Valve Prepares for SteamOS Expansion, Issues Guidelines for "Powered by SteamOS" Branding

[Exilarch]

times have changed and SteamOS has already proved itself for us handheld folk, also its not going to replace windows for all games, just a huge chunk of them.

I'm glad to hear that. I don't have any experience with Steam Deck so I wouldn't know. But I'll bet you a hundred bucks if Valve would announce Half-Life 3 as a SteamOS exclusive, you'd get billions of corporate shills screeching all over internet how that's wrong, even though everyone else is doing it.

 

[AusWolf]

Valve already tried this and failed. The reason it failed is because there wasn't a single reason for people to switch to Linux for gaming.

Linux is great for development, and the only development OS for me. If the client or employer wants me to develop software on Windows I immediately start looking for another job. Everyone trying to get Argo Workflows to work on Windows machine based on their documentation alone, knows exactly what I'm talking about.

But why would I want to game on Linux? Well, for the same reason people buy Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo hardware. Exclusive titles. Everyone's doing it. You want audience on XBOX? You try to get more exclusive and better games on your platform. Want people to game on Sony system? Well, then you have either exclusives or timed exclusives or whatever souls like title is next being kept away from PC audience. Want people on Nintendo system? Just send in the plumber, his cheating princess girlfriend and the poor lizard boyfriend who can't have privacy in his multitude of castles. Everyone gets it. Except for Valve.

I disagree. I kept on gaming on Windows for 25-ish years because it's backwards compatible with no exclusivity.

Now, I'm on Linux because Windows has become utter garbage and Linux gaming support is improving day by day.

 

[simlariver]

This is great news, I can't wait for this to be a decent desktop-option as well.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

Valve already tried this and failed. The reason it failed is because there wasn't a single reason for people to switch to Linux for gaming.

Steam Machines failed because ValvE mistakenly, assumed that developers would port their games to Linux.

SteamOS ran Debian.

Then they worked on Proton, which is a translation layer so developers dont need to port to Linux, just make sure their Windows games are compatible with Proton.

Then the SteamDeck came with SteamOS 3, based on Arch and running Proton on top.

The rest is history as they say.

Check ProtonDB to see how compatible your favorite game is with Linux+Proton.

There is no SteamOS 3 for general public, just for the SteamDeck.

There are distros that tries to cover this, HoloISO, ChimeraOS and Bazzite.

The rumor for the delay for an official SteamOS is Ngreedia hate for open spurce drivers. They only release closed binary blobs, which Linux distros needs to enable separately because of the GPL.

So given that 80+% of gaming PCs are infected with Ngreedia s hardware, Valve has been hesitant to release their version, since everyone will not dare pointing fingers at Ngreedia and instead will blame Valve when they cant run SteamOS.

AMD doesn’t have that “problem “ because they embraced open source openly and the needed drivers are already part of the Linux kernel.

What changed? I don’t know.

Maybe Ngreedia is releasing full open source drivers and told Valve or maybe Valve grew a pair, told Dear Leader Jensen to kick sand and will place big warnings all over that only AMD and intel gpus are compatible.

Either way, this is exciting.

 

[Vayra86]

Valve already tried this and failed. The reason it failed is because there wasn't a single reason for people to switch to Linux for gaming.

Linux is great for development, and the only development OS for me. If the client or employer wants me to develop software on Windows I immediately start looking for another job. Everyone trying to get Argo Workflows to work on Windows machine based on their documentation alone, knows exactly what I'm talking about.

But why would I want to game on Linux? Well, for the same reason people buy Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo hardware. Exclusive titles. Everyone's doing it. You want audience on XBOX? You try to get more exclusive and better games on your platform. Want people to game on Sony system? Well, then you have either exclusives or timed exclusives or whatever souls like title is next being kept away from PC audience. Want people on Nintendo system? Just send in the plumber, his cheating princess girlfriend and the poor lizard boyfriend who can't have privacy in his multitude of castles. Everyone gets it. Except for Valve.

Exclusive content is the reason to go platform X or Y to you still? Man, that was ten years ago. Both Sony and MS have been porting all of their stuff like nobody's business lately. They just want us to buy games, apparently where they get played is an afterthought. There are so many games coming out its no issue whatsoever to play Souls 16 a few years later. And if you look at the most recent iterations of consoles, they have ZERO system exclusives.

Valve gets it. Everyone else is stuck in an old paradigm that they themselves are rapidly killing off. Content used to sell, yes. But these days, content is like fast food. It doesn't really matter where you get your burger, its a burger. What matters more is how and where you can play said content. The only reason people still buy consoles is for couch gaming and ultra low barrier of entry. Not the games. Valve is now rapidly moving its handheld and its OS into that same ultra low barrier of entry space.

 

[AusWolf]

Exclusive content is the reason to go platform X or Y to you still? Man, that was ten years ago. Both Sony and MS have been porting all of their stuff like nobody's business lately. They just want us to buy games, apparently where they get played is an afterthought. There are so many games coming out its no issue whatsoever to play Souls 16 a few years later. And if you look at the most recent iterations of consoles, they have ZERO system exclusives.

Valve gets it. Everyone else is stuck in an old paradigm that they themselves are rapidly killing off. Content used to sell, yes. But these days, content is like fast food. It doesn't really matter where you get your burger, its a burger. What matters more is how and where you can play said content. The only reason people still buy consoles is for couch gaming and ultra low barrier of entry. Not the games. Valve is now rapidly moving its handheld and its OS into that same ultra low barrier of entry space.

