Valve's Source Engine Coming To Linux

[xav1r]

When has Gabe openly expressed his distaste for linux and/or any platform thats not windows? I must have missed his remarks. Anyone got a link? I read the ones about the ps3, but not the ones about linux.

[Dragonlord]

It's rather obvious though. Whenever Linux comes into play it's total-blockage from the other side. Granted they allow server binaries for Linux but only because with this people can not "crack their systems" ( as they think all Linux users only use Linux for cracking U_U ).

[xav1r]

It's rather obvious though. Whenever Linux comes into play it's total-blockage from the other side. Granted they allow server binaries for Linux but only because with this people can not "crack their systems" ( as they think all Linux users only use Linux for cracking U_U ).

I guess. Hehehe, and i find it rather pathetic that everyone going from games sites, game companies, and gamers in general hail them as the saviors of PC gaming, and the only alternative to DRM, when in reality, their entire steam platform is one big piece of DRM that installs on every pc like spyware, which needs a net connection for everything including offline SP games, AND holds your games hostage in a big GCF file. I hate steam. Was considering buying half life 1 for 98cents, but now im not so sure.

[Thetargos]

I guess. Hehehe, and i find it rather pathetic that everyone going from games sites, game companies, and gamers in general hail them as the saviors of PC gaming, and the only alternative to DRM, when in reality, their entire steam platform is one big piece of DRM that installs on every pc like spyware, which needs a net connection for everything including offline SP games, AND holds your games hostage in a big GCF file. I hate steam. Was considering buying half life 1 for 98cents, but now im not so sure.

I hear you. However I did give into Steam, for a number of reasons... Nontheless all your remarks are absolutely true. Steam is in itself a DRM-enabled platform. There are a number of myths regarding it, however... Like that you have to be on-line to play SP games (having into account that I mostly play SP), there is an off-line mode, however you have to log into your account to validate a game the first time you run it... All in all, I really think that Steam is a great idea, but could be much better implemented. If Valve so does decide to have Steam be cross platform, and ports (or allow others to port) the Source Engine, that would mean increased revenue. However, I do reckon that there is no easy way to assess the revenue potential of platforms such as Linux (NetApps is a joke). But whether or not they will, is up to them.

[Dragonlord]

Not really myth but true in fact. Playing off-line? Doesn't work here so it's definitely not a myth. And steam steals your accounts. We just had somebody a couple of days ago who got his account banned... and he didn't even play at that time! Now all his games are gone... because of an error on Valve's side. No chance to ever get it back since Valve does not unban anybody. Goes in my opinion a bit too far.

[Thetargos]

Not really myth but true in fact. Playing off-line? Doesn't work here so it's definitely not a myth. And steam steals your accounts. We just had somebody a couple of days ago who got his account banned... and he didn't even play at that time! Now all his games are gone... because of an error on Valve's side. No chance to ever get it back since Valve does not unban anybody. Goes in my opinion a bit too far.

Actually I was reading about this on their forums the other day. Apparently this is a HUGE problem within Steam, which seems to be that other people actually steal account details from legitimate users and then abuse those accounts. From what I could make out, though, it would seem as if you would had to be a victim of social engineering for these individuals to actually get your Steam details (who would have thought bout "Steam phishing"?). At any rate, if in this case it was indeed imputable to Valve, there should be a per-incident way of looking into these issues.

[Dragonlord]

I'm just against game companies having control to shut down your games at their own will. This just goes to far. I payed for this stuff and if somebody just can take away from you what you payed for then I label this plain and simple "theft".

[Thetargos]

I'm just against game companies having control to shut down your games at their own will. This just goes to far. I payed for this stuff and if somebody just can take away from you what you payed for then I label this plain and simple "theft".

And you are correct, of course. This is actually one of the reasons I'm against Steam, and a point that could be very much improved. When you buy a game off Steam you should be able to continue playing (at least off-line) if your account is banned. This is a double edge sword, of course, as sadly nowadays businesses are constructed out of mistrust instead of trust. What is worse is that the customer is being ripped off. And if anything we've seen with DRM, is that those who stay legit are the ones facing the consequences (instead of the other way around). Ideally Steam (the platform) would allow you to re-validate any games you legally purchased even if with a different account, would only validate on-line (stating so to the user) when needed and you'd be able to play off-line (ideally without the steam deamon running); the application should allow you to see/extract the contents of the GCF files (which aren't such a bad idea, to speak the truth) and restore your games (sort of like the feature to backup to CD/DVD). Alas this is not the case (not currently, anyways) and there seems to be some sympathy for their users on Valve's behalf (at least from some guys in the company).

Oh and before I forget (not directed to you DragonLord)

And I don't believe that Gabe Newell was referring to the PS3 for technical reasons, but rather because, just like its predecessor, it can be a pain in the behind to code for, seeing as how much has to be done "by hand" in order to attain decent performance on the console (i.e, you have to manually code many of the registers, etc).

I was aware that the PS2 had both an OGL ES and a native API to code for it, but in order to squeeze the most out of it, the only way was getting down and dirty with the Emotion Engine, i.e, the only way they could push games like GofW, Unreal Engine 2 based games (Splinter Cell, etc), etc. and get decent performance, was to directly manipulate the registers on it (and I know from good sources that the documentation was less than stellar, though Sony's developer support was great). I'm sure that the PS3 still has many problems like these currently, but apparently one of the reasons to support OpenGL ES right from the start was to actually promote its use more, and only having to tweak a small amount of code, but IIRC they also left open the possibility of fully programming the beast (which includes full documentation/support for the Cell/RSX/PhysX subsystems), I mean that's gotta be one of the reasons why the SDK costs $250K + a mile long NDA contract.

[Dragonlord]

That's true. Coding for the PS in general never had been considered easy especially due to the lack of documentation. But they can get away with it because the companies want to push a game on the console for more marketing options so they can demand a lot of shit from them until they really get fed up. If enough money is in play people do strange things to themselves :O

[dopehouse]

Are there any updates to this topic? Is it possible for Phoronix, to ask someone at valve about the status of a Linux version for the Source Engine?

And what is about Postal 3 for Linux?