Sadly, the Steam Controller isn't working as well for me anymore in SteamOS -- except for the menu navigation in BPM. Games like Mad Max recognised it as an Xbox gamepad until a few days ago, now 'nada'.

This is with the latest stable builds on a freshly installed machine.

Controller support in SteamOS is a mess all over the place ATM. Just imagine a 'regular' console guy with no background knowledge of Linux dealing with this shit. Sony or Microsoft would have been tarred and feathered for this.

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Yes, recent Kernel updates completely broke PS3 and PS4 controllers on SteamOS. I can confirm that from my own experience. My DualShock 4 is only working in SteamOS menus at the moment.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeHas anyone done a side by side comparison of graphics for a PC vs Mac to see if they 'console-ize' Mac versions? I know I tried playing Total War: Attila on my Mac and the fan went crazy, the frame rate was barely more than a slide show, and I thought it was going to melt. I just figured the Intel chipset in it couldn't handle it, but it did make me wonder what kind of person uses solely a Mac for gaming? I'm really curious how their numbers are higher than ours, unless it is some sort of 'inside job'.

There has always been a group of dedicated Mac gaming enthusiasts -- just visit insidemacgames.com and learn more about the topic. Most 'hardcore' Mac gamers used to buy the old-school expandable Mac Pro (which still supports the latest Kepler GPUs) or the high-end iMac, which usually has a decent graphics card (the Nvidia 680MX in the 2012 model was the fastest mobile GPU available back then).

Most Mac users nowadays run a MacBook (Pro). Thanks to official eGPU support (Apple offers a dev kit with an AMD RX580) this won't be a bottleneck in the foreseeable future. My own experiences with unofficially supported eGPUs on the Mac have been mixed. It worked after some Terminal hacks, but the official solution should be stable.

If you ask me to portray an average Mac gaming enthusiast? Creative professional (designer, audio/video editor, etc.), scientist or student who needs a reliable working machine with little to no support costs, well designed (both OS and device), standard software support and likes to play games in his/her spare time. All on one box. Some dual-boot with Windows (Boot Camp), but the majority doesn't. Only half of them use Steam, the remaining 50 % buy their games off of the Mac App Store (according to Feral's numbers).

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Quoting: ShmerlYes, we disagree. Lock-in is not right, and what Apple is doing is crooked. Lock-in means they don't compete on merit, but use anti-competitive methods to advance their interests. It's one of the monopolistic practices (among many others). I don't think we need to spend time here explaining why monopolies are bad from a lot of different perspectives. If anyone, Linux users should know better.

Apple is not a monopolist in any market, unlike Microsoft and Google. They hold 6–7 % of the desktop and around 30 % of the mobile market, which is significant, but not threatening to other players.

What you don't get is that they are not comparable to self-proclaimed 'open platform holders' like Microsoft or Canonical. It's not Apple's intention to please you or the whole market. They're not a charity. Apple builds products for their own ecosystem: All-in-one systems, hard and software combined, be it an Apple Watch, iPhone or iMac.

They don't license out their OS, no other vendors need to support their stuff, no one is forced to follow their steps. If you want to spend some quality time in their sandbox, play by their rules. If not, move on, there are many other options: Android, ChromeOS, Windows, Linux, etc.

It's Apple's core concept to control everything within their ecosystem (or walled garden, if you prefer that term) to deliver a smooth user experience and sell them more devices and services tied to their Apple IDs. Amazon is another company like them, Sony and Nintendo are comparable in certain areas.

A Mac per se is not a build-your-own system PC -- it is a 'console-like' device for consumers and creative professionals: Pre-configured, all in one, plug and play. It just works. That's what Apple sells. They are the opposite pole of the Linux community, Microsoft is somewhere in the middle.

If you realise and accept that 'convenience' companies like Apple have a right to exist, you can stop your crusade and focus your energy on solutions how we as a community and educated consumers can make Linux more successful, which will ultimately benefit the whole tech market.

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: GuestAT NO POINT did AMD ever announce that they planned to donate or open it.

This is incorrect. AMD from the start communicated the intention to make it open eventually. Everyone knew it, and AMD indeed did it, by giving Mantle to become Vulkan's base. So both Apple and MS knew very well it's coming. That's why they rushed so much to produce their lock-in NIHs.

This is speculation.

Even Apple cannot develop a brand new graphics API within six months and then suddenly release it. I'm pretty sure Metal's been in the making for a long time before Mantle was even thought of. And its main target was indeed mobile, macOS came later.

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Quoting: ShmerlDidn't Feral above claimed, that MacOS sales are higher than Linux sales? It means as I said, engine and game developers would prioritze it more, and the fact that they don't use Vulkan would mean Vulkan development will get lest time in result.

I think this is a specific Aspyr/Feral issue, because they are mainly Mac porting houses. But in general if an engine like Unity supports both Vulkan and Metal -- where's the problem for the original developers?

