Nvidia Doubles Linux Driver Performance, Slips Steam Release Date 363
leppi writes "Nvidia has announced a huge increase in Linux gaming performance for their GeForce R310 drivers after almost a year of development alongside Valve and other game developer partners. Nvidia's announcement also indicated the Steam beta for Linux should be out today. Quoting: 'Available for download at www.geforce.com, the new R310 drivers were also thoroughly tested with Steam for Linux, the extension of Valve's phenomenally popular Steam gaming platform that officially opened to gamers starting today. ... Comparing 304.51 driver performance of 142.7 fps versus 310.14 driver performance of 301.4 fps in beta build of Left for Dead 2. All tests run on the same system using Intel Core i7-3930K CPU @ 3.20GHz with 8 GB memory, GeForce GTX 680 and Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit.'"
Update: 11/06 21:00 GMT by S : Valve has gone ahead and announced the Steam for Linux Beta. They've sent invites to a number of people who filled out the application, and they'll be inviting more as the test goes along. The beta test is available for installation on Ubuntu 12.04, with support for other distros to come: "We intend to support additional popular distros in the future; we’ll prioritize development for these based on user feedback."
Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing just like the last decade.
For many people the YOTLD was a long time ago.
I just hope I got selected for this beta.
Re: (Score:3)
I could not agree more, however I answered (truthfully) that my distro of choice is Gentoo which I suspect will put me at the very bottom of the list
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:5, Insightful)
I hear ya. I responded with Debian to the distro question, which I was hopeful was close enough to Ubuntu that they'd sneak me in.
The funny thing is, according to the beta announcement, "An overwhelming majority of beta applicants have reported they’re running the Ubuntu distro of Linux". I have to wonder how many of those people are actually running other distributions and said Ubuntu, and how many didn't even bother signing up, because it was widely known that Valve were targeting Ubuntu for the beta.
Re: (Score:3)
You may think of my comments as a "works for me". Nothing more.
Why you would want the non-linux users opinion on linux I don't know. I would think someone who actually uses it probably knows more about the topic.
When you tried Linux, why did you abandon it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why you would want the non-linux users opinion on linux I don't know.
Perhaps they think that if they ask "When you tried Linux, why did you abandon it?", they can squeeze some insights out of the answers about how to improve the Linux user experience.
Re: (Score:3)
Why you would want the non-linux users opinion on linux I don't know.
For the very same reason that if you wanted to know about Audi's allwheel-drive technology, you'd ask someone who owns a Cavalier (preferably one with a large spoiler and a coffeecan-sized exhaust tip). ;)
Re: (Score:3)
On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel has the Virtual Console categories with officially emulated games dating back to the fourth quarter of 1985 when the NES was released.
That's pretty amazing, especially if you aren't aware of emulation. Now, if you include emulators which run on the PC [wikipedia.org] (there are titles that come bundled with dosbox so it's point and click, ready to go, available on Steam or GOG.com like Space Quest [steampowered.com]) you have pretty much all of the systems covered since gaming began. Use a USB controller adapter [amazon.com] to enhance the experience with your actual contollers [amazon.com]. Bummer you have to rebuy your titles, it would be very cool if you could easily uniquely identify cartridges
Re: (Score:3)
I was under the impression that Nintendo tended to avoid "emulation" in marketing materials for Virtual Console so as to distance Virtual Console from community-made emulators that rely on (usually illegally traded) ROM images.
Regardless if they call it one or not it remains a software based emulator [wikipedia.org]. It's unfortunate the duration of copyright otherwise these (arguably classic) games might be in the public domain.
Emulators can't tell in general which button is in which position on each brand of controller or adapter [pineight.com]. This means the user has to set up the button mappings for each PC game or emulator. I'm told people don't have much patience to set up in every single game or every single emulator, and that's why they use official emulators on consoles.
Even the official emulators have problems with control schemes for multiple platforms (Virtual Console supports multiple platforms, although, not as many as the PC). You have preconceived notions about how Emulators work but your scenario isn't based in reality. Fortunately one doesn't need to keep remapping things per g
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad that GNU/Linux works for you. It also works for me on my 10" laptop. But I'm sort of referring to manufacturers of desktop and laptop PCs sold in U.S. brick-and-mortar chains, which pretty much always come with Windows unless they're made by Apple.
