schmidtbag:

Haha if HL3 were first released as a SteamOS exclusive, I'm pretty sure that would get a lot of people to try it out. I was thinking that a good way to sell Steam Machines would be to include a bundle of games with them. They're kinda meant to be entry-level gaming systems so getting something like the Orange Box or one of the Humble Bundles would be enticing. It's not much worse, but it is noticeably worse, and only in games where they were ported to OpenGL rather than natively support OpenGL. Most of the time, it's not hard to get 60FPS. So far the only AAA game I have that gets frame drops (with my R9 290) is Shadow of Mordor.

I've checked Phoronix' and Gamingonlinux' benchmarks occasinally since Linux started getting more modern games, and it seems the good Linux versions generally perform around 70-80% of the Windows performance. The performance deficit obviously becomes more severe the weaker the graphics card you have. Then you have the extreme examples where the Linux versions require OpenGL4 and a Geforce 600 card, whereas the Windows version just requires an 8800GT.

Really then what the **** do you call Dota 2, Rocket League, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Borderlands 2 and min other chop liver then?.

A tiny tiny drop in a massive ocean? Told you that Steam OS and Steam box was non starter way way back. It had the might, money and force of Valve behind it but it's entire conception was nothing more than Gabe throwing his toys out of the pram over Windows making a closed eco-system with the Windows store, I am stunned honestly, really how the hell did the guy in charge of Valve come up with a concept of such awesome stupidity that he seriously believed that MS would release an OS that would stop Steam from working? The public backlash alone meant the chances of that ever happening was pretty much nil.

Yxskaft:

I've checked Phoronix' and Gamingonlinux' benchmarks occasinally since Linux started getting more modern games, and it seems the good Linux versions generally perform around 70-80% of the Windows performance. The performance deficit obviously becomes more severe the weaker the graphics card you have. Then you have the extreme examples where the Linux versions require OpenGL4 and a Geforce 600 card, whereas the Windows version just requires an 8800GT.

As stated before, this is usually due to bad/lazy porting; it's really no different than sloppy console ports to Windows (and most of the games you speak of are also on consoles). OpenGL 4 is equivalent to DX11, so that's not so much to ask. GPUs going back nearly a decade support OGL4. If you check out games that were ported properly, they run fantastic, sometimes better than in Windows. Adequate ports (so, games that exceed 90% of the Windows performance) are becoming far more common these days. The extreme examples you speak of used to be a pretty consistent problem, but are pretty rare lately. Those games draw too much negative attention for the publisher to risk. Sometimes they get phased out of their extreme situation. For example, Shadow of Mordor used to only playable on high-end Nvidia hardware, but now it's playable on mid-range AMD hardware. It still warns that it is Nvidia-only, but after several updates to both the game and GPU drivers, they could drop the disclaimer at this point. It's important to consider how quickly everything has been evolving, and how little there is left that needs to get done. Just a few months ago, Vega 64 didn't even have working HDMI audio. Today, it can actually outperform a 1080Ti in some (albeit, rare) cases. When Rocket League was first ported, it was a stuttery glitchy mess on a lot of hardware. Not only were patches made to make the game run perfectly smooth, but these patches improved frame rates of other games too.

schmidtbag:

You do know SteamOS is literally open-source, right? To my knowledge, it doesn't restrict you from using other DRMs. However, I do take your point that it was slightly hypocritical of Valve. On the other hand, Steam is pretty much Valve's main source of income; the same cannot be said of MS and the Windows Store. They are doing that. That's kinda the point of SteamOS (which was supposed to give you a gaming-ready setup out-of-the-box). Also, Valve is known to contribute toward GPU and input drivers, among other things to help improve the user experience. They make a lot of contributions toward Vulkan and VR, too.

SHS:

Valve´s has nothing to do with greed after all it free to any one to used on there own system build. The real problem was Intel and AMD and there lack of driver support even to this day AMD still has no AMDGPU-Pro Control Panel in the latest drivers and only the Crimson Edition had it.

Yea i know it´s open source but still Valve´s main concern, besides W10 closed approach, was to lure even more people to Steam, that´s why they tried to create another Linux OS instead of creating an open solution to improve the gaming experience in every Linux distro. This doesn´t mean that they should be forbidden from creating their own OS but unless it brings tangible gains over other OSes, then it´s just a marketing ploy to gather more customers. That´s why i said they were greedy but maybe i could have phrase it better. Also i´m not of those guys that hates Valve the same way i don´t love them either, i just think their approach to this problem was too "commercial" and too motivated by their own interests rather than the interests of the gaming community and that´s why they failed really hard. But i hope they along with others, can push gaming on Linux until it becomes a viable option for those who want it.

