Valve's Source Engine Coming To Linux [Archive]

etymxris

05-07-2008, 08:50 AM

Still way too speculative. Valve already releases their dedicated servers for linux. They might just be looking for someone else to help with this. It seems you have another source for the client being ported than just the job posting, but until I hear more about who or what this source is, I'm go to remain skeptical. Even if they are working on a linux port, there's no guarantee it will be finished. It's not like their business depends on porting the game to linux, so if the project runs into any bumps it'll be the first to be dumped.

Still, it would be nice if steam and the source engine was fully ported to linux. I'm just really skeptical that it'll happen.

deanjo

05-07-2008, 08:55 AM

If everything pans out, Linux could quickly become the superior gaming platform.

Well there are a few things that first have to be worked out before that happens.

a ) Ease of installation (no more things like "it asks for disk two but I can't eject the disk" for example)

b ) Khronos has to get off their *ss and give us an openGL API that can exploit the modern hardware.

c ) Things like surround sound should be easily configured without having to run hacks or involve manually creating or editting config files.

d ) Linux version release dates have to be unified with other platform releases.

e ) Game developers have to stop using closed source non-free media formats in their games (ie mp3, bink)

f ) the ports have to be done in a way that a update to the os doesn't break the game (I'm looking at you Loki releases)

g ) ports have to support the modern defacto standards of linux (non of this supporting OSS and/or ALSA through OSS emulation BS

kramed

05-07-2008, 09:05 AM

The title to this article is very misleading and deceitful. There is no proof or confirmation, just 'inside information' which can be either made up or another stretch of truth. Are you that hungry for visitors?

Ex-Cyber

05-07-2008, 10:38 AM

b ) Khronos has to get off their *ss and give us an openGL API that can exploit the modern hardware.What's wrong with OpenGL 2?

e ) Game developers have to stop using closed source non-free media formats in their games (ie mp3, bink)As long as they ship the decoding libraries with the game, I don't see how this is a practical problem. It shouldn't really be any different from the formats used by the game for anything else (models, textures, level data, etc.)

quintesse

05-07-2008, 10:38 AM

a) Well, they were talking about Steam so I imagine installation will just be as easy as in Windows. Once you've installed Steam you shouldn't have any problems.

b + c) Although you are right about this, for the moment I would be deleriously happy to have native ports of the Valve games even without all the latest Shader N effects and 33.5 channel surround sound.

d) Mostly agreed. I bought Unreal Tournament 3 because I was convinced Epic would pring out the Linux client soon enough. Wish I could give it back telling them that I don't want it until they bring out their damn Linux client.

e) I'm not sure about that. Why? Some will oblige you, but I think most won't even think about making it easy for you to get at their "source material", why should they? Although it's not the FLOSS way if people are willing to pay for closed-source games, let them. Demanding free media will only make it difficult for Linux to become a popular gaming platform. (Hey, would be great if I was proven wrong though)

f) Well some Windows upgrades break games as well, I imagine you can never guarantee this. But again, if Valve would be serious about supporting Linux any updates to the game code would automatically be distributed to all their customers.

g) Agreed

Aradreth

05-07-2008, 11:43 AM

...

a) This does need to be improved although one would hope that with a native installer it would behave properly.

b) I thought opengl could provide most of the features that DX10 provides; but yeah it would be nice to see opengl3 API finished so it can start to be implemented and tested.

c) Agreed, sound under linux still needs a fair bit of work.

d) Can't argue with that, it's exactly the same with console ports to windows.

e) So long as they media format is supported under linux and they purchase the licence this point is moot; although using open formats would mean it's easier for a develop to break even on ports to linux (no licencing fee's).

f) With steam this isn't a problem as they can just release a patch to fix it.

d2kx

05-07-2008, 12:02 PM

Phoronix was always the best source when it comes to exclusive Linux/FOSS-News. Like Michael stated, it was the same with the fglrx/AMD/opensourcing thing when it was all a rumour but Michael just seemed to not be able to confirm it officially, because of NDA or whatever. If it doesn't come, alright, but I am 99% sure it will happen :)

Oh, and the Source engine has already an OpenGL render... did you really thought the Playstation 3 supports DirectX? :)

Thetargos

05-07-2008, 12:07 PM

Well there are a few things that first have to be worked out before that happens.

a ) Ease of installation (no more things like "it asks for disk two but I can't eject the disk" for example)
That has been a non-issue since recent 2.6.18+ kernel based distributions. I think hald is especially what has permited mounting/unmounting of CD drives.

b ) Khronos has to get off their *ss and give us an openGL API that can exploit the modern hardware.
What exactly do you mean here? If you mean SM 4.x support, I thought OpenGL 2.1 had just that (and OpenGL 2.0 had SM 2.x and 3 support). Though I believe they're holding the release of OpenGL 3.0, is that it?

c ) Things like surround sound should be easily configured without having to run hacks or involve manually creating or editting config files.
This should be easier to achieve with the new OpenAL-soft (which has a new and written from scratch Sample Implementation). Even though Linux has been one of the early adopters of OpenAL, the API seemed to stagnate on the platform. I agree, though that Linux has to have a better sound backend acting as infrasctructure for the whole system (think Core-Audio in Mac) and what has that possiblity of becoming the piece of middleware to help alleviate many of the sound issues in Linux is PulseAudio (still not as mature as I would like, but much better an alternative to aRTs and ESD).

