rather they lie about what they think of the platform? Why?

have you seen what can run on arm?
Have you seen what the big experts predict on arm games? About the big Pc game developers jumping on the bandwagon.
Nowif or when they jump on, will they offer half their collection on steam for ~30%(or what ever steams cut is) and half on windows app store for what could well be much less than 30%. Or offer it all on windows store.

Do I want them to praise windows8? no, is that what I have said?
I want them to cater for the future as I like steam and think it would be bad if they lose ground, but that's what I can see happening if they don't start reversing some off their opinions.

People won't leave windows. People use windows at work, they know how to use windows, windows is what's installed on new pcs. A lot of people might skip win8 as they've just upgraded and most latrine business have only just upgraded to win7, the same won't be said for win9.

Steam form what they are saying are doing themselfs out of a massive market, a market that is one of the fastest growing markets and that experts predict the big publishers to jump onto. For what? mS take no cut of money from x86 software, they can make a free metro app, to take advantage of live tile. So what do they lose? But they gain hugely.

 

[PermaBanned]

have you seen what can run on arm?
Have you seen what the big experts predict on arm games? About the big Pc game developers jumping on the bandwagon.
Nowif or when they jump on, will they offer half their collection on steam for ~30%(or what ever steams cut is) and half on windows app store for what could well be much less than 30%. Or offer it all on windows store.

What are you saying? That they could get 30% of the value of their product by using Windows? How is that an argument for staying on Windows?

 

[Glaucus]

What are you saying? That they could get 30% of the value of their product by using Windows? How is that an argument for staying on Windows?

You do realize steam don't own many of the games, steam take a cut meaning publishers "lose" money.

Now if you where a publisher, which would you use if you had to decided.

Windows store or steam. Seeing as steam may well take a larger cut and don't even support all platforms.

Ontop of that Microsoft take no cuts from x86 software, but publishers can advertise for free on windows store for x86 software.

Ao again what do steam lose by utilizing windows? And what do they gain?
The pros so far outweigh the negatives, it's crazy.

 

[PermaBanned]

You do realize steam don't own many of the games, steam take a cut meaning publishers "lose" money.

Now if you where a publisher, which would you use if you had to decided.

Windows store or steam. Seeing as steam may well take a larger cut and don't even support all platforms.

I would probably use Desura, or just go independent. I appreciate Valve's work for Linux but they aren't without fault, especially in terms of DRM.

 

[Glaucus]

If you develop arm games, you can't go independent and steam can't sell on arm devices, unles Stacey start using win8, which comes back to what I've been saying all along.
They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Hedge your bets do Linux, but also support windows properly. Otherwise you may find your market position suddenly changing.

 

[Antar Bolaeisk]

Perhaps I'm a little confused but I can't see why Steam couldn't sell games (the ones that work on it) on Windows 8 RT?

Also, they are supporting Windows properly.

I would find it hard to believe that they haven't at least considered an ARM client but it may be they lack the confidence to roll out on that platform. A jump to ARM is arguably a bigger leap than the jump they made to Mac since some of the games in their catalogue already had Mac ports and when the jump to Linux is made there will be games already in their catalogue ready for Linux. Some of the popcap games such as Plants vs Zombies have ARM support but none of the Valve games do. If they so choose I don't see why they couldn't roll out an app for Windows RT (Which, to be fair, users in their core market won't use anyway) as Microsoft aren't charging for in-app purchases (at the moment).

 

[FoxEye]

If you develop arm games, you can't go independent and steam can't sell on arm devices, unles Stacey start using win8, which comes back to what I've been saying all along.
They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Hedge your bets do Linux, but also support windows properly. Otherwise you may find your market position suddenly changing.

At least in the EU, won't the MS app store become a target for anti-monopoly legal challenges?

Can they force app developers to sell through their app store, without the EU going nuts and forcing them to allow competing services like Steam?

 

[ubersonic]

Secondly, why are they only making these improvements now? The Mac clients of all the Source games are OpenGL, and they have about half the frame rate of the same game running on the same Mac on OSX as they do on Windows under Boot Camp.

The same reason that WoW under bootcamp works better in both D3D and OGL mode than it does under OSX in OGL. OSX's OGL support is outdated garbage thanks to mr Jobs stance of gaming not being important for macs.

OSX is arguably a better OS than Windows and has seen decent support for gaming recently.

I swapped to a 27" iMac at the start of the year and recently returned to "PC" hardware as I found I was booting bootcamp 9/10 times and the mac was being wasted. While I freely agree that OSX is better in many many ways than windows, it is also vastly inferior in others. Case in point being not only is its standard picture viewer program and and file manager program (finder) years behind the ones in Windows but its also years behind the ones that come with Ubuntu and that's free open source software.

At least in the EU, won't the MS app store become a target for anti-monopoly legal challenges?

Can they force app developers to sell through their app store, without the EU going nuts and forcing them to allow competing services like Steam?

Considering they were forced to make an EU version of Windows 7 with no WMP or media centre this is a valid point. Although nobody's said anything to Apple over the app store...