Who Wants SteamOS?

[MajinCry]

@Ryan Klug

Sure, at idle. But when you throw in gaming, there is other stuff that eats up the CPU. I don't know the technical side of it, however. Someone else should be able to inform you.

 

[eodeo]

If it still requires a real PC with real windows and games installed- why would I bother with SteamOS? I just don't understand whats it for.

 

[BigMack70]

Yeah... I don't get all the thumbs down here. The only thing holding most computer literate folks from going to 100% linux is gaming, which still pretty much necessitates Windows.

If Valve can indeed provide a viable gaming OS, I think it will make a noticeable dent in Windows market share - probably not huge, but more than the 0.5-1% or whatever it normally is.

I'm not convinced Valve can get enough devs to make their games for Linux, though. Somehow I just don't see EA or Activision or any other such names developing SteamOS compatible games.

 

[taurine]

I think the more important aspect of SteamOS is that it will allow the Steambox to MUCH lighter hardware wise, and therefore cheaper, since all you'll be doing with it is sync'ing with your PC and streaming games to it.

The other big thing that could come of this is that it could have a HUGE impact on dev's making games on linux if this eventually takes off.

 

[Darkk]

I am all for the SteamOS and hope it takes off. I am curious if we can customize the OS like we can with other linux distro?

 

[Aris Vasilopoulos]

what if this means that your laptop can be a SteamOS laptop and you can stream your desktop games from your laptop anywhere with internet..... that would be incredible.

 

[Nilo BP]

Maybe I'm looking at things too much from a die-hard desktopper's point of view, but I find this article to be misleading. My major beefs being:

#1 - I have to connect it to a TV? The heck? I didn't see anything like that in Valve's announcement. There's hardly a dime's worth of difference between a TV and a desktop monitor nowadays anyway.

#2 - the part about Linux being lighter than chronically bloated Windows is true, technically, but what's the impact of that? The primary bottleneck in the overwhelming majority of gaming situations today is the GPU, and background processes don't eat that up. The major relief I see with fewer processes comes from tidiness, not performance gains.

#3 - finally: the one thing stopping Linux from taking Windows head on in gaming is the lack of a powerful, practical and ubiquitous platform for developers. Valve is promising to bring just that to the table, but I saw hardly a mention of that in the text.

I know, I know, Tom's Guide is not geared towards enthusiasts, the company's focusing on casual family audiences, yadda yadda yadda. But really, I felt like this article doesn't do justice to what Valve is trying to accomplish.

 

[joaompp]

If it supports 3 monitor 3600x1920 and sli then sign me up for beta, if not I'll just wait for the official release. Either way, I'm dying to see this in action. A couple of years ago I got WoW running on an Ubuntu system thru wine and the overall performance was superior on the same box compared to windows.

 

[jimmysmitty]

First off I will say I love VALVe. I have every game they have made, buy pretty much only via Steam and sign up for every beta I can find from them.

That said, I can appreciate what they are doing. Its great that they are trying to pave the way into an area not often traveled. But the main issue with Linux for me is support. Since its free there is almost no support for it.

I am fine with Windows for gaming. If the SteamBox comes to be I might use it to replace my current HTPC and will try Windows 8 and SteamOS on it.

I think my biggest problem is that the article acts like having Windows run on a PC causes games to perform slower when in reality most games don't use more than 2-4 cores at best. And by the time that they do we will have 8 or more cores be the standard.

 

[spectrewind]

Did I miss something?

Has this new OS sidestepped the need for DirectX and, in some cases, DotNet? WINE is not the answer here.

I think asking devs to back-port to something Linux fork compatible is a tall order, to say nothing of the financials needed to accomplish this.

 

[g-unit1111]

Man how many more operating systems do we need? There's Steam OS, Firefox OS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, Windows RT, Ubuntu, I could go on and on.

 

[Bloob]

+10 to anyone who is capable of installing (and sharing how) SteamOS on XBone or PS4.

 

[falchard]

I think considering Steams transition to target indies, we will see a good amount of games make the transition to OpenGL. Will this affect AAA, not really. Most AAA games are already developed n OpenGL and DirectX to target both consoles. Depending on the popularity of the OS, AAA publishers will also make the effort to offer games on Steam OS. Money is Money, if you can make it might as well.

 

[elexor]

You guys do realize steamos is only supporting games that are currently on steam for linux which is only around 100 mostly indie titles and that the 3000 supported games have to be streamed from a windows pc right.

 

[elexor]

You guys do realize steamos is only supporting games that are currently on steam for linux which is only around 100 mostly indie titles and that the 3000 supported games have to be streamed from a windows pc right.

 

[rahul18348]

HL3 exclusive on SteamOS

 

[neiroatopelcc]

I've got an old laptop system (c2d, 2GB,i965 chip) in a drawer somewhere that I use for settlers 4 only. Once the OS is released I'll try it out on it.

 

[schriss]

I will wait for actual FPS benchmarks of the same game running under SteamOS and windows, on the same hardware. (even if one will be a port of another, it will still be some indication if this SteamOS really provides 1-2 extra FPS or none at all)

 

[fauzanafandi]

I hope this product will carry most, if not all Steam games

 

[maddogfargo]

Obvious FUD bias is obvious.

Linux is rock solid. Glad to see Valve recognizing the potential, taking the risk, and using good practices in this endeavor.

If Steam OS works well, plays my games and media, and saves me from the expense of buying yet another windows license...I'll be using it.