d ) Linux version release dates have to be unified with other platform releases.
I don't think that's much of an issue for many users, but it would be nice if we can have same-day releases :)

e ) Game developers have to stop using closed source non-free media formats in their games (ie mp3, bink)
Which was one of the things I liked the most with Epic since Unreal and Unreal Tournament were released. They used widely supported formats. At least for the music in UE1, they used mod files (.s3m) inside the .umx pakages, for UT2K* they used .ogg (Vorbis) for the music, which was nice and refreshing... Oddly enough, if you own Halo PC (I'm not sure about Halo 2, though), they also used Ogg-Vorbis for sound and music in that particular game (ironic as it is).

f ) the ports have to be done in a way that a update to the os doesn't break the game (I'm looking at you Loki releases)
This would actually be a bit difficult to attain, as glibC is a moving target and even though it may be backwards compatible, some apps do brake. Still I have been able to run glibc 2.0 applications with glibc 2.3 and above.

g ) ports have to support the modern defacto standards of linux (non of this supporting OSS and/or ALSA through OSS emulation BS
See my comment above about OpenAL and Pulse Audio, if indeed the Linux community adopts Pulse to become the "X server for sound" the underlying driver architecture can be whatever the user wants to run, but still have a common interface for sound programming and ensuring that it would "Just Work", regardless of the hardware drivers. That's why I hope Pulse would really become the Windows Sound System or Core Audio equivalents from Windows and Mac (respectively) in Linux (and probably other operating systems such as BSD, Solaris, etc).

deanjo

05-07-2008, 12:13 PM

What's wrong with OpenGL 2?

openGL 2 does not support many features that are found in DX 10. openGL 3 will support instance rendering, streaming vertex data to a buffer, texture buffer objects, new texture formats and more. To become the ultimate gaming OS you have to not only meet your competitors but exceed their offerings. Also openGL 3 is supposed to get down more to the "bare metal" then the current offerings.

Thetargos

05-07-2008, 12:15 PM

Oh, and the Source engine has already an OpenGL render... did you really thought the Playstation 3 supports DirectX? :)

Indeed. IIRC the PS3 supports lowlevel, direct manipulation of registers both in the CPU and GPU portions, and extensively uses OpenGL ES as its rendering API.

Svartalf

05-07-2008, 12:21 PM

Still, it would be nice if steam and the source engine was fully ported to linux. I'm just really skeptical that it'll happen.

Uh, considering that Michael here just said he got a bit of insider information that leads him to believe that they're actually DOING it.

While I'm not holding my breath, how the AMD stuff has gone down (Much as he basically described it- at least on the documentation and FOSS driver front...) that I'm willing to consider the possibility that he's telling it as it is.

If this is what caused the delay on UT3, someone over at EPIC needs to re-evaluate how they handle PR- if this has been the holdup, the way they did this is NOT how you handle things.

Svartalf

05-07-2008, 12:26 PM

openGL 2 does not support many features that are found in DX 10. openGL 3 will support instance rendering, streaming vertex data to a buffer, texture buffer objects, new texture formats and more. To become the ultimate gaming OS you have to not only meet your competitors but exceed their offerings. Also openGL 3 is supposed to get down more to the "bare metal" then the current offerings.

Heh... They had ARB extensions pretty much ratified for all of the DX10 capabilities out the door about at the same time Vista shipped. I know, my former client's OpenGL group management were commenting on the "thickness" of the spec docs as a whole (Bloody REAMS of paper...)... :D

Whether or not the ARB_foo items are implemented yet or not remains to be seen, but it was my understanding that the vendors were working on making them happen when I left my former client's employ.

deanjo

05-07-2008, 12:28 PM

e) So long as they media format is supported under linux and they purchase the licence this point is moot; although using open formats would mean it's easier for a develop to break even on ports to linux (no licencing fee's).

Non-free media formats means either offering a precompiled binary to run the game which can lead to breaking with future upgrades. If the propriatary codec developer goes out of business this can lead to an issue that can never be fixed. Utilizing a open solution would not only allow for the system to use optimized libraries but also ensure long term ability to play it back (ever try to get nwnmovies playing back correctly on a modern system with bink for linux?)

Thetargos

05-07-2008, 12:36 PM

(ever try to get nwnmovies playing back correctly on a modern system with bink for linux?)

Good point! And the reason why I transcoded the .bik files into .ogg (yeah, theora+vorbis) files. Took a few attempts, took more time than I can remember, took a toll in the IQ and tons of CPU cycles, but I did it :D

Aradreth

05-07-2008, 12:59 PM

Non-free media formats means either offering a precompiled binary to run the game which can lead to breaking with future upgrades. If the propriatary codec developer goes out of business this can lead to an issue that can never be fixed. Utilizing a open solution would not only allow for the system to use optimized libraries but also ensure long term ability to play it back (ever try to get nwnmovies playing back correctly on a modern system with bink for linux?)

I agree that using open format would be best option but if the developer wants to use closed solutions instead for whatever reason it should be fine so long as they provide linux support for it (unlike bink for nwn where they didn't bother buying a licence and so linux users had fun getting the videos).
I wouldn't have thought that a pre-complied codec that ships with the game would be the most likely thing to break when upgrading.

d2kx

05-07-2008, 01:18 PM

If/When there's a linux release of any game of Valve, you'll see what the Windows users already know: Valve = excellent (very) long term support and no bugs.

