FTA: "Valve is known for creating some of the most popular hardcore PC games"

wat

Epicedion: What counts as a hardcore game nowadays, anyway?

FrontierVille. It's much more gritty and realistic than Farmville.

Apparently the company has already managed to get Left 4 Dead 2, one of the most resource-heavy PC games, fully running on Ubuntu, a Linux standard.

You mean they got a game that runs on an OpenGL capable engine on OSX and PS3 to run on Linux, too? OMG, I didn't know that Linux could run OpenGL applications.

Epicedion: What counts as a hardcore game nowadays, anyway?

Custer's Revenge?

Steam is a delivery system. While it's nice they're trying this is still just a small thing. It's been 2 years now that Steam has been available on OS X but still most of the games are Windows only thanks to game developer's unwillingness to venture beyond DirectX.

It's going to be great fun watching Valve struggle with linux graphic drivers.

Talk about sticking your dick into a wasp net.

That headline makes my head hurt.

Epicedion: What counts as a hardcore game nowadays, anyway?

anything not fun and not popular

theurge14: Steam is a delivery system. While it's nice they're trying this is still just a small thing. It's been 2 years now that Steam has been available on OS X but still most of the games are Windows only thanks to game developer's unwillingness to venture beyond DirectX.

Well in all fairness would you rather make your game for a platforms millions have or just a few thousand?

This is great news. I switched back to Windows largely because of gaming; if I could have stayed on Linux and played the latest games without messing with WINE, I would have.

The only thing better would be if SteamPlay came to Android.

Just want to say that Orcs Must Die has been my favorite purchase of this Summer Sale. Already pre-ordered OMD2 because of it.

sprawl15: FTA: "Valve is known for creating some of the most popular hardcore PC games"

wat

I'm thinking they mean games that hardcore PC enthusiasts like, not games which are hardcore. The entire Half-Life series is a good example, to say nothing of Counter-Strike.

Still, horribly written article. Good on Valve for pushing the Linux thing though. Maybe one day more developers will stop thinking everything needs to be done via DirectX instead of OpenGL.

/Maybe one day
//Maybe
///...sniff

fluffy2097: It's going to be great fun watching Valve struggle with linux graphic drivers.

Talk about sticking your dick into a wasp net.

Yes. Let's talk more about sticking your dick in a wasp's nest.

How will dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Linux be different than dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Windows?

Explain your answer.

I bought Skyrim as part of their summer sale.

It's full of bugs and it annoys me. That's Bethesda's fault.

Also, every time I try to launch it I get an error about subscribed files and there doesn't seem to be a fix that actually works. Half the time it tells me something about files in the cloud versus my files locally and if I played it on another machine it could mess up my saves. And I couldn't play it at first at all because we got a storm that knocked out our cable connection for a few hours early Sunday morning and it wouldn't let me play until it connected to Valve.

So, yea. Fark Steam. Now I remember why I didn't buy anything off that shiat-for-brains service since Half Life 2. I'll stick with GoG.com's DRM-less indie and classic games, thanks.

sprawl15: FTA: "Valve is known for creating some of the most popular hardcore PC games"

wat

Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike are still in the top 10 'what people are playing now' list Steam shows you, that seems to fulfil popular. Counter Strike is still doing the rounds in the e-sport scene so I'd guess that counts as 'hardcore'.

But yes it is a very odd way to describe the vast majority of Valve's games.

MusicMakeMyHeadPound: fluffy2097: It's going to be great fun watching Valve struggle with linux graphic drivers.

Talk about sticking your dick into a wasp net.

Yes. Let's talk more about sticking your dick in a wasp's nest.

How will dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Linux be different than dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Windows?

Explain your answer.

Financial incentive?

Something breaks in Windows: Fix it or we'll be pissing off a few million customers

Something breaks in Linux: A few thousand people are getting pissed, we should look into it sometime in the future.

And for all it's faults, at least WHQL is some form of platform standardization and compliance.

MusicMakeMyHeadPound: fluffy2097: It's going to be great fun watching Valve struggle with linux graphic drivers.

Talk about sticking your dick into a wasp net.

Yes. Let's talk more about sticking your dick in a wasp's nest.

How will dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Linux be different than dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Windows?

Explain your answer.

Have you experienced NVIDIA's and ATI's drivers in Linux? ATI's are total shiat; they don't work, period. NVIDIA's are usable, but it's still pretty clear they don't make Linux a priority.

Wow, lots of random Valve hate in this thread. In any case, the Steam Summer Sale is in full swing right now-also known as the "Ooooo look that $50 game is $9.99 and that $40 game is $12.49 and that $30 game is $3.74 and that $50 game is $2.99 and how the heck did I manage to spend $300?" sale.

Geotpf: Wow, lots of random Valve hate in this thread. In any case, the Steam Summer Sale is in full swing right now-also known as the "Ooooo look that $50 game is $9.99 and that $40 game is $12.49 and that $30 game is $3.74 and that $50 game is $2.99 and how the heck did I manage to spend $300?" sale.

