Great to learn about Portal 2: Desolation. :)

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: whizse

Quoting: EikeThey explicitly said they've got stuff not shown yet. I don't believe in "everything", but "most new" would be great already.

Maybe that's getting the anti-cheat vendors to start supporting Proton?

That we've got a quote on; they specifically said they were working with the anti-cheat vendors to get Proton support for anti-cheat. I believe it was practically in the same breath that they mentioned "stuff not shown yet"; it kind of looks like that's on top of the anti-cheat.
That said, they're not going to get every game working. But it could be significantly more than now.
It would probably be worth having a couple of people go through looking at all the "Gold" or so games and every one that works fine but you have to put some little thingy in the command line, putting that in so it's automatic. Just that would significantly increase how many games Just Work.

I guess we all agree that giving the impression to journalists and potential customers "that the full catalog will work" is harmful to the project and should be sorted out asap?

We all know there's quite a bunch of people out there just waiting to dissect that - I guess - wonderful machine once it's out and make a big fuzz out of every single game not running properly. It would be really sad seeing the Deck going down like the Steam Machines just because PR was handled naively.

Maybe Valve is afraid of admitting that Proton is not perfect (though really good, don't get me wrong).
But not communicating that openly will cause major damage to the project.

Just my 2 cents.

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Quoting: whizse

Quoting: subIsn't this basically backpedaling from the earlier claim, the Steam Deck will support the full catalog?

Have they ever made that claim?

I read that kind of news all over the place.

https://marketresearchtelecast.com/valve-ensures-that-the-steam-deck-is-compatible-with-the-entire-current-steam-catalog/111217/ [External Link]

If it is a misinterpretation by the media, Valve should make that clear, imho.

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When it comes to compatibility, that Kotaku article has this interesting bit:

But now, with this latest version of the Steam Deck, Valve seems confident that the device is finally performing better and is now able to run anything the company throws at it. (Assuming the game in question supports Valve’s SteamOS or its Linux compatibility software Proton.)

https://kotaku.com/valve-says-it-hasnt-found-a-game-that-the-steam-deck-ca-1847358340 [External Link]

Isn't this basically backpedaling from the earlier claim, the Steam Deck will support the full catalog?
I mean, we all know it's simply out of question given the information of protondb.
While Proton is amazing tech, it's nowhere near being perfect and December is approaching fast.

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Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: subIf Valve is serious about Linux, I'd still propose charging like 5 % less Valve fee if the published game features a Linux build.

That wouldn't help.

Sure, it would encourage them to press the "build for Linux" button for some free money, which is more than many devs do, but it wouldn't encourage them to do any testing or provide any support. At all.

"But," you might say, "the discount should only apply to proper Linux versions, not those other ones," and suddenly Valve has to be a gatekeeper, creating lots of uncertainty for devs as to whether they'll have their funds withheld, and Valve are having to do (a lot) more work for less money.

I see the potential issue. Yet, maybe the big publisher's don't want to get bad publicity if the build is crap right from the start or is not maintained properly like the Windows version.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: TeodosioI would like to see a new game from Valve, released on GNU/Linux only.

Exclusives are bad.

If Valve is serious about Linux, I'd still propose charging like 5 % less Valve fee if the published game features a Linux build.

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Quoting: CatKillerWhat I'd really like to see is some proper dogfooding. Use Vulkan, and use the Steam Linux Runtime. Have it available for Linux day one. They've failed on each of these things with their own projects in the past. They can't really advise other devs on how to do things if they can't manage it themselves.

If they can also manage to make something with a compelling story experience (maybe even In The Valley Of The Gods since they ate Campo Santo) that works great with a controller and can be played well in few-hour chunks (because battery life), that would be pretty nice.

When it comes to "In The Valley Of Gods" I have this bit I came across:

There's Claire Hummel
https://twitter.com/shoomlah [External Link]

She worked for Campo Santo (At Valve since)
http://cliqist.com/2019/09/23/claire-hummel-talks-about-art-directing-for-in-the-valley-of-gods/ [External Link]

and posts a lot of these pics about a serious heavy-weight hieroglyph course she takes
https://twitter.com/shoomlah/status/1407260360923512835 [External Link]

also references ITVOG from time to time
https://twitter.com/shoomlah/status/1411089557970243585 [External Link]

My bet is they are indeed still working on it to get out.

Did I mention I just love Firewatch?

Ah yeah: She removed references to Campo Santo and ITVOG on her personal page at the time when asked if the hieroglyph stuff has anything to do with that game.

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Quoting: CorbenI'd image a new title in the Portal universe, as "jumping" through portals would probably make VR players insta-puke :D

Which is kinda sad but I have a hard time with Alyx already. :/

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Well they *could* do that of course, but I don't see the necessity from Valve's POV.
We know the basic idea of the Steam Deck is to play standard PC games on a handheld.

The worst move would be to release sth big and make it exclusive to the Steam Deck.
Even a time exclusive.

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Quoting: 3zekiel

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWhat I'm wondering is if industries like say animation might be looking at moving towards ARM and that might be part of what's driving this kind of thing.

I think Apple M1 showed that it is possible to live without x86 and it created some appetites ... Imagine if Nvidia does manage to buy ARM, then make some kind of laptop, with Nvidia GPU inside. They do not have to pay either for CPU, not even a license, neither for the OS. So they can capture much more value than if using x86, or third party ARM, and losedows. (a losedows OEM license costs around 50€, so it is nothing to laugh at). If you have good x86 compat layer, relying on custom ARM chip with good HW accel for it, and you ride on Valve's proton for the rest, it seems awfully possible now. From business perspective at least, it makes sense.

And we're left with a system that runs with a graphics driver blob only.

*meh*

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