Aradreth

05-07-2008, 01:34 PM

If/When there's a linux release of any game of Valve, you'll see what the Windows users already know: Valve = excellent (very) long term support and no bugs.
I think it's more to do with other developers who would start releasing games for linux if valve does release a linux port of steam/source engine and is successful. *cough*EA*cough*

Svartalf

05-07-2008, 01:56 PM

I think it's more to do with other developers who would start releasing games for linux if valve does release a linux port of steam/source engine and is successful. *cough*EA*cough*

I think "craptacular" ought to go in there between "releasing" and "games" in light of the publisher in question. :D

KohlyKohl

05-07-2008, 02:06 PM

It would be nice if they did port steam over to Linux and a few of their games along the way.

Jimmy

05-07-2008, 02:31 PM

I wouldn't have thought that a pre-complied codec that ships with the game would be the most likely thing to break when upgrading.

Well aren't we all using an ESDaRTsOSSAlsaNasJackPulseAudio sound system these days?

deanjo

05-07-2008, 02:35 PM

Well aren't we all using an ESDaRTsOSSAlsaNasJackPulseAudio sound system these days?

Sound systems are not codecs.

Aradreth

05-07-2008, 02:47 PM

Well aren't we all using an ESDaRTsOSSAlsaNasJackPulseAudio sound system these days?
Sending the sound data after it's been decoded is done by the game engine I believe, I could be wrong I've never looked into it.

immudium

05-07-2008, 03:00 PM

Gah! I hate it when news sites report opinion/editorial stories as fact. News Flash! Aliens have landed! ...Well, actually, we were just twisting your nuts, but now that we've got your attention, here's why we think aliens might be landing in your back yard in the very near, and/or possibly distant future of a parallel universe near you!

I swear, the first paragraph of one of Phoronix's editorials, followed by the subsequent letdown, will some day be the end of me.

The NVidia driver will cause your machine to spontaneously explode! ...Well, actually, it's just a beta driver, and there's just this one minor bug that annoys us. :eek:

Thetargos

05-07-2008, 04:42 PM

Well, I see your point. Source maybe being worked on to be available in Linux, all the rest about Steam, and other Source games may very well be pure projection of our desires.

tomm3h

05-07-2008, 04:51 PM

What the chips! What sort of crap are you pushing here?

Slashdot covered your "privileged information" almost EIGHT months ago (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/1314259).

As already said: if you're that desperate for visits, then don't get a reputation for bullshit.

I'm usually quite grateful for the news posted here, but I might feel the need to question it a little further from now-on. Congratulations :rolleyes:

Michael

05-07-2008, 04:57 PM

deanjo

05-07-2008, 05:25 PM

I wonder if all of Ryan's recent porting jobs are going to debut on steam? His last 3 ports to linux have yet to see the light of day, UT3, Prey, and Serious Sam 2.

tomm3h

05-07-2008, 05:47 PM

Ummm did you RTFA? The information we have isn't that simple job posting...
I did actually. I saw one speculative remark, based (from what we can tell in TFA) solely upon the aforementioned eight-month-old information.

That was the first paragraph.

The following five paragraphs contained wonderful information about Steam, but do not in any way explain the sensationalist topic.

The seventh paragraph reported (48-hour-old) news that Postal 3 would be ported to Linux, whilst the eighth could simply be paraphrased as "we've predicted this already, so you should listen to what we say, k?"

So Postal 3's based upon Source, and it's coming to Linux? They couldn't just be doing a Blizzard and simply decide to work in-part with the Cedega/Wine teams, right? Or, could they have switched engines? More to the point, if this is the wonderful news you're bringing to us - why the wording in the following sentence?

While not as black-and-white as our privileged information, it was confirmed this week that Postal III-- a third-person shooter being developed by Running With Scissors Inc -- would be supported on Linux (as well as on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Mac) and it uses Valve's Source Engine.

If there's something you can't tell us, don't write an article with a sensationalist headline in order to dance around the topic with a view to hits and headlines.

So yes, I did RTFA. Three times now. :)

Max Spain

05-07-2008, 06:11 PM

muzzol

05-07-2008, 06:17 PM

aleluia!!!!

Licaon

05-07-2008, 06:50 PM

@Michael: so, predicting more nVidia F/OSS driver efforts any time soon? (now that the Valve games are coming) :)

ethana2

05-07-2008, 07:01 PM

Well whatever this article is, I'll say this:

I think if they did this, I'd seriously consider buying their stuff. That may sound pathetic, but there's no way in heck I'm buying a game that at any given point in the future may or may not work properly in WINE. In fact, if all a company makes is stuff for Windows, I'm not going to ever buy anything from them at all, ever.

I'll bet we can get frame rates that totally crush Vista if we get native ports of all the steam and source games.
..until we do, I'll still have my nexuiz, warsow, urbanterror, tremulous, openarena, alienarena, apricot, and so on and so forth.

Thetargos

05-07-2008, 08:20 PM

It seems that life as a Linux user is getting better and better by leaps and bounds these days. I just hope that Valve will decide to port their already released games as that should be a relatively trivial matter after the engine is ported :D

I'd say that's a no brainer, it would give them the opportunity to charge yet again for a product that most of us already own ;) (bargain price if you will... But, money nonetheless), actually I've been amazed how Valve has been able to sell over and over again Half-Life 2 with both the Episodes they released, they know their marketing (and they do have a solid product too)

ethana2

05-07-2008, 08:23 PM

dashcloud

05-07-2008, 08:31 PM

Wow- this would be really awesome. Guess I'll need a new laptop to play them since my Intel graphics card won't cut it.

There's finally more people who would like to take my money for games.

Thetargos

05-07-2008, 09:20 PM

Vadi

05-07-2008, 09:36 PM

@Phoronix: Yep, you were on track about the ATI move, so I'm trusting this one.

I do hope they'll get about the problem of the multitude of distributions and the "loud minority" issue though OK...