I picked up a very current Ivy Bridge PC from Fry's a few weeks ago and after a couple of weeks experiencing and being horrified with what Windows users have to put up with on a daily basis (countless virus nags, disk drive constantly churning, crazy menues, endless reboots etc etc) I booted Ubuntu live off a usb key, it worked perfectly, did the full install and that worked perfectly too. Then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop to put the icing on the cake. Now my OS isn't in my face, it just works. And plus, I've got the thousands of trustworthy, free packages a minute's install away. Blessed relief.
It's just amazing how far Windows has fallen behind Linux.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:5, Interesting)
That was true in the Windows 7 era. PCs that come with Windows 8, on the other hand, ship with UEFI secure boot turned on, and users may need to figure out how to disable secure boot first.
Microsoft will no doubt get dragged into court over that. Count on the EU if no one else. In the mean time if I have to boot to the bios to switch it off I will, and Linux vendors have various workarounds. Another alternative is to buy Linux pre-installed. Endpcnoise has some fine machines with Ubuntu preinstalled. [endpcnoise.com] Their discount for choosing LInux instead of Windows is quite attractive. I call this dying gasp time for Microsoft. They haven't hit the really steep part of the cliff yet, but they will and they know it.
Re: (Score:3)
Another alternative is to buy Linux pre-installed.
I would, but I don't know of any dealers with showrooms in Fort Wayne, Indiana, so that I can try out a laptop's keyboard and screen before I buy. Mail ordering is fine for desktop PCs, but it has its drawbacks for laptops, tablets, and smartphones [pineight.com].
I buy nearly all my electronics online now. I don't think I'm unusual in that respect. My online experience has in general been much better than my retail store experience lately and you just can't beat the convenience. Usually, you can't beat the online prices either, even with delivery. Factor in the time spent travelling to/from the store, parking, getting new door dents etc, and the deal is sealed.
If you want to know if the keyboard is ergnonomic, read the reviews. I find it especially helpful to look a
Re: (Score:3)
It may not help in your case but people in the EU can send anything ordered online and delivered by post/courier ('distance selling') back without having to give a reason within 7 days (14 in some countries). So there's no reason you can't buy online and if something about the keyboard, screen, Linux driver support or anything else isn't to your liking just box it up and send it back.
I did this with a 1000 Euro ultrabook in Germany that when it arrived I realised had very poor wireless range, in both Window
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference in drive access is amazing. In windows it's constant, where on a Linux machine running the same software it never even flickers. I'd swear the drive manufacturers pay them to reduce their life expectancy.
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:4, Informative)
I've actually just started trying out KDE and have indexing running. It's slightly more active than Gnome, but *way* less than Windows. I have indexing turned off on my work Windows machine and it's still far more active than KDE as well.
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference in drive access is amazing. In windows it's constant, where on a Linux machine running the same software it never even flickers. I'd swear the drive manufacturers pay them to reduce their life expectancy.
that's most likely related to indexing for full-text search
More likely the continuous defrag (when idling) that started in Vista.
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:5, Insightful)
Traditional desktops and laptops sold in US brick-and-mortar chains don't make the manufacturer hardly anything. The Windows OEM operating margin into retail is below 5%. The retailers for the most part make about 2%, hoping to sell accessories and software - and marketing incentives from OEMs for shelf space who don't have the margin to improve these incentives. Its actually hard to not make more return on investment than this. Since this year Microsoft is taking away their brick-and-mortar retail software business with their Windows 8 App Store, they're left with accessories - which is not enough money to make the whole thing worthwhile. With good 30%+ margins on software they could keep that boat afloat but no more. There is no profit for the OEM or the retailer, or in the entire manufacturing chain, in a $300 Windows laptop - especially for the department store retailer who could put an earner product in that spot with lower product returns, like basketballs or pillows. The bulk of the profit dollars for that device go to UPS for delivering it when ordered online, or the shipping company who moved the parts around. There are just not enough folk left dumb enough to pay $50 for a 2m HDMI cable (and $20 more for the extended warranty!) to make this work financially for a retailer who must pay rent or mortgage, staff payroll and electric, and tax, to maintain the debt burden taken to get where they are now.
Since these stores are also suffering from the migration away from physical media based distribution of games and movies, look for more of them to fail or simply close the PC department. Frankly it's long overdue. PC focused stores have been closing for a long time: ex, Future Shop. I remember once long ago standing in front of a CompUSA one cold Thanksgiving morning. As I stared in wonder at its lifeless beauty another customer wandered up and joined me. We were there for a little while admiring the rich storefront with the lights out and I said to him in an awestruck voice: "They close." His reply: "Wow." They have other problems too - the unpleasant customer experience of staff trained to optimize the corporate bottom line to the detriment of the consumer who pays for it all is one.
