I spotted [URL='http://www.forceflow.be/2012/08/09/valve-left-4-dead-2-on-linux-talk-at-siggraph-opengl-anniversary/']this summary[/URL] of Rich Geldreich's talk at the SIGGRAPH OpenGL BOF. Apparently more detailed stuff will make its way up to the Linux blog soon :)

Valve started out with little OpenGL experience, and gradually learned along the way. The original Linux port of the game was done before the in-house Linux team was formed. After that, they invited hardware vendors to the office to discuss the possibilities and limitations of an eventual port. Rich stressed that it was really a team effort and that they couldn’t have done it without the support from software/hardware partners.

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As a follow up, I thought I'd highlight some of the comment replies from Valve that may shed some extra light on what's going on. Enjoy!

In regards to graphics quality/feature comparison between the Windows and Linux benchmarks:

The Linux version of Left 4 Dead 2 has all graphical features enabled. Obviously, there are still some bugs we are working on but overall, the stability and quality of the rendering is on par with the Windows version.

Image quality for L4D2 on Linux with OpenGL is on par with L4D2 on Windows with Direct3D.

This test used OpenGL version 3.x.

In regards to graphics drivers:

NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel have all worked with us on site and we expect further collaborative benefits from all vendors going forward. The work we did with NVIDIA and AMD concerned their proprietary drivers while the work with Intel concerned their open source drivers.

We have had nothing but success working with the driver folks. It has been a great experience and we hope to continue collaborating in the future.

In regards to the Linux enhancements making their way to the MacOS Source engine ports:

As a matter of fact, we did. Initially, we applied that work Left 4 Dead 2 over to Linux. Since then, it has been modified to meet the needs of Left 4 Dead 2.

In regards to Linux porting in general:

We expect to apply the majority of what we have learned from the L4D2 port to future ports of games using the Source engine.

Currently, this work only benefits the L4D2 porting effort but we are expecting that this effort can be easily applied to future porting efforts. More on that part later. ;-)

In regards to sourcing Linux titles for publishing via Steam:

We are already in contact with other game developers and building a list of those with interest in porting existing games in their current catalog to Linux. Some of these companies already have Linux versions available.

Game developers who are interested in porting an existing Steam game from their catalog to Linux should send us an email at [email protected].

In regards to end user beta testing (this was a reply to one of my comments, yay):

At this time, we are collecting interested persons for possible inclusion in an external beta in the future. If you have expressed interest in a comment or email, you’re on that list; nothing more is needed.

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Quoting: "MyGameCompany, post: 5131, member: 68"Considering Microsoft has announced that Windows 8/Metro will not support OpenGL, I rather suspect that Valve won't bother investing time in that option.

I don't think that will really make much of a difference. Windows 8 looks like it'll be another Vista/ME and the majority of users won't bother upgrading from WinXP/Win 7 since that's functional and what they're comfortable with, and that's where the bulk of Steam's user base is at the moment. I don't see that changing until Win 7 moves out of its support cycle (Windows 7 currently accounts for 70% of Steam users. I can see that dropping, but not enough for another platform to become dominant in a hurry unless something more significant than Windows 8 happens).

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Quoting: "Hamish, post: 5127, member: 6"For a modern large game developer that is pretty much par the course though.

Definitely. There's potential for people to think that the 300fps+ figure is achievable for normal systems though, so it's worth noting that the specs are above average.

Quoting: "Hamish, post: 5127, member: 6"Now that sounds to be counterintuitive.

It sounds like they're getting stuff bedded down in a 32 bit environment before delving into 64 bit (like the way they're using Ubuntu during development and then expanding to support other distros once they're through most of the iterative part of development).

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It's probably worth noting that their test system specs are pretty extreme. I don't know anybody running 32GB of RAM ^_^

Also, this is 32 bit Linux vs 64 but Windows.

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They seem on-target for making the first tier to me (halfway through with over half the funds they need). It's worth noting that the first tier is for an expansion - it's the last tier that is the sequel.

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Quoting: "Bumadar, post: 5102, member: 93"I wanted to sponsor it (I know its still open) but never really felt sure about it, the 250k kickstarter goal but 1000k for the actual full game... maybe I am easily confused :)

It is a bit confusing at first! They have a long image showing how the stretch goals are broken up.

The $250k goal covers an expansion for the original Defense Grid game. Pledging will also get you a copy of Defense Grid as soon as you pledge (even if the kickstarter campaign doesn't make its $250k goal), any Defense Grid content that's funded via Kickstarter, and a copy of Defense Grid 2 (which will have a Linux version) regardless of whether they make the $1m target.

The idea is that $1m allows them to entirely fund development of DG2 themselves. If they don't make that, they're still going to make the game, but they'll need to do other stuff to raise the money, so it will take longer.

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Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 5055, member: 122"I don't really bet, but if there were a time that I'd be guessing that one would show up, I think it'd be late August/September.

I suppose I was a bit conservative!

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Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 5121, member: 1"The thing is for the games already on MAC would that not make them easier to port over to Linux?

Yes and no. It all depends upon the existing Mac (not an abbreviation :D ) implementations, and how mindful of potential issues they were when doing those ports.

The presence of dedicated servers indicates that most of the core gameplay code is ported already, and depending upon whether they want to actively revisit that stuff, I speculate the only significant remaining part would be the renderer.

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Quoting: "Hamish, post: 5113, member: 6"I am assuming it will be like the Mac launch with Valve's full catalogue? Left 4 Dead 2 is just the test case?

Are you certain that the entire Valve catalogue was available at launch? This article by Joystiq suggests that only Portal was (and I know that TF2 didn't go live for MacOS until the second week of June).

Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 5109, member: 1"Oh man I want to know if one of the counter strikes are coming or not, need a good modern day FPS to play on Linux.

I reckon we'll see CS in some form (if CS:GO comes out after the Linux Steam client launch, I imagine there are good chances of it having a native client when it launches).

Valve subsequently ported all of their Source engine titles to MacOS except for HL:S (nothing pre-Source has been made available for MacOS so far as I'm aware.), so I reckon they'll do something similar for the Linux release. I suspect we can at least expect one title from all of their franchises (except Ricochet) to make an appearance eventually.

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