Jimmy

05-07-2008, 10:51 PM

I though the point of steam was to transfer purchased games between machines-- so it should be able to transfer between operating systems also. -Do you know how easy that would make it for steam gamers to switch OS'es? It could be the best gaming related thing ever to happen to us.

No one is going to throw away all the games they've already bought.

Just having Steam on an OS doesn't port the actual games to the OS. Steam essentially provides three things: copy protection, a game launcher, and a platform to sell and distribute software. Your licenses may transfer but if there's no native ports for the games, they don't do you much good. That said its only gonna be easy for gamers to switch if there's a lot of porting going on (not just steam itself).

I hope it all happens, but I'm not holding my breath... lernted my lesson with UT3. I would be dead if I was still holding my breath for that. I'll just have to live with the briadnamage already done.

aristos_achaion

05-08-2008, 03:05 PM

Just having Steam on an OS doesn't port the actual games to the OS.

I think the point was less about porting and more about licensing...that is, even if, say, Egosoft ports X3 to Linux, I'm not going to buy it because I already have a Windows copy. But if Source (and, presumably, Steam) gets ported to Linux, I presumably won't have to buy a new Orange Box license--Steam would (again, presumably) just download the appropriate software for my OS for my games if it is availible.

And I really hope this comes to fruition...I'd love to have TF2 for Linux!

Svartalf

05-08-2008, 03:18 PM

I do hope they'll get about the problem of the multitude of distributions

Heh... THAT is easy, believe it or not. LGP's done it all the time. The only gotcha would be a major ABI change that breaks the linkage rules for binaries. Loki Games stuff got busted on that- the devs didn't care because they're presuming that you'll have the vendor or distribution fix it for you.

Right now, as long as you're not trying to install for system-wide use, there's several differing ways to produce runtimes and install that just simply work for all distributions.

HavarN

05-08-2008, 04:31 PM

Great news! Hope they'll release it soon. Personally, I wish most for a port of Steam to Linux.

I would buy the Orange Box, and probably most other games that get ported to Linux and distributed on Steam.

StringCheesian

05-08-2008, 04:46 PM

that is, even if, say, Egosoft ports X3 to Linux, I'm not going to buy it because I already have a Windows copy.

This is why a Dualbooter's Special Edition is a much better idea (from a marketing standpoint) than just a regular Linux release of a Windows game.

BlueKoala

05-09-2008, 12:13 AM

Hah! I seen steam coming to Linux in my imaginary crystal ball. Next is MS losing significant OS market share in 2009 (4.5%??). I'm doing my bit by installing Ubuntu on computers I sell a provide free support for it. So far I haven't had to support anything after initial setup =]

Forge

05-09-2008, 03:05 AM

I'm all for it. I'm dual booting now, as are many (most?) Linux gamers, but I'd be thrilled to let my XP64 install gather more dust than it does. TF2 and Guild Wars are all I'm really playing ATM, and I have a pretty gnarly list of stuff purchased in Steam (thanks to the Epic/Id packs). Even if only Source gets ported so far, I'm certain that the sharp increase in reported Linux users (Steam does that) would help get some of the other stuff in Steam's catalog ported. Heck, just having Source ported opens up a whole REAM of mods and third party products. LOTS of games are built on Source, and when you add in Id (already have native versions, so Steaming is trivial) and Epic (likewise), that's a pretty large catalog.

Forge

05-09-2008, 06:36 PM

Another thing that just occured to me:

WHEN?? This is all well and good, but are we hours, days, weeks, months, years, or 'when it's done' away from this getting into general users' hands??

I personally feel it would be nothing but a good thing, and I'd go so far as to advocate paying Valve a one-time 'transfer to Linux and pressure all Steam publishers to develop Linux ports' fee, but I'd like to know how soon this is expected.

deanjo

05-09-2008, 07:09 PM

WHEN?? This is all well and good, but are we hours, days, weeks, months, years, or 'when it's done' away from this getting into general users' hands??.

Time for a new poll.....

Which will come first? Steam or DukeNukem Forever?

Compxpert

05-09-2008, 07:36 PM

Time for a new poll.....

Which will come first? Steam of DukeNukem Forever?
Probably Steam since DNF as the title infers will be forever unreleased.

deanjo

05-10-2008, 05:43 PM

Wow! Finally! Some mainstream coverage.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37354/144/

Hmmm, good news makes the mainstream Tech media but anything bad against Epic is suppressed.

Michael

05-10-2008, 05:47 PM

Penguin Lovers Plaza... Nice. The INQ calls it Penguin's Place and there are also some other terms out there.

niniendowarrior

05-10-2008, 07:33 PM

Ah... do we really have confirmation about Valve being ported or is it just a job listing over at Valve?:D

Good news if it's true.

Michael

05-10-2008, 07:35 PM

I have more info than just a job listing... :)

deanjo

05-10-2008, 09:29 PM

I have more info than just a job listing... :)

Michael has NINJAS!!!!!

Melcar

05-10-2008, 10:54 PM

Michael has NINJAS!!!!!

No pirates :(?

Moustacha

05-11-2008, 02:42 AM

Aww man, I cannot wait now haha. I think I'll have to buy the orange box when it gets ported. Hopefully others who use steam will follow suit if there's enough linux gamers using steam, might get a port of CoD4 wooo then I would never have to use windows again.

