Latest Microsoft news showed us what Valve knew already for all this time - they need SteamOS/Steam Machines, badly. It is not about Linux vs. Windows anymore, it is about Valve being able to manage their business model using PCs. Microsoft wants to take it away. Valve will use SteamOS/Steam Machine combo (along side with other gadgets) to carve out their own playground in long term.

This is long haul folks. Stop reading sensacional articles - or make ones. Let's concentrate on quality. We don't need 2000 games on Steam playable on Linux - I want to know how much are recommended, I want to read good reviews, I want everything to be visible to anyone buying Steam Machine, or installing Linux and Steam Client for first time.

As for Steam Survey goes considering how inconsistent it really is on Linux client I really doubt they are representative. Also actual numbers of Linux gamers *is* growing. It is visible everywhere. Companies keep porting games like crazy and cite good will from community and considerable stable numbers of sales. Now as OS X is dying is slow, painful death as PC gaming platform, Linux is really one and only alternative.

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Quoting: nocri

Quoting: TheRiddickWith NVIDIAS Vulkan driver does it treat every GPU you have as a resource? do games benefit with multiple GPUs yet under Vulkan?

Just wondering because SLI under Linux has always been a bit shaky at times. (better then AMD whom don't support XF or Vulakn atm)

Vulkan offers implementation of multiGPU setups -- it is up to the developer to use it in the engine. With Vulkan it is possible that if you have NVIDIA and Intel GPU's one can be use to render the scene and the other for openCL computations (so physic etc.). However, both GPU's doing the rendering is not so viable atm as the framebuffer needs to be copied for one card to the other (as far as i understand the specification, the frame buffer has to be copied via CPU so GPU framebuffer -> GPU -> PCIexpress -> Interruption -> CPU cache -> CPU -> PCI express -> GPU -> GPU framebuffer [kind of long way :)]). With multimonitor-multiGPU that would work perfectly (with lot of work from developers :) ). The current implementation AFAIK is not able to take advantage of SLI or Xfire buses (probably there will be some extensions from vendors).

Shader compiling could be spread on all GPUs and CPUs available though.

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Quoting: sarmadOn the other hand, Microsoft probably is doing what it's doing for the same reason that made Valve create SteamOS which is to protect their customer base. With mobile devices growing bigger than ever and Linux maturing Windows is set to lose more and more customers every year and so Microsoft is trying to move into a different model similar to that of Apple, because otherwise it will be hard for Windows to compete if they don't lock their customers into a complete ecosystem that goes beyond just Windows.

It worked well for them with Internet (yes, it is sarcasm). Practically it is Firefox and Internet Explorer all over again. If Valve will play their cards right, Microsoft will lose this fight - again. It's like Windows Phone has never happened.

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It was quite obvious Microsoft will move forward with their intentions about united store. Interesting however is exclusivity bits. It seems to be a direct hit aimed at Valve. I suspect that Gabe even had insider info regarding this, so that explains Valve calm behavior and not suddenly assuming Microsoft has changed their stance. Turned out, Microsoft really doesn't change their plans. What's good though that this pause in decision making and implementation has given time for Valve and vendors to make Steam Machine a reality, and slowly moving towards improving it step by step.

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Nice and quick updates. Thanks to Linux team at Valve!

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Quoting: amonobeax

Quoting: PeciskSteam Machine is dead! Vulkan is dead!....errrrr......yay?

What?

It was tongue in-cheek joke about how complains how Vulkan is forever delayed and too late, how Steam Machine never gonna pick up and Valve has abandoned it.

Very excited about PR push of Vulkan and nice and steady improvements of SteamOS/Steam Machine stack.

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Steam Machine is dead! Vulkan is dead!....errrrr......yay?

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Quoting: STiAT

I really do hope this doesn't turn into OpenGL all over again with such extensions, but only time will tell.

Oh, that we'll certainly see. The same as the windows drivers offer features not being in DirectX (in example the NVidia HarWorks). That are selling points for the hardware vendors, patented things to get into games, make games look better on their hardware and getting their logo into the loading screens.

Nvidia HairWorks aren't drivers, but shader libraries which offer developers not to write their own libraries for drawing fur/hair (in this case). They are optimized and generate code which works perfectly with Nvidia drivers...big surprise.

AMD did a write thing starting their own libraries and open sourcing them (they are now compatible with DirectX, but I expect OpenGL/Vulkan variants to land sooner or later). In long term I see more usefulness from such software, as being open source encourages developers to share and improve such relatively generic techniques used by everyone. Nvidia however have complete devs attention at this moment, and when devs want to cut corners, obviously Nvidia deals are very tempting. AMD have lot of homework to do before fortune turns to their side.

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Quoting: Sabun

Quoting: NyamiouDid anyone saw their video featuring the Linux logo as big as Windows :
View video on youtube.com

If only a large image of the Linux logo was all it took to mean actual proper on-time Linux support. Sadly, that's not the case. Nvidia parades their technologies on Ubuntu when doing live conferences. Slapping a logo into a video can be done by any vendor.

Right now, those of us with AMD cards have once again nothing but vague promises that something will come sometime in the future. That future driver may not even support pre-GCN 1.2 cards, which is very bad at this point. It feels like things are deteriorating rapidly right now.

First the Crimson driver let down, now this. I cannot hold onto my 390 with confidence anymore.

Can you AMD supporters cut the drama for once? When AMD gets criticized objectively for having performance issues, it's Nvidia who's guilty (and sometime it is, but not for everything). Now AMD is bad because they take their time with getting their own turf in order.

It's tiresome.

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Sounds like AMD is actually proud of their work on Vulkan. As I said, if they do release first Vulkan driver and it works amazingly well and performs well, all current moans are just moot. Let's give them time to finish all restructuring they have do to get this working.

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