For you gamers out there, just announced, the chance to join the hardware beta of the new Steam OS gaming machine
Amazing. Valve is planning on taking out the world...
Valve ftw!
source 2 half life 3 source 2 half life 3 source 2 half life 3 source 2 half life 3
can't wait to see the third big announcement.
I'm shocked they didn't announce HL3 or any other new installments to their own game franchises. I get that they seem 100% devoted to steam, steambox, and this funky controller but they need something to make people want this box. If they would announce some games for this thing and prove that linux can be a viable platform for gamers then I think this will be awesome.
You could build a pretty nice little gaming box for about $500 that could compete with the new PS4/x1 if you didn't need a windows license. However there simply aren't enough games in the linux section of steam to make this matter right now. I already effectively have a "steam box" hooked up to my plasma already. It runs windows 8 and I use a wireless keyboard/trackpad thing from logitech to navigate it and a wireless 360 controller to play games. Its awesome and has seriously made me debate getting one of the new consoles. (I probably will though once exclusive games come out for it). However trying to market a $500 or $600 linux computer to pc gamers is probably going to fail without some kind of killer reason to get it.
I saw that they were going to have a $100 "box" that will work similar to the nvidia shield where it can stream games from my pc to another room. I'm not sure why but when I saw the vita tv announcement that basically did the same thing for the ps4, I thought it was cool. But for this to happen on steam just seems like a waste of time. I don't think the core steam gamer is playing on a tv currently (even though I am) but maybe this will open that market up for them(kinda doubt it).
BTW that controller is pretty ugly and looks super awkward to use. I already have a 360 controller which is probably the best controller ever made. I love that when I plug in the 360 controller most games just recognize it and even change the in game button prompts to the correct icons. If valve cant get game companies to do this with their controller then its a non starter in my opinion. The x1 controller is said to be pc compatible as well, so I don't much see the point of the valve controller. Unless of course the 360 controller doesn't work with linux, which I have no idea if thats the case.
Impressions of using the Steam Controller.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TommyRefenes/20130928/201219/My_time_with_the_Steam_Controller.php
Valve just trade marked Half Life 3 in Europe today:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/10/01/half-life-3-trademark-registered-by-valve-in-europe/
This could be a huge announcement if it launches on steam OS the same time as it launches on windows. If they can prove that big expensive games can run as good on linux as they do on windows(or maybe even better) then it will really help their case for the steam box. My concern is with graphics drivers. They pretty much stink on linux compared to how they are on windows. I get frequent easy updates to my 7870 on windows 8. I'm not even sure there is a driver for it on linux.
The mantle API should help with that if they choose to implement it, since it delivers better performance than dx without the platform lock.
Never heard of that before winapp but from the wiki link you posted its ati only. I have an ati card, so I'm good but there quite a few people out there with Nvidia cards. I'm not sure how widely adopted this api could be if its only good for one manufacturer. I still get annoyed when games use PhysX because I cant enable it.
ATI only but it's open and nvidia can choose to implement it.
Why would you game without AMD?
edit: Also, AMD has the entire console gpu market AFAIK
You can use PhysX on AMD cards too, but limited to software.