Aradreth

05-11-2008, 07:03 AM

No pirates :(?
You never know they could be ninja pirates... :rolleyes:

Moustacha

05-11-2008, 07:23 AM

You never know they could be ninja pirates... :rolleyes:

But how would they climb roofs with peg legs?:confused::D

givemesugarr

05-11-2008, 12:21 PM

You never know they could be ninja pirates... :rolleyes:

they're dwarfs ninja vampires that have 30 degrees in profession (pirate)....

:D:D

(d&d lovers should understand the sentence very well)... :cool:

yoshi314

05-11-2008, 01:47 PM

cool, i'll be able to play hl2 on linux. it's gathering the dust and i started wondering for a while why the heck did i buy the game :]

let's hope my steam accounts are still active.... :]

Aradreth

05-11-2008, 06:28 PM

But how would they climb roofs with peg legs?:confused::D
Not much is know about the secretive Ninja pirates so I cannot accurately tell you how they climb roofs with peg legs; although it is said that they need to climb as their parrots will fly them up! :eek:

Shakey_Jake33

05-11-2008, 06:45 PM

I've made some rather negative comments about Steam in the past concerning DRM, but the fact that a person can access their games anywhere, on any machine, and theoretically on any OS, is a real plus about Steam. One could argue that it respects a consumers purchase by associating their purchase with that person, rather than a specific machine configuration. Those of you who keep an eye on PC gaming and have witnessed the farse surrounding Mass Effect (authenticates to 3 hardware configurations, with no way to revoke previous authentications... byebye PC upgrades) will understand the significance of this. It pains me, because I'm fundamentally against DRM like everyone else is, which is why it's hard to swallow to see DRM actually being used to add functionality for the consumer (access to your games anywhere). I'm torn with this one, and makes me wonder if some people were onto something with the GPL v2/v3 lark. I'm starting University in September, so the significance of being able to redownload my games when required, without having to bring my discs with me, suddenly has significance.

That aside, this could seriously boost gaming on Linux. The Steam crowd make a sizable chunk of the Windows gaming scene, this puts Linux into the position of being a viable alternative to Vista for many gamers, and it may kickstart many developers to create a Linux client (or at the least, something using Cider or whatever) by providing a service that makes it very cost effective to do so.

Aradreth

05-11-2008, 07:20 PM

I've made some rather negative comments about Steam in the past concerning DRM, but the fact that a person can access their games anywhere, on any machine, and theoretically on any OS, is a real plus about Steam. One could argue that it respects a consumers purchase by associating their purchase with that person, rather than a specific machine configuration. Those of you who keep an eye on PC gaming and have witnessed the farse surrounding Mass Effect (authenticates to 3 hardware configurations, with no way to revoke previous authentications... byebye PC upgrades) will understand the significance of this. It pains me, because I'm fundamentally against DRM like everyone else is, which is why it's hard to swallow to see DRM actually being used to add functionality for the consumer (access to your games anywhere). I'm torn with this one, and makes me wonder if some people were onto something with the GPL v2/v3 lark. I'm starting University in September, so the significance of being able to redownload my games when required, without having to bring my discs with me, suddenly has significance.

That and the community is, in my opinion, one of the reasons there hasn't been much protest again steam after the anger when it was initially released. I really dislike DRM in all it's forms but at least steam gives you something in return which is why I would put up with it, although if I get given the choice I'd always go for the version without DRM.

Forge

05-11-2008, 11:15 PM

Steam is evil, SecuROM and friends as recently demonstrated are far, far worse. I will never, ever, ever purchase something with 'copy protection' like Bioshock, or the pre-rollback planned 'security' for Mass Effect and Spore. Steam can be annoying, but it hasn't yet commited the long laundry list of sins that other so-called copy protections have. Steam has no intrusive low-level drivers (looking at you, Starfarce!!), it doesn't phone home regularly to re-authorize (Hi SecuROM!!) and it doesn't have some bizarre machine ID locking mechanism (Hi again SecuROM, this time from Bioshock!).

While developers include such horrible POS 'protections', I will skip them entirely. No warez, since that just gives them two different types of ammo. I'll be 'ten million players worldwide' at the sales meetings and 'billions of pirates' when they're whining for more money, justifying the next round of ridiculous 'protections' or worst of all, whining on the US Senate Floor for the passage of "OMFG PROTECT BUSINESS FROM WORTHLESS PLEBES ACT 2009 PART II", where the goverment authorizes corporate security forces to shoot suspected pirates on sight.

Steam is the least evil thing we can expect. Yay!

Shakey_Jake33

05-12-2008, 02:41 AM

I'll certainly never buy any game which which requires me to authenticate my machine configuration to use it. Bioshock and now Mass Effect do this, you get a set limit of authentications, which means if you upgrade your machine a lot (thus changing your configuration, thus requiring you to use another authentication slot), you're screwed. This screws over the legitimate consumer. That game you just bought is no longer an investment for your collection, but merely a per-user licence which they don't guarantee you'll be able to use outside of the product's perceived lifespan.

Steam, for it's DRM problems, does not do this, and at the very least, it's use of DRM (having to log into your account to use your game) does at the very least allow them to offer further genuine functionality in their service (access to your purchased content anywhere, at any time). So we can be glad of that. Ideally we'd not have to log in to use our own damn game, but at least there are positive benefits.

d2kx

05-12-2008, 04:56 AM

Well, you can use the Steam offline mode to play games on singleplayer or LAN once fully updated. A good thing about Steam is that you can give your account to trusted friends, like imagine you're doing a LAN party, and 8 out of 10 people do have Counter-Strike: Source, and all you guys want to play it. With other, Non-Steam games, people (you know them, don't you) use keygen's or other illegal methods, but they still need the disc to install the game. With Steam, you can ask another friend if you could get an account to play CSS with for one or two days, you can download the game and play it just fine. Another fine thing is that Steam uses only a few big files (.gcf, compressed game files) for all the games, so once you have downloaded/installed a game, have updated it, you can save these files to another place on your hard drive and when you've got a new OS installation, you just need to copy over the files to have the game installed and already fully updated, or burn it to a DVD for a friend. There are also no copy protections (there was one at the very beginning (Securom), but Valve said "that's sh*t, we're removing them"). Furthermore, Valve is the company I trust the most, they're making really great games, have the best support and listen to their customers. Steam is closed source, but so are the games.