I'm up to about $150. This time I am also buying extra copies of some of the ridiculously low priced games to store in my inventory for later trading/gifts.

Splinshints: I'll stick with GoG.com's DRM-less indie and classic games, thanks.
Gog's pretty good. Well worth shopping there regularly IMHO.


MusicMakeMyHeadPound:
How will dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Linux be different than dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Windows?

Explain your answer.

Nvidia might boast about having a common shared code base for all of their drivers (i.e. same code on OS X, Windows and Linux)... the reality is Apple sanitise the OS X ones, the Windows ones get all of the companies internal attention and the Linux ones are in practice far more fragile than their Windows counterparts, I've seen Ubuntu's own kernel update (delivered by their updater) break the Nvidia drivers. Running Windows Update is unlikely to cause your GPU drivers to freakout, it can and often will in Linux.

That and neither of the two OEM's drivers are feature complete for Linux. There are things that the card will do in Windows that it is incapable of doing in Linux... often buried in the most unlikely of places.

If Valve (or EA, or Ubisoft or whoever) report that function W in API Y is producing result Z under circumstance A when in Windows, then Nvidia (or ATi) will pay attention and probably work on a fix. When you do the same under Linux the response is often, at best LOL or at worst "Fark You".

Geotpf: Wow, lots of random Valve hate in this thread.

Only one post so far with any actual hate that I see, and he even seems to be blaming Steam for the weather as well. I have Steam on several computers, and I barely ever encounter problems - this will likely be the experience of most of the people who use it, unless their computer or brain is malfunctioning.

This sounds like a good idea until you realize that quite a few open source acolytes hate DRM, which is what Steam is. Now, it's about as non-invasive as DRM gets, but they'll biatch about it on principle.

Also, video drivers on Linux are still very much hit-and-miss.

/hell, they are on Windows too.

MusicMakeMyHeadPound: How will dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Linux be different than dealing with NVIDIA and ATI's drivers in Windows?

Explain your answer.


"fark you Nvidia."
-Linus Torvalds

Geotpf: Wow, lots of random Valve hate in this thread. In any case, the Steam Summer Sale is in full swing right now-also known as the "Ooooo look that $50 game is $9.99 and that $40 game is $12.49 and that $30 game is $3.74 and that $50 game is $2.99 and how the heck did I manage to spend $300?" sale.

The THQ collection is probably the craziest/best deal in the bunch. The Square/Enix one is pretty good as well.

Speaking of the Square/Enix bundle, the Just Cause 2 multiplayer mod had another public beta a few days ago and it was farking hilarious.

Epicedion: Wow, being you must be really awful.

The worst part was when I forgot my smart phone and I had to do a #2 and I was bored the whole time.

Regardless, my point stands. Steam is a piece of crap and if I'm going to buy games online it's pretty much the last option I'd choose of the ones I'd use at all (I'm looking at you as the prime example of a service I'd never even consider, Origin).

Geotpf: Wow, lots of random Valve hate in this thread.

Some of us don't see the point in spending money on a service full of DRM and bogus online requirements when perfectly fun and functional alternatives exist. I tried out Steam when it first came out when I bought Half Life 2 and I had a lot of the same problems other early users had and it turned me off the service for years. I decided to give them another try and immediately more problems.

I don't see the point in spending money on a service that gives me constant problems.

HeartBurnKid: Have you experienced NVIDIA's and ATI's drivers in Linux? ATI's are total shiat; they don't work, period. NVIDIA's are usable, but it's still pretty clear they don't make Linux a priority.


Xorg: No screens found.
*looks in config file*
"Why is all of the details of my graphics driver and monitor in xorg.conf commented out?"
Xorg: You ran auto-detect. So I auto-detected everything, promptly forgot about it, and told you I had found no screens.
"Why would you do that Xorg???"
Xorg:My developer didn't want anyone who would use an auto config utility to be using a gui in Linux.
"What? why?"
Xorg:Because you're a pussy that's why.

/why no, I'm not bitter about the many hours I wasted with xorg.

Cyno01: Splinshints: I don't see the point in spending money on a service that gives me constant problems.

Seems like youre the only one in the thread with problems.

Early on Steam was pretty bad. These days though the service is so good that it's rare I ever buy a game from somewhere other than Steam. The closest thing I've ever had to a problem with Steam is their webservers getting slow when they update their daily sales and they're getting hammered with a metric shiat-ton of traffic.

bemis23: The closest thing I've ever had to a problem with Steam is their webservers getting slow when they update their daily sales and they're getting hammered with a metric shiat-ton of traffic.

I've had a few problems with specific games being wonky about the 'first time startup' happening every time. Some games also don't play very well with the overlay, crashing if I use it too much.