I never liked exclusive content, to be fair. It's a dirty business tactic to lock you into a platform and make sure you spend more money than you would have to otherwise by buying yet another machine even though your old one is still perfectly capable. The last time I supported an exclusive platform was with the PS2 and PSP because there were so many good games on them that there was no end. What do you get on a PS5 or Xbox whatever these days before the next thing comes out? One or two exclusive game, and the same stuff that's on PC as well. Totally not worth of any discussion.

 

[Vayra86]

I never liked exclusive content, to be fair. It's a dirty business tactic to lock you into a platform and make sure you spend more money than you would have to otherwise by buying yet another machine even though your old one is still perfectly capable. The last time I supported an exclusive platform was with the PS2 and PSP because there were so many good games on them that there was no end. What do you get on a PS5 or Xbox whatever these days before the next thing comes out? One or two exclusive game, and the same stuff that's on PC as well. Totally not worth of any discussion.

Well yeah, but all commerce is business tactics, exclusive or limited availability content is very normal to all branches of commerce. Every product that has no unique selling points is just a copy of something you already had, right. Even movies and music do 'platform' exclusives: special shows with limited ticket sales; 'you can only watch this in theatres for now'; etc.

And its entirely a market mechanic that you don't like it - you apparently did so in the past, because you bought consoles for it. Now you don't, so you're not buying the consoles and Sony/MS/Nintendo lose sales. As a result, probably, at least in part, they are porting more and more games ever faster to ever more platforms.

If you ask me, the market's working as it should. Demand has diversified, so the offerings did too.

 

[AusWolf]

Well yeah, but all commerce is business tactics, exclusive or limited availability content is very normal to all branches of commerce. Every product that has no unique selling points is just a copy of something you already had, right. Even movies and music do 'platform' exclusives: special shows with limited ticket sales; 'you can only watch this in theatres for now'; etc.

And its entirely a market mechanic that you don't like it - you apparently did so in the past, because you bought consoles for it. Now you don't, so you're not buying the consoles and Sony/MS/Nintendo lose sales. As a result, probably, at least in part, they are porting more and more games ever faster to ever more platforms.

If you ask me, the market's working as it should. Demand has diversified, so the offerings did too.

You still had a different taste in your mouth somehow.

It was like "if you buy this inexpensive console, you'll be able to play hundreds of great games". Nowadays, it's more like "if you don't buy our super expensive tech marvel, you won't be able to play this shitty game".

 

[Vayra86]

You still had a different taste in your mouth somehow.

It was like "if you buy this inexpensive console, you'll be able to play hundreds of great games". Nowadays, it's more like "if you don't buy our super expensive tech marvel, you won't be able to play this shitty game".

It was different I think mostly because platforms were much less unified, technologically. Ports were difficult. Games as a result of the different tech also felt much more unique. A console was directly connected to different limitations, options, features.

Today a lot of that (they're all unique selling points) has been unified. And because the games are also more universally available... I don't understand the sales pitch for consoles either anymore. There's just barely anything left. In that new dynamic I totally get what you're saying, 'why even bother making platform exclusives, its just annoying'. Just concede that too, there's no turning back anyway lol.

 

[MCJAxolotl7]

I would prefer if there would be more "linux" support for different hardware.

When valve can manage to get their label on more hardware which is valve operating system verified - there may be a chance that it will work on any "linux" distribution.
We are talking about the future - there are no facts.
I hope valve will give support for hardware for the linux kernel.

Years ago valve steam os was a relabelled Gnu arch linux. Linux is the kernel. The other stuff is than from different projects and than "glued togehter" by e.g. Arch linux, gentoo linux, linux mint, debian, slackware, ....

--

I do read datasheets for mainboards, graphic cards, ssds and other computer parts. Most often the operating system support is only "windows 11".

Just because the manufacturer says support for windows 11, there will still be an open-source linux driver included with linux. Linux works with just about everything, even more than windows. Modern linux will run (not necessarily well) on just about any 64bit or ARM64 chip from the last 15-20 years

 

[DudeBeFishing]

I just want my games to function. Currently, I think the only OS that does that is Windows 7, but only if the game doesn't use a kernel level anticheat. 10 and Linux have their own issues, mainly stuttering.

 

[AusWolf]

I just want my games to function. Currently, I think the only OS that does that is Windows 7, but only if the game doesn't use a kernel level anticheat. 10 and Linux have their own issues, mainly stuttering.

What stuttering? I never had an issue on Windows 10, nor do I have any on Linux now. There must be some other issue with your PC.

 

[DudeBeFishing]

What stuttering? I never had an issue on Windows 10, nor do I have any on Linux now. There must be some other issue with your PC.

With Windows 10, most UE3 based games run at a lower fps than Windows 7. On Linux, many games that are not native have shader compiling stutters. They eventually go away, until you have a driver or game update and the shaders need to be recompiled. There's fps drops that occur when using a higher poling rate mouse, which is a known bug in Wine/Proton.

ProtonDB needs to be stricter on it's ratings. I've seen people recommend a game, even though it requires tweaks and only ran at 14fps, even though it runs at triple digit fps on Windows. Platinum rated doesn't mean it will just work. Rimworld is native and rated Platinum, yet it requires a mod to fix the freezing when you click and drag the mouse on some menus, like the colonist and animal zones. A few users reported it on there, it should be rated Gold, not Platinum.

There are exceptions. For example, APB Reloaded. It's an older 3rd person shooter that runs on DX9. I was getting double the fps on Linux compared to Windows, and it only required loading an area once for the shaders to compile. It rarely receives updates that affect shaders. Sadly though, the devs changed anti-cheats for the 3rd or 4th time, and the latest patch requires the kernel level driver to load.