No, I am not working for Valve :)

Shakey_Jake33

05-12-2008, 11:10 AM

Valve were great in my book... until they blocked some people for importing Orange Box. That's lame, supposed to be free market etc. But as far as their service goes, I've taken to it.

Svartalf

05-12-2008, 11:43 AM

they're dwarfs ninja vampires that have 30 degrees in profession (pirate)....

:D:D

(d&d lovers should understand the sentence very well)... :cool:

That...is...just...WRONG... ;)

Svartalf

05-12-2008, 11:48 AM

Steam, for it's DRM problems, does not do this, and at the very least, it's use of DRM (having to log into your account to use your game) does at the very least allow them to offer further genuine functionality in their service (access to your purchased content anywhere, at any time). So we can be glad of that. Ideally we'd not have to log in to use our own damn game, but at least there are positive benefits.

While it's "less problematic", do keep in mind that it presumes that you have to log-in to authenticate. If it's done once per install, I suppose it's "mostly" okay- but it limits what you can/can't do. If you're not able to be on an ISP, does this mean that you can't run the thing, or does it presume you're legit until you get on the 'net (which would be an end-run means around the DRM...). Not knowing how Valve did this, I don't know what goes/doesn't go. If it handles it mostly the "right way", then it's evil, but it's not the same class of evil that most of the DRM forms seem to have gotten to these days.

Raven3x7

05-12-2008, 12:06 PM

While it's "less problematic", do keep in mind that it presumes that you have to log-in to authenticate. If it's done once per install, I suppose it's "mostly" okay- but it limits what you can/can't do. If you're not able to be on an ISP, does this mean that you can't run the thing, or does it presume you're legit until you get on the 'net (which would be an end-run means around the DRM...). Not knowing how Valve did this, I don't know what goes/doesn't go. If it handles it mostly the "right way", then it's evil, but it's not the same class of evil that most of the DRM forms seem to have gotten to these days.

I believe you can go into offline mode indefinetly but you dont get any updates that way. I can honestly live with Steam. Unlike most DRM solutons it doesnt really block you from your rights as a consumer. (You can istall games on multiple machines, easy backups etc). Their anti-cheating policies can be a PITA though from what i've heard.

movieman

05-12-2008, 12:32 PM

I believe you can go into offline mode indefinetly but you dont get any updates that way.

I'm not sure what the limit is for how long you can run in offline mode, but after I emigrated I only had dialup access for some time and was in offline mode for weeks or months after I did the iniital update from the files I'd taken with me.

I pretty much only buy games from Steam these days; I dislike DRM of all kinds, but Steam is the least intrusive of all the current major DRM schemes, with the possible exception of dongles (and I already have too many USB ports taken up with those). There is the risk that Valve will one day go bust and Steam will disappear, but supposedly there's a 'kill switch' they can use to disable it. In some cases I've actually re-bought old games I bought on CD, because I've no idea where the CDs are anymore and being able to download the game anywhere is worth another $10.

The only problem I've had with Steam was one day when their servers were unavailable due to an outage at their end; having all the servers in one place was a bad decision on their part, hopefully they now have backup servers elsewhere.

user5124

05-12-2008, 08:57 PM

Forge

05-13-2008, 12:51 AM

The question is - will owners of half life 2 have to re-buy it just to get the linux executables?

I'm hoping I can just fire up steam for linux and since I already own hl2, it just installs and plays..

If it was per-title, than that would suck. If it was a one-time account-wide fee to recoup some of their development/porting costs, I think I'd pay even that.

d2kx

05-13-2008, 04:07 AM

It's Valve. They won't make you buy your gamas again.

Aradreth

05-13-2008, 04:45 AM

On the argument for/against DRM Brett Thomas over at Bit-tech posted a good article [1].

...(looking at you, Starfarce!!)...
The gaming industry as a whole, with a couple of exceptions, has stopped using starforce and learned that that copy protection as low level as that isn't a smart move.

[1]
http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2008/05/13/picture-perfect-quandary/comments

d2kx

05-13-2008, 05:20 AM

I've got Trackmania United: Forever for my birthday today, and one of the features of the Forever Addon is that StarForce was completely removed so there is no copy protection anymore. That is great. ET: QW and HL2 etc. don't have copy protections, too. I mean come on, some companies (EA Games *cough*) pay thousands of dollars for copy protections and they'll get cracked by some release groups in a minute or two.

Aradreth

05-13-2008, 05:27 AM

d2kx

05-13-2008, 06:26 AM

HL2 is copy protected, what do you think steam does? :p

COPY protection means I can't copy the disc & I need a (original) disc to play the game. Both are not true for HL2.

Aradreth

05-13-2008, 07:06 AM

COPY protection means I can't copy the disc & I need a (original) disc to play the game. Both are not true for HL2.
You're absolutely right, I was thinking of DRM when I wrote it. :o

Moustacha

05-13-2008, 07:19 AM

So...how long do you think it will take. Middle of this year, or sometime next year?

deanjo

05-13-2008, 08:54 AM

So...how long do you think it will take. Middle of this year, or sometime next year?