Nothing big, though.

bemis23: Early on Steam was pretty bad. These days though the service is so good that it's rare I ever buy a game from somewhere other than Steam. The closest thing I've ever had to a problem with Steam is their webservers getting slow when they update their daily sales and they're getting hammered with a metric shiat-ton of traffic.

I wish I could sell my old games

I was unable to play or return DeadSpace. :(

That is the only problem I've had with Steam, and I fault Deadspace more for not letting me bind keys to the numpad.

If I liked to sell my old games, I might like steam somewhat less.

Marine1: This sounds like a good idea until you realize that quite a few open source acolytes hate DRM, which is what Steam is.

True, but they don't matter very much. Valve is targeting Ubuntu for this release, and the open source cultists already hate Ubuntu anyway for having the temerity to prioritize the user experience over Free Software Purity™.

Lando Lincoln: If anybody ever comes on and plays Left 4 Dead 2 with me and starts talking about how awesome Linux is and how I should drop Windows 7, I'm going to keep shooting them in the back of the head until they drop, and then I will leave them for the zombies.

So, just a typical game of L4D then?

Dragonflew: seems to be blaming Steam for the weather as well

Or you could try not being stupid, but that might be tough, right?

fluffy2097

Xorg: No screens found.
*looks in config file*
"Why is all of the details of my graphics driver and monitor in xorg.conf commented out?"
Xorg: You ran auto-detect. So I auto-detected everything, promptly forgot about it, and told you I had found no screens.
"Why would you do that Xorg???"
Xorg:My developer didn't want anyone who would use an auto config utility to be using a gui in Linux.
"What? why?"
Xorg:Because you're a pussy that's why.

/why no, I'm not bitter about the many hours I wasted with xorg.

I think you might be blowing that a little out of proportion. Sure, Nvidia drivers can cause a little trouble, but In about 8 years of Linux usage, I have yet to see a piece of hardware that Linux could not auto detect and auto install. They might not be the best build, but the drivers packaged with most end-user distros will get you where you need to go without any real headaches. On the flipside, last time I installed Win7, I has to manually install the drivers for my broadcom NIC, which was only midly amusing.

fluffy2097: bemis23: Early on Steam was pretty bad. These days though the service is so good that it's rare I ever buy a game from somewhere other than Steam. The closest thing I've ever had to a problem with Steam is their webservers getting slow when they update their daily sales and they're getting hammered with a metric shiat-ton of traffic.

I wish I could sell my old games

I was unable to play or return DeadSpace. :(

That is the only problem I've had with Steam, and I fault Deadspace more for not letting me bind keys to the numpad.

If I liked to sell my old games, I might like steam somewhat less.

Well if you live in the EU it looks like you might get your wish anyway.

fluffy2097: HeartBurnKid: Have you experienced NVIDIA's and ATI's drivers in Linux? ATI's are total shiat; they don't work, period. NVIDIA's are usable, but it's still pretty clear they don't make Linux a priority.


Xorg: No screens found.
*looks in config file*
"Why is all of the details of my graphics driver and monitor in xorg.conf commented out?"
Xorg: You ran auto-detect. So I auto-detected everything, promptly forgot about it, and told you I had found no screens.
"Why would you do that Xorg???"
Xorg:My developer didn't want anyone who would use an auto config utility to be using a gui in Linux.
"What? why?"
Xorg:Because you're a pussy that's why.

/why no, I'm not bitter about the many hours I wasted with xorg.


I hate noobs, too narrow-minded. I'll tell you what I do like though: a programmer, a dyed-in-the-wool programmer. Cold blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. Now a real programmer, when he booted up Linux, would've immediately asked about the little config file at the bottom of the directory.

Su-Su-Sudo: I think you might be blowing that a little out of proportion. Sure, Nvidia drivers can cause a little trouble, but In about 8 years of Linux usage, I have yet to see a piece of hardware that Linux could not auto detect and auto install. They might not be the best build, but the drivers packaged with most end-user distros will get you where you need to go without any real headaches. On the flipside, last time I installed Win7, I has to manually install the drivers for my broadcom NIC, which was only midly amusing.

I admit it was probably about 10 years ago, but I swear to god it happened. The auto detect pulled the plug and play data from the monitor, recorded it in a log file, threw it away, and said no screens found.

what

the

fark?

HeartBurnKid: Marine1: This sounds like a good idea until you realize that quite a few open source acolytes hate DRM, which is what Steam is.

True, but they don't matter very much. Valve is targeting Ubuntu for this release, and the open source cultists already hate Ubuntu anyway for having the temerity to prioritize the user experience over Free Software Purity™.

"I want to run it on Slackware."

"I want to run it on Debian."

"Why didn't you guys get it to run on OpenSUSE out of the box?"

"You guys sell closed-source games on this. Why not open-source? I want these games for free!"

Gabe Newell: *puts revolver to temple; pulls trigger*

/Linux geeks are a whole new class of nerd