In the end it usually comes down to costs of support. We've had this discussion regarding Dear Esther: Landmark Edition, which was re-built in Unity. It's relatively easy to run the game in a Linux Unity Player, but the developers don't release it on Linux because they are afraid of the support effort.

This has nothing to do with the graphics technology, it's simply about market share and after sales. If they believe 2 % is not worth the effort, then they won't release a Linux version.

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Quoting: ShmerlLock-in has no impact only if those who push it are small players. Apple are far from small, they quite unfortunately have significant influence on various markets. So their anti-competitive moves cause actual damage (slowing down progress and so on). "That's how they roll" doesn't justify it in any way. You can repeat that "no agenda" argument, but it doesn't change the fact of actual damage caused.

Apple is a giant in mobile, but a dwarf on the desktop. If we're still discussing graphics APIs for demanding PC games I don't think the argument of "Apple is slowing down progress" is strong enough. How could they? They are only a fraction of the market and don't offer gaming specific hardware.

Microsoft and DirectX on the other hand is a different case. They're the elephant in the room of PC gaming and a big player in the console space with Xbox. I guess DirectX > Vulkan conversion and feature parity is the deciding factor for Linux in the future, not a handful of Metal titles.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyYour last paragraph is almost certainly true. But it does not actually counter anything anyone else is saying. If I have chickenpox and cancer, it is the cancer that is killing me--but it doesn't mean the chickenpox isn't there, or that it's wrong of me to ever complain about the chickenpox.

That's true, but I listed several important open source technologies which Apple mainly contributed to or developed themselves. One of them is the foundation of their operating system and another the standard programming language on iOS and macOS.

However, I'm not Apple's advocate or lawyer, it's not my duty to defend their business moves. Apple going all-in on Vulkan would have been my choice, I have stated this several times before.

But they decided to do their own thing -- again, like a thousand times before.

They built their entire business on integrated, relatively closed down systems. It's how they roll. This might be wrong for you and me and Linux geek 52 on stackoverflow, but it doesn't influence Linux' success in a meaningful way.

Valve bravely ventured into Linux gaming to fight 'evil and locked-down' Microsoft. What's left three years later? No Witcher 3, no Street Fighter V, broken promises and a confusing, failed Steam Machines campaign.

I like SteamOS, run it daily on my couch PC, it just got another stable update two days ago. Dig what Valve still does. But will it really change anything?

Not until someone finally goes all-in on Linux/SteamOS and treats it as a priority project.

Linux gaming's problem is not Apple or Microsoft having a hidden agenda against open source -- it's no one in the Linux world is having any gaming related agenda at all.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeAnd why wouldn't they have a hidden agenda against Desktop Linux? How many in the tech industry use Macs because they have a Unix-like environment underneath the shiny bits? Windows is just not good at administrating thousands of Linux servers. Macs are almost good enough if you can tolerate older versions of bash / python, etc. If it weren't for Apple lock-in for these people, I'm sure there would be more Desktop Linux users.

I use Linux daily on my own PC, but I cannot put it on the machines of our employees because the software we need to run our business is simply not available for Linux. Fact.

The Mac for us is like the best of both worlds: Great hardware and software design, reliable and well supported, but still customisable thanks to the proper UNIX foundation. The ROI is convincing, ask our CFO.

Personally, I don't know a single person in the tech and startup world leading a vendetta against free software and Linux adaption on desktop. We all use it to run our servers and web services – we've got Ubuntu, Debian, elementary, etc. running in VMs and on certain machines.

But my people want Photoshop, not Gimp and Final Cut Pro and some like Excel, even though I don't like MS Office either. We're a 'choose your fave OS' kinda employer. But 99 % of people pick a MacBook Pro over a System76 equivalent running Ubuntu for example. Of course, we're just a super tiny fraction of the creative/tech market -- but that's been our experience in the last 15, 17 years.

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[quote=Shmerl]

Quoting: JanConsider other cases (besides graphics). Apple didn't join Alliance for Open Media (while even MS did). Apple refused to support WebRTC in desktop Safari, they refused to support MSE, trying to sabotage adoption of DASH, and so on and so forth. The bottom line, they are the most notorious lock-in jerks around and they are causing a lot of damage to the industry because of that.

What about CUPS, WebKit, Swift, Darwin, OpenCL/Grand Central, Bonjour/Zeroconf, USB-C/Thunderbolt, FireWire, embracing of HTML5 instead of Flash, etc.?

I have the impression certain people like to cherry pick a lot just to find another reason to bash 'Evil Apple' instead of focusing on the real reasons why Linux adaption in gaming and on the desktop in general is lacking.

Apple is not preventing Linux from succeeding.

The lack of software people actually want and use on a daily basis (e.g. Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office) and no flagship hardware/software company with an attractive Linux-specific product is more important than anything coming out of Cupertino.

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