After the UT3 farce, I don't think anybody is willing to venture a guess.

Svartalf

05-13-2008, 09:21 AM

On the argument for/against DRM Brett Thomas over at Bit-tech posted a good article [1].

The only shame of the article is that it fronts a flawed premise as part of it's reasoning.

You don't have a right to make money off of something. That's not a right any more than me being able to use the something.

What happens to be their right is the right to control the production and distribution of a protected work such that you can attempt to make money off of it.

People need to quit painting it as if it were a right. This is the excuse RIAA and MPAA use to push for more and more draconian crap and it's what the DRM pushers use as an excuse to fob more evil crap on everyone in the vein of "protecting" their "right" to make money off of all of it and grabbing more than they were entitled to.

The gaming industry as a whole, with a couple of exceptions, has stopped using starforce and learned that that copy protection as low level as that isn't a smart move.

Could've fooled me with EA's latest embarrassment to the industry. There's others lining up to do it too.

Aradreth

05-13-2008, 11:51 AM

Could've fooled me with EA's latest embarrassment to the industry. There's others lining up to do it too.
The only games I can think off that have invasive copy protection released recently are Bioshock and soon Spore & Mass Effect and compared to the number of good games released for the PC in the last year that's not many. Admittedly they are three huge (sales wise) games. Lets also be honest, EA doesn't care about what the customer wants just their bottom line else they wouldn't release half baked games. (300MB patch in the first week anyone?)

The only shame of the article is that it fronts a flawed premise as part of it's reasoning. ...
I just thought it was an interesting view on the whole topic, I might not agree with everything said but in arguments like the one over DRM very few people will ever truly see eye to eye.

Svartalf

05-13-2008, 08:06 PM

(300MB patch in the first week anyone?)
Heh...only 300Mb? Couldn't be EA- not big enough. :D

xav1r

05-14-2008, 01:20 AM

The only shame of the article is that it fronts a flawed premise as part of it's reasoning.

You don't have a right to make money off of something. That's not a right any more than me being able to use the something.

What happens to be their right is the right to control the production and distribution of a protected work such that you can attempt to make money off of it.

People need to quit painting it as if it were a right. This is the excuse RIAA and MPAA use to push for more and more draconian crap and it's what the DRM pushers use as an excuse to fob more evil crap on everyone in the vein of "protecting" their "right" to make money off of all of it and grabbing more than they were entitled to.

Could've fooled me with EA's latest embarrassment to the industry. There's others lining up to do it too.

Truer words hadn't been spoken. Damn, i bet capitalist headhonchos around the world are having massive heart attacks now. :D

zerix01

05-14-2008, 08:42 AM

The only games I can think off that have invasive copy protection released recently are Bioshock and soon Spore & Mass Effect and compared to the number of good games released for the PC in the last year that's not many.

Spore and Mass Effect no longer have the 10 day call home DRM if that is what you are referring to.

http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/05/09/2318229.shtml

Aradreth

05-14-2008, 09:29 AM

Spore and Mass Effect no longer have the 10 day call home DRM if that is what you are referring to.

http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/05/09/2318229.shtml

This solution allows gamers to authenticate their game on three different computers with the purchase of one disc. EA Customer Service is on hand to supply any additional authorizations that are warranted. This will be done on a case-by-case basis by contacting customer support.

• Games are authorized to the machine when the player installs and launches the software for the first time.
That's from the Bioware post [1] that's exactly the same as the Bioshock copy protection (worse actually Bioshock let you have 5 activations). It doesn't seem extreme because they went and shocked people with the first iteration of what is was going to do then made it "better". When the method they are now using was done with Bioshock there was a huge out cry from unhappy gamers.

Heh...only 300Mb? Couldn't be EA- not big enough.
Sorry I meant first day not week. :p

[1] http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=629059&forum=125

Svartalf

05-14-2008, 10:41 AM

Spore and Mass Effect no longer have the 10 day call home DRM if that is what you are referring to.

http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/05/09/2318229.shtml

That may be the case, but they still ran it up the flagpole all the same.

It doesn't matter that they rescinded it- it is that they thought so poorly of their customers that they thought of them as being thieves.

Svartalf

05-14-2008, 10:51 AM

That's from the Bioware post [1] that's exactly the same as the Bioshock copy protection (worse actually Bioshock let you have 5 activations). It doesn't seem extreme because they went and shocked people with the first iteration of what is was going to do then made it "better". When the method they are now using was done with Bioshock there was a huge out cry from unhappy gamers.

I don't care how "cool" the game is. I'm one of their customers if I'm buying. You don't treat your customers like thieves for very long. Right now, gamers haven't twigged onto the fact that they're really customers, not consumers- and they're just accepting whatever swill they shovel into the feed troughs.

Sorry I meant first day not week. :p

[1] http://masseffect.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=629059&forum=125

Heh... And it wouldn't surprise me if they jammed out a patch that size every week, or a patch 2-3 times a week that was 1/3-1/2 that size. That's EA for ya. Of late, it's also Bioware, which is a damned shame.

Thetargos

05-14-2008, 10:54 AM

That may be the case, but they still ran it up the flagpole all the same.

It doesn't matter that they rescinded it- it is that they thought so poorly of their customers that they thought of them as being thieves.

