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The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
11,925
And then they will make more shitty ports that take a year to release. Game has 48% user score right now.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
First Discord, now Twitch: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-08-18-valve-accidentally-launches-steam-tv-early

Valve accidentally launches Steam.tv early

Overnight, Valve accidentally launched Steam.tv - what looks like a take on Twitch - early. The company pulled the website offline shortly after, but not before people got a chance to play around with it.

jpg

Steam Broadcasting as it currently looks - that is, pretty uninspired.

Cnet went hands-on with Steam.tv in the hour or so that it was online, and said it was showing The International - the big Dota 2 tournament that's going on right now.

Accessible via Steam.tv is the new Steam Chat friends list and group chats, Cnet reports, and you're able to watch videos with friends. There's voice chat, too.

In a statement issued to press, Valve described Steam.tv as an update to Steam Broadcasting done for the main event of The International, which downplays the "Twitch competitor" reaction some have had.

"We are working on updating Steam Broadcasting for the Main Event of The International, Dota 2's annual tournament," Valve said.

"What people saw was a test feed that was inadvertently made public."

It looks like Valve is reviving Steam Broadcasting, which we haven't heard about for quite a while, with a far more advanced streaming offering. Whether this is the company's first step toward taking on Twitch remains to be seen, but given The International's main event is set for next weekend, we won't have long to try out Steam.tv ourselves.
 
Last edited:
Self-Ejected

unfairlight

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 20, 2017
Messages
4,092
Meant to be more of a standalone thing that aims to actually compete with Twitch instead of being so barebones as it is now.
 

Latelistener

Arcane
Joined
May 25, 2016
Messages
2,579
First Discord. Now Twitch
Valve adds a new interface to the chat (which already had group chats and voice support for like 10 years) — Valve's copying Discord!
Valve adds a streaming site for the broadcast service they already had for several years — Valve's copying Twitch!

What's next?
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Twitch wants to branch out from gaming, something which was strictly forbidden for their streamers until now, so maybe there's an opportunity to push a gaming only streaming service.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
The hunt is on.

#10 - DOOM
#9 - Overcooked! 2
#8 - Grand Theft Auto V
#7 - Sniper Elite 4
#6 - Dead Cells
#5 - Monster Hunter: World - Deluxe Kit
#4 - No Man's Sky
#3 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#2 - Monster Hunter: World [pre-order]
#1 - MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD

Tomb Clancy's Phantom: Hunt, Theft, Strike on the Graveyard Battlegrounds around the World:

#10 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
#9 - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
#8 - Hunt Showdown
#7 - Phantom Doctrine
#6 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
#5 - Grand Theft Auto V
#4 - Rise of the Tomb Raider
#3 - Graveyard Keeper
#2 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#1 - MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.pcgamer.com/valves-new-streaming-platform-steamtv-is-officially-live-now/

Valve's new streaming website, Steam.tv, is officially live now
Valve is only showing The International for now, but there's a lot more to come.

Late last week, Steam.tv popped into existence and then quickly popped out, but not before the internet noticed that Valve had silently launched a new streaming website—cuing speculation that it plans to take on Twitch. Today, Valve has properly launched Steam.tv.

If you head to Steam.tv now, you'll find a live broadcast of the 2018 Dota 2 International, and some nice, simple features. You can scrub through the stream like you can during YouTube livestreams, and even better, team fights are marked on the timeline so you can jump to the highlights. You can also log in with your Steam account and either join the main chat, or create group chats with folks from your Steam friends list.

Watching pro Dota 2 is, of course, not where Valve plans to stop with Steam.tv and in-client broadcasting. "This Dota 2 centered update to Steam Broadcasting currently includes some custom elements to support The International," reads Valve's blog post. "After the tournament we plan to extend Watch Party support for all games that are broadcasting on Steam and expose a new broadcast Steamworks API to Steam partners."

With such a big library of games and massive user count, Valve has a lot of power to improve on livestreaming here. If it can make streaming more convenient via reliable tools within the Steam client, and also give developers lots of room to customize how their games are streamed (the Dota 2 highlight markers are presumably just the beginning), it may be a real force in the scene. One place Valve doesn't have as much experience, however, is in Twitch's monetization plans—though I don't doubt Valve can figure out how to make and share money, as it does in the Steam Marketplace (and just by selling games, of course, which streaming promotes).

