Search results matching tags 'Valve' and 'Steam'

RE: Valve: Left 4 Dead 2 Runs Faster on Linux than Windows 7

mhenriday — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 12:31:02 GMT

We aims to please ! By the way, kudos for the great work you did with the old school computers....

Henri

PS : Do you think, realneil, that it might be possible to convince the OP to correct that minor error I described in the PS to my first posting to the present thread ? I know I shouldn't let small things like that bother me, but for some reason it grates....

RE: Valve: Left 4 Dead 2 Runs Faster on Linux than Windows 7

mhenriday — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 21:50:09 GMT

«Too bad there's 1) no proof of this and 2) no test specs. For all we know that linux system could've been running a far more beasty GPU and CPU.» 1) depends, JvanHummel, upon what one is willing to accept as proof. As regards 2), there are indeed specs, available here : http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/. For those who can't be arsed to paste the URL into their browsers, the reported test specs were as follows :

Hardware

    Intel Core i7 3930k
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680
    32 GB RAM

Software

    Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit
    Left 4 Dead 2
    Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit

The surprising thing here is that even running on a 32-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04, which means that no more than 12 % of the massive 32 GB RAM could be used, the game still ran some 16 % faster on Ubuntu than on Windows 7. Valve says it will run the game on a 64-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 «later» ; it will be interesting to see the results....

Henri

RE: Valve: Left 4 Dead 2 Runs Faster on Linux than Windows 7

mhenriday — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 10:34:39 GMT

I'm no gamer and cannot address this issue directly, but I can say that generally speaking, identical applications that can run on both platforms run faster and more smoothly on 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 on my dualboot machine with Ubuntu and (64-bit) Windows 7 Pro. So I'm not particularly surprised that this should be the case for this particular game....

Henri

PS : «Valve has been testing Left 4 Dead 2 on a system running a 32-bit version of Ubuntu 32-bit, ...» in the article should, of course, be «Valve has been testing Left 4 Dead 2 on a system running a 32-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04, ...»

Re: Counterstrike Source Overhaul

3vi1 — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:31:22 GMT

Yeah, I'm hoping the same thing but trying to keep my expectations in check. Valve's silence (rather than outright denial) plus the partially-functioning alpha version of Steam for Linux found on their site shows that at least they're considering it. They probably don't want to commit to anything because they have limited resources working on it and no idea when/if it will ever be complete. I'm thinking X-mas would be a great release date, but it might be X-mas 2012 if it's just one guy working on it in "spare" time.

A Linux release is something that would make a lot of sense for Valve - more so than for a lot of other companies. I've seen other indie games ported to Linux where the additional sales more than pay for the port, and these are single games using unique engines. It seems like Valve is in a good spot to make a lot of money if they've got an orangebox version of Source for Linux waiting in the wings. Plus, it would prime Steam as a distribution channel of 3rd party for-pay Linux software.

Oh well, we'll just have to wait to see what happens and keep using Wine or dual-booting until then.

RE: Valve Introduces Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing DLC, New Weekly "Mutations"

3vi1 — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:48:44 GMT

[quote user="bob_on_the_cob"]All of them Valve included would much rather you buy the game again. [/quote]

My argument to Valve on this was that there's no profit in that logic because most people won't buy another copy of a game they already own and are not actively playing. And, the first time customers realize this limitation they will be encouraged to buy boxed copies of future games instead - cutting Valve out of sales (of non-Valve games) completely. Adding this feature to Steam would eliminate the benefits of getting the boxed copy instead and make Steam much more appealing.

As with all technical systems - they could give publishers the ability to opt-in/out for specific games. That's fine by me - I just won't buy games from publishers that opt their games out, just like today I won't buy any game via Steam unless it's got a large online multiplayer component and is being sold at an extremely discounted price.

-J

RE: Valve Introduces Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing DLC, New Weekly "Mutations"

3vi1 — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:07:00 GMT

[quote user="recoveringknowitall"]

Great idea! Don't keep quiet about it... is there a place/person to whom you can submit this idea?

[/quote]

I wasn't going to, but I did it just for you. :)

After looking around, I submitted it to the two places where I hope it might get noticed. First, I put it as Steam feedback to their support organization (asking it to be forwarded), and I also sent it directly to the Steam programmer Dan Berger.

I think I made a compelling argument that it would actually increase Steam adoption and sales instead of vice versa. So, maybe they'll actually take it under consideration.

-J

RE: Valve Introduces Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing DLC, New Weekly "Mutations"

3vi1 — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:37:34 GMT

Sorry I didn't get to play L4D with you and your bud yesterday Bob. I was letting my son use my account to play Portal at the time you guys got online.

That's the one bad thing about Steam: There's no way to transfer games. I've already beat Portal, but I can either a) buy it again for my son, or b) not be able to play *any* Steam game while I let him use my account (instead of his). I'd be promoting Valve a lot more if they would fix that, regardless of the other DRM.

What they need to do is introduce "account linking" for up to ~4 accounts, such that if I'm on Steam someone in my family can play any of my games that I (or another family member) am not currently playing.