And that is the main flaw of DRM. It takes away the rights from customers, and treats them as if they were the criminals. Meanwhile, pirates are just as happily putting out cracked copies (which might be crap), but at least ones that the users CAN use... Who's benefiting from DRM, then?

movieman

05-14-2008, 11:22 AM

Aradreth

05-14-2008, 11:26 AM

I don't care how "cool" the game is. I'm one of their customers if I'm buying. You don't treat your customers like thieves for very long. Right now, gamers haven't twigged onto the fact that they're really customers, not consumers- and they're just accepting whatever swill they shovel into the feed troughs.
I won't buy games with intrusive DRM such as the one being put on Spore etc. For one DRM like that has yet to hit linux games (thank god) so it currently even a choice.

Of late, it's also Bioware, which is a damned shame.
So true Bioware use to be one of my favourite studio's now they've been bought by EA they are going down hill.

And that is the main flaw of DRM. It takes away the rights from customers, and treats them as if they were the criminals. Meanwhile, pirates are just as happily putting out cracked copies (which might be crap), but at least ones that the users CAN use... Who's benefiting from DRM, then?
That's the funny thing about DRM the only people it affects is the paying customers who need to put up with it. Crackers are always looking for a challenge and the fame and pirates just use the cracks which remove or disable DRM anyway.

Melcar

05-14-2008, 07:34 PM

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=275686

PCGH: And what is your personal opinion about the topic? Is DX10 the way to go and therefore the way of future graphics.

Doug Lombardi: Well I mean there is always that tradeoff between taking the time to adopt the engine to a new API, right. And for us we feel like there still things in DX9 that we can achieve without having to go through the pains of moving to DX 10. (…)So for us as a company and our game designs, we've looked at the tradeoff of the work to move to DX 10 and we have always kind of felt that there is not really enough there for us to delay whatever game we are working on by six to eight month just to say we've a DX10 game. The other thing that is worth mentioning too is to run DX10 natively under the API you have to have both the card and vista. If you google to the Steam hardware survey where we poll peoples machines on Steam you can see that right now there is only about thirteen percent of those people that have both, the DX 10 card and Vista. So you have to look at that as well and say is it worth to investing for thirteen percent of the audience.

Hmm. Can this also be applied to Linux? I mean, the guy says that for Valve it's simply not worth it to go DX10 because of the small user pool. I would imagine that the Linux user pool is even smaller (or slightly bigger maybe), so if this is their rational, why would they bother with a Linux client for Source?

niniendowarrior

05-14-2008, 09:16 PM

Bioware had a poll once on what OS you used, and Linux came in pretty well in the polls. Guess what? No Linux ports since NWN.

Svartalf

05-14-2008, 09:35 PM

Hmm. Can this also be applied to Linux? I mean, the guy says that for Valve it's simply not worth it to go DX10 because of the small user pool. I would imagine that the Linux user pool is even smaller (or slightly bigger maybe), so if this is their rational, why would they bother with a Linux client for Source?

It's not just that DX10 has a smaller userbase- it's only available on Vista, it's not likely to be growing any time in the near future when compared to the prior DX7/8/9 eras, it's slower than Christmas on all but the highest end machines.

DX10's a disaster for most studios that've went that way.

On the other hand...

OpenGL 2.x gives most if not all of the stuff right out of the gate.
OpenGL 2.x actually has a larger user base.
OpenGL 2.x is close to one of the mainline API's for pretty much all the console space except Microsoft- done right, you don't do much of anything to get a Mac, Linux, and PS3 title out of your renderer and the rest.

What you want to do as a studio is eke out all you can out of your DX9c back end and make a OpenGL/GLES based back end. Hitching your wagon to Microsoft has had the expected effect on the gaming industry... ;) They're just now getting that it wasn't all in their
best interests to go along with them. :D

Svartalf

05-14-2008, 09:38 PM

Bioware had a poll once on what OS you used, and Linux came in pretty well in the polls. Guess what? No Linux ports since NWN.

I doubt this is Bioware's choice in the matter. We got NWN in spite of the publisher's wishes because it was mostly done by the time they got involved with it. Once you got Atari and Lucasarts involved, they had dramatically less say in their titles. EA being involved with some of them is going to make that even more the case. The only reason we got UT2k3/2k4 was that Epic pushed the issue as has Id. Bioware's big enough to be the same way,but I suspect their deals with the publishers aren't as nice n' cushy.

xav1r

05-15-2008, 01:23 AM

how come theres no other tech related site that has a story on valve porting steam to linux?

Moustacha

05-15-2008, 01:56 AM

how come theres no other tech related site that has a story on valve porting steam to linux?

I would say "linux" is out of their vocabulary. Most of the tech websites (that i frequent) are pretty windows lovin' because that's where the games are, IMO. Maybe when Valve officially announces the porting it'll appear on tech sites.

ivanovic

05-15-2008, 03:47 AM

Uhm, sorry to tell you, but the news from phoronix appeared on *many* german speaking sites. Not only gaming related sites like gamestar.de and pcgameshardware.de but also on broader tech sites like eg golem.de. So the news *is* spread.

Aradreth

05-15-2008, 02:17 PM

I would say "linux" is out of their vocabulary. Most of the tech websites (that i frequent) are pretty windows lovin' because that's where the games are, IMO. Maybe when Valve officially announces the porting it'll appear on tech sites.
Most sites don't like to post articles on something like this without their own inside information, a large well respected site they can link to or an announcement.

Uhm, sorry to tell you, but the news from phoronix appeared on *many* german speaking sites. Not only gaming related sites like gamestar.de and pcgameshardware.de but also on broader tech sites like eg golem.de. So the news *is* spread.
You'll see it on more EU sites because linux has a larger percentage of the desktop market over here then the US. (although it's pretty poor in the UK)