We'll keep a close eye on new developments as Valve expands its broadcasting platform.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410#announcements/detail/1696055855739350561
Introducing a new version of Steam Play
posted by Pierre-Loup @ 11:40PM on August 21, 2018
In 2010, we announced Steam Play: a way for Steam users to access Windows, Mac and Linux versions of Steam games with a single purchase. More than 3000 of the games that have been added to Steam after that point have included Linux support, with more titles being added every day. Since then, we've continued to look for ways to make more titles easily accessible to Linux users.

So, two years ago, we started an effort to improve the quality and performance of Windows compatibility solutions for Steam games. A lot of our work has been in the form of supporting Wine[www.winehq.org] and other existing compatibility projects. We have also been integrating these tools into the Steam client to provide the same simple plug-and-play experience offered by regular Linux games.

Our goal for this work is to let Linux Steam users enjoy easy access to a larger back catalog. We think it will also allow future developers to easily leverage their work from other platforms to target Linux. This would give them the option of focusing on areas that would make a meaningful experience difference for all users instead, such as supporting Vulkan[www.khronos.org].

As a result of this work, today we are releasing the Beta of a new and improved version of Steam Play to all Linux users! It includes a modified distribution of Wine, called Proton, to provide compatibility with Windows game titles. Here are some of the improvements it brings to the table:
  • Windows games with no Linux version currently available can now be installed and run directly from the Linux Steam client, complete with native Steamworks and OpenVR support.
  • DirectX 11 and 12 implementations are now based on Vulkan, resulting in improved game compatibility and reduced performance impact.
  • Fullscreen support has been improved: fullscreen games will be seamlessly stretched to the desired display without interfering with the native monitor resolution or requiring the use of a virtual desktop.
  • Improved game controller support: games will automatically recognize all controllers supported by Steam. Expect more out-of-the-box controller compatibility than even the original version of the game.
  • Performance for multi-threaded games has been greatly improved compared to vanilla Wine.
b7d725ea1a57c7f4b7992efaea0c10f3450a0ec1.png


This goes hand-in-hand with an ongoing testing effort of the entire Steam catalog, in order to identify games that currently work great in this compatibility environment, and find and address issues for the ones that don't. The initial set of supported games that we are enabling with this initial Beta release is as follows:
We will be enabling more titles in the near future as testing results and development efforts progress; in the meantime, enthusiast users are also able to try playing non-whitelisted games using an override switch in the Steam client. Going forward, users can vote for their favorite games to be considered for Steam Play using platform wishlisting.

Steam Play whitelisted games will not be offered for purchase or marked as supported on Linux on the Store during the initial Beta period.

Proton, the tool that Steam Play uses to provide Windows compatibility, contains a custom version of Wine as well as additional libraries developed alongside it. It's fully open-source and available right now on GitHub[github.com]!

If you're familiar with building open source projects, you can even make your own local builds of Proton; the Steam client has support for using those to run games in lieu of the built-in version. Join the discussion in the issue tracker and share your patches and testing results with the rest of the community!

e8f273314d536714c2d33edada3229f5967a2266.png


Q: What do I need to get started?

Not much; here's what to keep in mind:
Q: What is Proton exactly? How does it differ from normal Wine? Who worked on it?

Proton is a tool distribution based on a modified version of Wine. The included improvements to Wine have been designed and funded by Valve, in a joint development effort with CodeWeavers. Here are some examples of what we've been working on together since 2016:
  • vkd3d[source.winehq.org], the Direct3D 12 implementation based on Vulkan
  • The OpenVR and Steamworks native API bridges
  • Many wined3d performance and functionality fixes for Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 11
  • Overhauled fullscreen and gamepad support
  • The "esync[github.com]" patchset, for multi-threaded performance improvements
Modifications to Wine are submitted upstream if they're compatible with the goals and requirements of the larger Wine project; as a result, Wine users have been benefiting from parts of this work for over a year now. The rest is available as part of our source code repository for Proton and its modules.

