http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/09/valve-announce-steamos You cannot build a stable enviroment just in months, especially for a paid service. Well it might not be true but under the hood is just another ubuntu based distro tailored for the steam service and linux gaming.
Pretty cool idea! It's a shame that it's running Linux, and this can't run all of Steam's games without emulation or streaming, but it's a nice first step.
It really isn't a shame it's running Linux, just think back a decade or more when they released Steam and people were like "What's this bullshit their making me install to access games now, this will never work!!" - Now look at it, over the years it's become the launch pad most people love to use. Same with this, it's hopefully going to become an industry standard meaning commercial and indy developers have a tangible platform to develop on Linux wise. Since it can be made VERY light weight (Linux runs on almost every device nowadays - TVs, mobiles, ect - you've almost certainly got several large and small devices running it in your home) it makes it the perfect OS for this sort of thing, and especially for running games if the GPU producers pull their fingers out of their arses and support it. This should mean they have no excuse to ignore Linux as a major platform any more. But like I said before, this is all impressive on paper but means nothing until they show their hand really. But best of all, the main reason I love this idea is that Linux is practically bulletproof and it's fast as hell, my Mint distribution I've been running for over 2 years has never crashed out once, whereas my windows 7 partition crashes out completely...regularly. Though I've not tried Windows 8 yet...
Woah. The "steam machine" announcement states that SteamOS is going to be open source. That's pretty cool. Edit: Oh god the discussions on the forum of the "steam beta group" thing are hilarious. Someone seriously wrote this about steambox: How on earth do people jump to conclusions like that?
I dont see the point tbh, most TV's these days have VGA so you can just plug your PC into your TV and play it that way without wasting money on a box to do it for you
Linux gaming/or The nonexistant SteamOS would be better if they could implement an API that could could Compete with direct x. Now that I think about it the last time I remember opengl being on top was 2004/2005 with games like unreal tournament 2004. after 2007 opengl went pretty downhill. I'm pretty sure opengl is open source now so if Valve put sometime Into making opengl compete with direct x11 they could compete with windows gaming and not having the tremendous windows OS loaded in ram would make things more stable and faster. But another issue is they would need gfx card developers to make hardware that can run the updated opengl api.
Last time I checked around 6 months ago Direct X 11 was way ahead of Open GL in performance and abilities. Unless did some massive changes to it recently DX will beat the snot out of this.
Looks like I brought up the API subjuct of this topic just in time this was posted sept 25th this year. Looks like steamOS is working on updating openGL afterall that is a lot of catching up to do openGL is about 1 and a half generations behind atm. Anyways here's the news this link was posted on the openGl website so Its official afaik http://m.cnet.com/news/valves-steam-machine-prototype-to-ship-early-to-300-lucky-players/57604587 ""Nvidia engineers embedded at Valve collaborated on improving driver performance for OpenGL; optimizing performance on Nvidia GPUs; helping to port Valve's award-winning content library to SteamOS; and tuning SteamOS to lower latency, or lag, between the controller and on-screen action," the*company wrote in a press release. So potential hardware components likely would come by way of Nvidia as well -- though nothing is certain on that front"
Fair enough, each to their own (and I agree about Windows having *many* problems...), but I would love to see Half-Life 3, as long as it was good I mean, and not a disappointment of Duke Nukem Forever proportions. I'm not a huge HL fan, though I do like HL1, HL2, and Opposing Forces (I think Episode 1 was blah!, E2 was better but still disappointing, and Blue Shift was just lame) and I think it's not right that Valve refuse to confirm or deny HL3's existance, year after year. When they started the Episodes they promised us them regularly, but after E2 was released in 2007, they've given us nothing. If they'd have just said "Yes, we're working on Half-Life 3, but we have no idea when we'll be releasing it, certainly not for the next five years, it'll be ready when it's ready" then we'd be happy. Well, much happier than we are with no official notification anyway. Personally, I think HL3 does exist, is being worked on, and will probably be released as some sort of exclusive for the Steambox (it would be about the most effective killer-app Valve could come up with for the Steambox, sales-wise. They'll probably release if later for the PC and other consoles, but I think for a while it will be exclusive to Valve's new console. The company will be risking a fortune in time and cash on the venture of introducing a console into the market, and from a business point of view their releasing one of the most anticipated games of all time onto their console exclusively (even if it's only as a timed exclusive) is surely a certainty.
Valve are certainly keeping HL3 secret for a reason, holding it for a timed exclusive for their new console? That sounds like a reasonable reason.
There's going to be another announcement this week, probably tomorrow. I doubt it's going to be about Half Life 3. At the bottom of the page about the Steam Machine, it says, "Stay tuned though - we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input." So I'm guessing the third announcement is going to be for some type of controller, or perhaps a keyboard controller hybrid of some kind. HL3 is looking very likely at this point. I also think it would be a dick move for Valve to release Half Life 3 exclusively for SteamOS, and I don't think it's something they're likely to do. Valve generally wants as many people as possible to play their games, and they've always been loyal to their PC users more than anyone. Granted, any PC user has the option to install SteamOS, but I don't think Valve is going to force it on us like that.
^ I concur. I believe the main concerns is development of steamOS, promoting the hardware, helping others use the open source, and reworking the openGl api to compete with direct x which the ps4/xboxone/windows will be using.
Nah, if they are going to announce HL3 (which I really don't think they will) then there's no way in hell they'd limit it to steam OS only. They'd face a backlash the likes of which would be reminiscent of the Xbone fiasco.
the half life franchise was always mainly a PC one to begin with, was just ported to consoles, why bother porting your best possible exclusive especially when looking for consumer adoption of SteamOS and / or steambox platforms, but i dont think HL3 would be targeted for steamboxes if what people think they are going to be is true. i also don't think they would be putting as much effort into linux and opengl as platforms if they had no plans to make full use of them, which is possible. remember a lot of games in the past had the options of using both opengl and directx there's no reason this couldn’t happen now. the feature lists between the two man not be the same but that does not mean both can't be supported.
I think it'll be 'optimised' for Steam OS and run better on lower end machines - you'll probably see benchmarks showing it off. But I think it'll be a cold day in hell if that gets released Steam OS only. I'd stretch to them making it a timed exclusive (a month or two) but never an exclusive.
^^hmm. Well the problem with that is direct x is not implemented into linux native thier is wine but that uses direct x 9 which took years to reright and still has bugs. Opengl is linux api interace gui gaming all opengl which is why they are developing for it and working with nividea to make hardware to use the new opengl drivers (you may have missed me posting this a few pages up http://m.cnet.com/news/valves-steam-machine-prototype-to-ship-early-to-300-lucky-players/57604587
I just have too much stuff, I'm trying to thin it all out. I couldn't have sold the P4 boards, really, there's too many of them around, most of my ones are missing their IO cover plate things, etc... I am going to sell off a bunch of my 486 and Socket 7 mobos though...
nope i seen that. and yes i know there's no directx on linux i was typing about the PC platform in general, although i probably wasn’t clear. i hope AMD will take note of this, i've never really been a fan of nvidia hardware,
