So since February we've gone from the doldrums of 0.8% to the not-quite-so-doldrums of, looks like over 1.1%, which is, what, something like a 37% increase. Not too shabby.

OK, the total's still tiny. I'll definitely be interested to see what happens when Steam Decks start to sell.

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Quoting: ElectricPrismOnce again I arrive to the conversation feeling like I'm the only one that still sees Steam Machines 2015 as a HUGE success.

I would certainly have to agree that it was a HUGE learning experience, and that Valve does seem to have learned from it. And even that the development of the Steam Machine spurred the development of various tools, which were then built on since to pave the way for what looks like it will be success in the Steam Deck (although I mean, they haven't actually started sending them out yet, so technically it could still fail . . . but good buzz from those who have tried developer ones, plus back orders out to a couple of years, is a pretty good set of hints). And some of those same tools have improved Linux gaming more generally.

So I would have to agree that many good things came out of the Steam Machine initiative. But I still want to make a distinction between that and actually being a huge success as a project in itself. It wasn't. It was a huge learning experience partly because Valve made so many mistakes on the Steam Machine itself, most of which they are not making again this time around.
What Valve wanted was not just a learning experience and some development. The hope was that Steam Machines themselves would sell a ton of units, that all the people Valve had persuaded to do ports would make a bunch of money from having done so and that would become the new normal, that Linux would then have most of the games and become a more viable potential desktop, so much so that if Microsoft tried to make its own store a big thing and lock Steam out many people could be expected to prefer ditching Windows than Steam, thus discouraging Microsoft from trying it. None of that happened, at least not then, and Valve lost significant credibility with game companies.
Valve is lucky that so far, hints of Microsoft pushing towards trying to nobble Steam in favour of their own store have continued to fizzle. But it sure wasn't because of the Steam Machine.

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Quoting: GuestAnd Valve have directly discouraged native title development. How can that be a good thing?

Directly? I think promoting Proton can only really count as indirectly discouraging other things. Have they come out and directly said people shouldn't do native title development? I suppose at some point they've said you don't have to because there's Proton, but I don't see how they can promote Proton without somehow saying that.

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Quoting: redmcg"The main use case is emulating Windows' WaitForMultipleObjects which allows Wine to improve the performance of Windows Games." (1)

It's a bit of a worry seeing this cited as the main use case for futex2, given that the last I heard from Zebidiah (developer of the "fsync" patchset) on that topic was:
"this isn't really accurate" (2) ... "it is an out-of-tree implementation" (2) ... and "will remain out-of-tree due to compatibility and robustness problems" (2)

Before going on to say:
"I believe there is potential for an upstreamable implementation
which does not rely on futex or futex2." (2)

These quotes are from an older thread post to the kernel mailing list, but were in response to using Wine as justification for the inclusion of futex2.

(1) https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/163572864413.3357115.7664423060313420054.tglx@xen13/ [External Link]
(2) https://lkml.org/lkml/2021/6/4/20 [External Link]

Presumably something must have changed or someone else must have had a different opinion or it wouldn't now be going into the kernel.
I do get the impression there have been significant revisions to the implementation over time.

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I happen to have just finished the base game. It was fun, but I might wait a bit before doing any DLC.

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Well, I use Mint . . . I'll check in a year or two to see if the repository has this update . . . :grin:

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I'm kind of surprised they didn't go for the pun. Y'know, call it "TerraforMars"

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Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: tuubiBecause I think it matters. I often vote with my wallet.

I can respect that! I did the same, before Proton. Man I have so many barely played indies in my library from that period. :D

Quoting: tuubiBesides, even with that self-imposed "limitation", I can barely keep my wishlist below a couple of hundred titles at any given time.

If smaller indie games is your thing then strictly speaking you hardly need Steam Play at all? That's my impression.

No, I don't need Steam Play. I wouldn't say smaller indies are "my thing" though. I will buy bigger budget games if they interest me and if they support my platform, just like I've done in the past.

I end up functionally with a bias towards "indies" just because I tend to like strategy games and there's no such thing as an AAA strategy game. If there were I'd probably buy it--I buy Civ games and Paradox games, which is as high end as strategy gets; it's just lucky for me that's not quite high end enough to ignore Linux. Makes it pretty easy for me to stick mostly to native titles.
I did eventually give in and buy Galactic Civilizations III. So far I can't get it to run under Proton, but it's been a while since I tried, maybe I should give it another shot.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: XpanderThanks for explanation.

The modesetting driver part i could search myself also, but my point actually was that there are so many little things. like if you search for what modesetting driver is, then you get anther set of questions. What is KMS what is DRM..then you search for this and even more new questions arise :)

Yes, that's how 'learning' works - step by step :smile:

Yeah, except their point is that it's a situation where you don't get to learn step by step. Learning about one step tells you nothing meaningful because it's presented in a way that leaves it meaningless unless you learn about this other step, which in turn tells you nothing unless you learn about still other steps.

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So how many lakes do they have now? Seems like they've got a bloody district worth.

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