Valve Takes Another Step Toward Making SteamOS a True Windows Competitor (arstechnica.com) 27
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We've known for months now that Valve is expanding its Linux-based SteamOS operating system beyond the Steam Deck to other handheld PCs, starting with some versions of the Asus ROG Ally. This week, Valve began making some changes to its Steam storefront to prepare for a future when the Deck isn't the only hardware running SteamOS. A new "SteamOS Compatible" label will begin rolling out "over the next few weeks" to denote "whether a game and all of its middleware is supported on SteamOS," including "game functionality, launcher functionality, and anti-cheat support." Games that don't meet this requirement will be marked as "SteamOS Unsupported." As with current games and the Steam Deck, this label doesn't mean these games won't run, but it does mean there may be some serious compatibility issues that keep the game from running as intended.
Valve says that "over 18,000 titles on Steam [will] be marked SteamOS compatible out of the gate," and that game developers won't need to do anything extra to earn the label if their titles already support the Steam Deck. SteamOS uses a collection of app translation technologies called Proton to make unmodified Windows applications run on SteamOS. This technology has dramatically improved SteamOS's game compatibility, compared to older SteamOS versions that required games to support Linux natively, but it still can't support every single game that Windows does. Valve says that the "SteamOS Compatible" label isn't meant to imply how well a game will run on the Steam Deck or any other SteamOS handheld but that this label is "just the first step." The company is "continuing to work on ways for people to have a better understanding of how games will run on their specific devices."
Valve says that "over 18,000 titles on Steam [will] be marked SteamOS compatible out of the gate," and that game developers won't need to do anything extra to earn the label if their titles already support the Steam Deck. SteamOS uses a collection of app translation technologies called Proton to make unmodified Windows applications run on SteamOS. This technology has dramatically improved SteamOS's game compatibility, compared to older SteamOS versions that required games to support Linux natively, but it still can't support every single game that Windows does. Valve says that the "SteamOS Compatible" label isn't meant to imply how well a game will run on the Steam Deck or any other SteamOS handheld but that this label is "just the first step." The company is "continuing to work on ways for people to have a better understanding of how games will run on their specific devices."
Is Gabe the hero of prophesy? (Score:2)
The one who will free us from Windows? Please Gabe. Save us.
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I realize it's just Linux under the hood, but I have a really hard time seeing an OS maintained by the company that basically monopolized the PC gaming software market as an improvement over Microsoft.
Besides, isn't Microsoft's desktop dominance mostly due to the stranglehold it has on the business segment of the PC industry? Although, with all the stories about layoffs lately, maybe some people on the business side of the market are about to find themselves with a lot more free time to play games.
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basically monopolized the PC gaming software market
In what way has Valve "monopolized" the PC gaming software market? Be very careful with words and definitions. Being a monopoly and becoming a monopoly is not the same thing as monopolization. The first two are a state of being, while the last one is an illegal action. What have Valve done that you think they should be found guilty under the anti-trust laws for? Be specific.
And no, providing a good service is not monopolization.
Besides, isn't Microsoft's desktop dominance mostly due to the stranglehold it has on the business segment of the PC industry?
Microsoft's desktop dominance is in part due to them monopolizing the market thr
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It is, ultimately, a pretty complicated topic.
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Unlike other game launchers/stores, Steam (even in handheld mode) is very easy-going on setting up and using alternatives.
See for instance, Heroic Game Launcher, which can very painlessly integrate games from Amazon, Epic, and GOG into a steamdeck's library.
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Has Heroic made it possible to paste a password into the store login yet? Last time I tried it on my Deck, a couple months back, it was a non-starter, since I couldn't be arsed to transcribe the 32-character random string from Bitwarden on the on-screen keyboard.
There was a github issue open for a while, but it seemed to be being ignored.
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What have Valve done that you think they should be found guilty under the anti-trust laws for? Be specific.
I was merely pointing out that they've sucked up all the oxygen in the PC gaming sphere, and you're more-or-less locked out of the bulk of AAA PC gaming titles unless you install Valve's DRM-ware on your PC. We pretty much accept that as business as usual over on the console side of things, so I wasn't necessarily implying any specific anti-trust laws were broken, just that the situation certainly has the outward appearance of being monopolistic.
Of course, since you asked, you can just Google (or ask ChatG
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In what way has Valve "monopolized" the PC gaming software market? Be very careful with words and definitions.
Right, it's a ridiculous claim. Like calling Amazon a monopoly. Nobody is forced to buy from Amazon or on Steam. There are stores selling games other then Valve's just like you can buy from places other than Amazon. Obviously, controlling 74% of market share is well short of the 100% that is required by some definitions of monopoly.
And no, providing a good service is not monopolization.
And here I thought monopoly was primarily about identifying anti-competitive behavior. Learn something new every day.
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I realize it's just Linux under the hood, but I have a really hard time seeing an OS maintained by the company that basically monopolized the PC gaming software market as an improvement over Microsoft.