Re: Steam for Linux for real this time?

3vi1 — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:35:39 GMT

Yeah, I'm pretty psyched too. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell if this is just a pet project of one of the devs, or if there's a set internal direction to eventually support the Linux desktop. I guess we won't really know until Valve makes an announcement.

Working on Linux support now might be a good idea simply because there are a growing number of Linux-powered mobile devices that they might want to target for potential ports.

Valve's the one company that might already know how many potential Linux sales they have. When people use Wine, CrossOver or Cedega to play their games, and click 'allow' on the poll that gathers hardware statistics, Valve can tell you're actually using Linux because of the uniquely named virtual audio devices. They probably also know that they'd get even more players if the games ran natively, because some people either don't know about Wine - or run into other issues trying to use it.

Hey Valve: Bring Source to Linux, even in an 'unsupported' fashion, and I'll be happy to spend time helping forum users with issues!

Re: Steam for Linux for real this time?

3vi1 — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:27:00 GMT

Oh my... I saw another post where a guy made some educated guesses at the URL and found THIS FILE out on Valve's servers.

I was able to download the files from the public/client directory of their store.steampowered.com server. In addition to the standard Steam directories, they contain a directory compiled for 32-bit linux (which will run on 64-bit linux transparently, as long as you have the supporting libraries)

evil@mars:~/steam$ ll linux32
total 45244
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil   335331 2010-03-10 09:08 filesystem_stdio.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil   349285 2010-03-10 09:08 filesystem_steam.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil  6510895 2010-03-10 09:08 friendsui.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil  5621893 2010-03-10 09:08 libsteam.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil   320378 2010-04-08 11:12 libtier0_s.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil   398705 2010-04-13 17:14 libvstdlib_s.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil  2416878 2010-03-10 09:08 serverbrowser.so
-rwxrwxrwx 1 evil evil  4437557 2010-03-10 09:08 steam
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil 11551709 2010-04-21 13:16 steamclient.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil  9856102 2010-03-10 09:08 steamui.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil   142579 2010-04-13 17:14 vaudio_speex.so
-rw-rw-rw- 1 evil evil  4359864 2010-03-10 09:08 vgui2_s.so

I was also able to get it to run, but unfortunately something on the server-side is not there yet.

[ 0%] !!! Fatal Error: Failed to determine download location for universe 0
[----] Verifying installation...
[ 0%] Downloading Update...
[ 0%] !!! Fatal Error: Failed to determine download location for universe 0
unlinked 0 orphaned pipes
CellID: Fetching server list from CSDS. . .
CellID: CSDS returned 164 servers.
CellID: Connecting to 68.142.100.78:27031. . .
CellID: Connect to 68.142.100.78:27031 took 100 MS
CellID: New Best!
CellID: Connecting to 193.34.49.3:27031. . .
CellID: Connect to 193.34.49.3:27031 took 190 MS
CellID: Connecting to 118.107.173.150:27031. . .
CellID: Connect to 118.107.173.150:27031 took 246 MS
Shutting down. . .
CellID: Connecting to 203.77.185.183:27031. . .
CellID: Connect to 203.77.185.183:27031 took 193 MS
CellID: Connecting to 79.141.165.2:27031. . .
CellID: Connect to 79.141.165.2:27031 took 181 MS
CellID: Connecting to 209.197.20.99:27031. . .
CellID: Connect to 209.197.20.99:27031 took 55 MS
CellID: New Best!
unlinked 2 orphaned pipes
CAsyncIOManager: 0 threads terminating. 0 reads, 0 writes, 0 deferrals.
CAsyncIOManager: 1097 single object sleeps, 0 multi object sleeps
CAsyncIOManager: 0 single object alertable sleeps, 1 multi object alertable sleeps

So...

Valve *has* made a steam client that is Linux compatible (It remains to be seen if it's complete or not).
They're actively compiling binaries that target the Linux platform.
They're putting said binaries out on their EXTERNAL web servers.

This is beginning to look serious.

Maybe Dave, Marco, or one of the others can buy Dan Berger a few drinks and get the inside scoop. His was the only ID I could find inside the binaries:

evil@mars:~/steam/linux32$ strings * | grep 'home/VALVE' | grep -v rackadmin
/home/VALVE/dberger/P4Clients/steam2_main/Projects/GazelleProto/Client/Engine/../../../Common/Logging/Src/Log.cpp
/home/VALVE/dberger/P4Clients/steam2_main/Projects/GazelleProto/Client/Engine/../../../Common/Misc/BlobRegistry.cpp
/home/VALVE/dberger/P4Clients/steam2_main/Projects/GazelleProto/Client/Engine/../../../Common/Misc/ConfigDatabase.cpp

Re: Orange Box $8.00!

Dev — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:46:13 GMT

I bought it just there now, cost in total (incl VAT) €9.99, so whatever that is in dollars I guess. Also because I already had Half Life 2 I'm allowed give it as a gift to a friend.