H83:

Yea i know it´s open source but still Valve´s main concern, besides W10 closed approach, was to lure even more people to Steam, that´s why they tried to create another Linux OS instead of creating an open solution to improve the gaming experience in every Linux distro. This doesn´t mean that they should be forbidden from creating their own OS but unless it brings tangible gains over other OSes, then it´s just a marketing ploy to gather more customers. That´s why i said they were greedy but maybe i could have phrase it better. Also i´m not of those guys that hates Valve the same way i don´t love them either, i just think their approach to this problem was too "commercial" and too motivated by their own interests rather than the interests of the gaming community and that´s why they failed really hard. But i hope they along with others, can push gaming on Linux until it becomes a viable option for those who want it.

I don't really disagree with any of that. Though, despite being a Linux user, I can't say SteamOS was a very good idea as a marketing ploy, whether that be in theory or in practice. As I see it, they're a business trying to make sure they maintain the interest of their investors; the Windows Store is a threat to that, so by showing that they're putting an effort into other platforms, investors will think they're not just sitting idly by. I figure Valve is actually losing quite a bit of money investing in Linux that they're probably never going to get back in a long while. All that being said, I don't really think they're greedy, but I can see why you think that. I do agree they're probably more interested in themselves than the gaming community, but, they're also not really hurting the gaming community either. I'd say they've brought more people to PC gaming than anyone else, and they've given a lot of indie developers a chance they otherwise might not have ever got.

I'm pretty sure it'll be back once APUs get powerful and cheap enough. I like the concept but the reality is hardware used and price charged for said hardware will never be viable.

Reddoguk:

I'm pretty sure it'll be back once APUs get powerful and cheap enough. I like the concept but the reality is hardware used and price charged for said hardware will never be viable.

...And i'm pretty sure hardware and price alone is not enough. Nvidia Shield TV use an Nvidia Tegra X1 SoC, it's the best media player you can buy.It costs less than 200$/Euros. Nintendo Switch also use a (downclocked!) Tegra X1 SoC, it costs around 300$/euros. Why ppl are buy more Nintendo Switch than Shield TV for gaming if it costs 100$/euros more and the hardware is downclocked? GAMES Exclusives and multiplatform.

H83:

Yea i know it´s open source but still Valve´s main concern, besides W10 closed approach, was to lure even more people to Steam, that´s why they tried to create another Linux OS instead of creating an open solution to improve the gaming experience in every Linux distro. This doesn´t mean that they should be forbidden from creating their own OS but unless it brings tangible gains over other OSes, then it´s just a marketing ploy to gather more customers. That´s why i said they were greedy but maybe i could have phrase it better. Also i´m not of those guys that hates Valve the same way i don´t love them either, i just think their approach to this problem was too "commercial" and too motivated by their own interests rather than the interests of the gaming community and that´s why they failed really hard. But i hope they along with others, can push gaming on Linux until it becomes a viable option for those who want it.

But Steam OS and Hardware was meant be more of open console approach with used of PC Game after all that Xbox is just that a very strip down W10 OS. At lease number Linux user is better then before how Keyboard and Mouse is the prefer way over Game Pad.

sammarbella:

...And i'm pretty sure hardware and price alone is not enough. Nvidia Shield TV use an Nvidia Tegra X1 SoC, it's the best media player you can buy.It costs less than 200$/Euros. Nintendo Switch also use a (downclocked!) Tegra X1 SoC, it costs around 300$/euros. Why ppl are buy more Nintendo Switch than Shield TV for gaming if it costs 100$/euros more and the hardware is downclocked? GAMES Exclusives and multiplatform.

Ture but they never be handle a hardcore PC game engine let alone full 4K textures and there base on ARM CPU Architecture

SHS:

Ture but they never be handle a hardcore PC game engine let alone full 4K textures and there base on ARM CPU Architecture

And who really cares about that? A "hardcore" PC gamer will only use a gaming PC for 4K gaming. We know that consoles will never be able to provide PC gaming performance: REAL 4K, image quality (high or ultra) AND >60 FPS. Fake 4K ,medium settings and 30 FPS is what we get for <500 US$ or less hardware and that will never change. Consoles are about convenience and exclusive games. I bought a PS4 to play his exclusive games and a Xbone S for...his cheap 4K blu ray player and 2 exclusive games (some Halo and Gears games).

Lot of people talk about OpenGL and Vulkan on linux... those things work really great on Linux, it's DX specific things that cause issue on Linux.

Not so fast... https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/05/valve-steam-machines-linux-steamos/

Title is misleading. They have not been removed from steam, they are just no longer in the hardware section. For example: http://store.steampowered.com/app/353390/Alienware_Steam_Machine/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/353420/Syber_Steam_Machine/