In addition to that, we've been supporting the development of DXVK[github.com], the Direct3D 11 implementation based on Vulkan; the nature of this support includes:
  • Employing the DXVK developer in our open-source graphics group since February 2018
  • Providing direct support from our open-source graphics group to fix Mesa driver issues affecting DXVK, and provide prototype implementations of brand new Vulkan features to improve DXVK functionality
  • Working with our partners over at Khronos, NVIDIA, Intel and AMD to coordinate Vulkan feature and driver support
Q: What is the performance like?

A performance difference is to be expected for games where graphics API translation is required, but there is no fundamental reason for a Vulkan title to run any slower.

Q: Are there any games that will never work with Proton?

It's likely that some games using complex DRM or anti-cheat systems will be difficult, or even impossible to support.

Q: When will additional game titles marked as compatible with the new Steam Play?

We'll whitelist new batches of games as testing progresses, with no set cadence. New games will be added to the system without requiring a Steam Client update.

Q: Can I try a game with Proton even if it's not marked as compatible?

Yes; head to the Steam Play options of your Steam Client and you'll be able to enable it for all games.

Q: Any plans for macOS support?

While Wine and Proton work on macOS, there are no plans to support the new Steam Play functionality on macOS at the moment.

Q: I'm a developer; if my game is already supporting Linux, does this change anything?

Probably not; if you've already ported your common code or are using an engine that supports Linux, keep doing what you're doing, you're good to go.

Q: I'm a developer; I wasn't planning on targeting Linux, how can I best leverage the new Steam Play?

We recommend you target Vulkan natively in order to offer the best possible performance on all platforms, or at least offer it as an option if possible. It's also a good idea to avoid any invasive third-party DRM middleware, as they sometimes prevent compatibility features from working as intended.

Q: I'm a developer; my game got whitelisted in Steam Play; does this mean I have to support an additional platform?

No; if a game was whitelisted as a result of our testing, we've assessed the experience to be identical (save for an expected moderate performance impact). Users playing through Steam Play experiencing Linux-specific issues should be directed to Steam for support. Keep in mind users were most likely already playing your game using Wine; you just have better visibility into it now.
 

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
11,925
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/artic...ich-includes-a-modified-version-of-wine.12400

Fuck yeah! Valve is terrified of Microsoft creating an "app store" for Windows and shutting them out, so they've been putting tons of effort into making Linux a viable gaming platform. Most of their prior work was making future games easier on Linux, now they are straight up making older games run.
There already is an app store for Windows and Microsoft has been trying to do that for years now, dumbass.
They even had games as timed exclusives, or fuckups such as owners of the app store version unable to play with users of the Steam one.
 

Latelistener

Arcane
Joined
May 25, 2016
Messages
2,579
id Software could've ported Doom to Linux by themselves. It's already running on OpenGL / Vulkan.
I understand why they didn't, but it still could've been an interesting experiment for them and for us.

With the amount of sheeps we have I doubt any OS will topple Windows 10 though.
Linux-based OS is a viable solution, but Valve need to work on it constantly and even pay for Linux / Vulkan ports.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/artic...ich-includes-a-modified-version-of-wine.12400

Fuck yeah! Valve is terrified of Microsoft creating an "app store" for Windows and shutting them out, so they've been putting tons of effort into making Linux a viable gaming platform. Most of their prior work was making future games easier on Linux, now they are straight up making older games run.
There already is an app store for Windows and Microsoft has been trying to do that for years now, dumbass.
They even had games as timed exclusives, or fuckups such as owners of the app store version unable to play with users of the Steam one.
It worth mentioning that Microsoft couldn't make a usable game store even if their lives depended on it. One just has to look the current Windows Store, which is ridiculed by the whole industry.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Tomb Clancy's Phantom: Hunt, Theft, Strike on the Graveyard Battlegrounds around the World:

#10 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
#9 - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
#8 - Hunt Showdown
#7 - Phantom Doctrine
#6 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
#5 - Grand Theft Auto V
#4 - Rise of the Tomb Raider
#3 - Graveyard Keeper
#2 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#1 - MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD

Another week, another boring list. Also Phantom Doctrine is out:

#10 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
#9 - Frostpunk
#8 - Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
#7 - Dying Light Enhanced Edition
#6 - Graveyard Keeper
#5 - F1 2018
#4 - Grand Theft Auto V
#3 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
#2 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#1 - MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
It relies on a seemingly unstable equilibrium where most developers don't do that. If everything went all caps, Valve would probably have to make a rule against it.
 

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