It's more than just being Linux under the hood. The tools are open source. While it looks like Valve is only going to officially support SteamOS, you're able to get similar results from other distros.
Besides, isn't Microsoft's desktop dominance mostly due to the stranglehold it has on the business segment of the PC industry? Although, with all the stories about layoffs lately, maybe some people on the business side of the market are about to find themselves with a lot more free time to play games.
SteamOS compatible will give Valve a little more control over the direction of the PC game market than before. However, that has little to do with SteamOS itself. Valve mostly cares that games are able to run on Linux, which allows them to sell games to Linux users. SteamOS just gives them an official avenue to
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I'm echoing what others have said, but Valve did not monopolize the PC gaming software market. They just outcompete everyone else by providing a storefront as a service that people don't hate.
Just look at what happened with EA Origin for example. EA pulled their titles from Steam and said "Nuts to that, we'll make our own awesome storefront! With blackjack and hookers!" Only they forgot the awesome and the hookers. It's telling that after a few years all of EAs games were back on Steam- but what's important
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I'm echoing what others have said, but Valve did not monopolize the PC gaming software market. They just outcompete everyone else by providing a storefront as a service that people don't hate.
I'm old enough to remember when games came on physical media and you could actually still exercise first-sale doctrine rights. Steam played a pivotal role in normalizing the concept that you're buying only the rights to use a game, which can be revoked at any time, when "buying" a game on a PC.
The fact that they did it in a way that most people find innocuous doesn't change the fact that it didn't have to be this way. The transition to all-digital software sales could've been implemented with the means to
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Hopefully... (Score:2)
Hopefully, the first title available will be Half Life 3.
Valve needs to take advantage of Windows EOL (Score:3)
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bah, if they had done this as a response to Microsoft sabotage and EOL win7 that would have ment something, instead they did the opposite and helped kill win7.
They didn't have to take away steam access on win7, but they did.
Awesome! (Score:2)
Finally a move that promotes Linux compatibility. I know, "SteamOS" and all but between the lines is that it works on a Linux system. Sure, it's probably because it's run on Proton (a WINE fork) but it still runs. The chief complaint i hear now is that "games" don't work on Linux. What they really mean is that the high-end triple-A titles don't work. If this can push more companies to ensure it runs on a Linux system then it's a huge win for everyone. It may not be immediate but the effect will be more than
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Steam in Handheld mode (which is basically what SteamOS is) already supports native mode for games that have it.
For everything else, there is Proton.
I could see a day that SteamOS runs natively ... (Score:2)
I could see a day that SteamOS runs natively on PCs. Linux under the hood, Proton on top to run Windows games.
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Path of Exile 2 is a boring, tedious, Ruthless Souls-lite grindfest.
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I see that pathway of potential futures as a likely option, or I am probably being hopeful.
What I really see as inevitable (if not already here) is that Windows will annoy me so much (maybe with a touch of computer hardware locking itself down into integrated SoCs with little to no user customisation of the hardware) that I'll ditch Windows and go GNU/Linux. If future PC hardware essentially goes the Apple Silicone route, which would kill a lot of the fun my building/owning a gaming PC, I'd probably stay on
Bazzite with fewer options (Score:2)
SteamOS and Bazzite are "Functionally the same thing".
They are not exactly the same thing, but close enough that Steam itself does not give 2 shits about the difference.
(SteamOS is a customized Arch distro, and Bazzite is a customized Fedora distro. Both are set up with a read only binary filesystem, both use btrfs by default, and both use KDE for the desktop mode.)
I run Bazzite on my GPDWin 4 (2024 version), and it works just fine.
Valve does not officially support GPD handhelds with SteamOS at this time,
DirectX (Score:1)
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DX12 only games work very well with VKD3D, and Vulkan.
Proton supports this out of the gate on SteamOS. DX12-only is a nothingburger, on hardware that has suitable vulkan drivers.
In a surprising number of cases, they work *Better* than native DX12 on the same hardware.
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If you want a start-menu interface, though, you dont really want steamOS.
You want normal linux with LXDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, Mate, or KDE.
That, and Heroic Game Launcher, and Proton Tricks. (So you can set up D3DVK on the containers in question. Heroic does not use VKD3D by default, because it wants to be able to run on devices without vulkan. DXVK support is fail-safeable behind wineD3D modes, but D3DVK is not. The latter *ONLY* does DX12 libraries, but shares the same infra/backend as DXVK.)
HL2:E3 (Score:2)
Any updates on Half-Life 2: Episode Three?
More accurate ratings are good. (Score:2)
Honestly, this is a small but pretty welcome change. I exclusively game on Linux now, and honestly it's been great, I haven't come across a game that hasn't run yet. One time I had to install MSVCR and that's it, and yes I stay away from kernel level anticheat games. That's all to say that I don't even check the Steam Deck compatibility because everything works. When I checked more often, I was conditioned to view a "partially supported" as fully supported. Whenever it's partially supported, clicking on the
Maybe it's a good thing (Score:2)
Kernel level anti-cheat is a bit much. This might start curbing its use.