The death of the desktop will come quickly now not because Linux or Apple killed it but because Microsoft sucked all of the oxygen, all of the profit, out of its environment. Microsoft is killing their golden goose. Even without this in an era of instant streaming delivery of bits, or next-day delivery of almost anything physical every brick and mortar was going to have trouble.
This is not the YOTLD. It is the YOTLPT - the Year Of The Linux Palm Top. We have gone mobile and 1.5 million people a day choose to put Linux-based Android in their pocket and compute at their convenience, wherever they happen to be, because they're humans and where they want to be is more important again than the needs of their IT gear now that some IT gear can do its bit wherever the humans happen to be. Half a billion people so far and growing at a half-billion a year, doubling every year - take their Linux-based Android palmtop computer with them everywhere they go - to work, on vacation, to bed, to school...
I'll make a technology prediction: cubicle farms are dead. As humans take back ownership of their content consumption and creation environments enabled by these fully mobile devices there is going to be a vast tranformation in office space throughout the world. You want to short whatever company it is that makes those cloth-covered office space divider units and buy calls in anybody who makes couches and coffee tables.
But back to the topic: Steam games was the last thing keeping my oldest son from dual-booting Linux. Now that Valve has gone there he's going to join me on the Linux side in a trial. If it works out he'll use the Windows side less and less until eventually I wean him off the crippled system his mother insisted we get for him. Our younger kids like Linux and And
Re:Consumption (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought the TF101 on launch day over a year ago. It has HDMI output and can drive the same monitors you and I are looking at. I have acquired three Windows cloud desktops through services like OnLive. Through Citrix and VMWare View I have access to an unlimited number of desktops with this tablet. Because my support crew is first rate they support every version of every Windows OS back to DOS 5.1 - and prior versions I can run or simulate locally. Anything your PC can do, my tablet can do. I use it to administer 100+ servers.
My phone has LTE and hotspot, so I can do this anywhere I happen to be by tethering this old tablet to my phone's wifi.
My tablet has the dock, so I can attach Wacom tablets, keyboards, mice, trackballs, and even Microsoft's Kinect if I want to. Bluetooth too. Connecting a peripheral to a device is becoming a network problem and the network software guys make short work of that.
Microsoft's Surface tablet has encryption to prevent loading of alternate operating systems. That would be protective of their OS franchise if Nexus 10 didn't have more storage, a 300 DPI screen, and cost less. Nobody in their right mind would pay more for a Surface intending to defang the prevention of choice implicit in it when they could just buy a Nexus 10 and do what they want without the uncrippling step instead, and also have resolution beyond the limit of their visual acuity.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The centralized software database is great... until you need a program that's not in it.
Also, finding and downloading something with a search engine is done every day by pretty much anyone who uses a PC (regardless of OS), so it's not really accurate to include that when measuring complexity of installing software. Having to type a bunch of things into a command line (and then finding out TFM was out of date and everything you types was wrong) is definitely not something that non-linux PC users are familia
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:4, Insightful)
Trying to find software in a search engine is also extremely risky if you are not technically competent, and results in large numbers of such users being tricked into installing malware. Installing software by hand should be strongly discouraged, and left to people who know what they're doing.
And you don't type anything into a command line from a website, you cut+paste it which is far less error prone than following gui based instructions...
Re: (Score:3)
Trying to find software in a search engine is also extremely risky if you are not technically competent, and results in large numbers of such users being tricked into installing malware. Installing software by hand should be strongly discouraged, and left to people who know what they're doing
Excellent advice. And there are also plenty of binaries out there that do come from trusted sources, Opera for example, which does an excellent job of installing smoothly and painlessly on pretty much every known x86 Linux distro.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I've got about a dozen friends and cow-orkers using Linux now, and all have stated that they find it more usable than Windows). They've chosen a variety of desktops, mainly Gnome2 plus Docky, Gnome shell, or Xfce. Updates are automatic and centrailized, software repositories are built in, and you can generally tweak it to act as you wish, although less so in the last few releases of Ubuntu using Gnome-shell or Unity. A little love from the hardware manufacturers would be nice though. You still run into the
Re: (Score:3)
If you want a specific example of what he was gettting at how about this;
KDE 4 has no way to set mouse sensitivity graphically.
You can set acceleration, threshold (amount of movement before mouse responds), double click speed and all that graphically. But you can't set mouse sensitivity graphically. The only way to set sensitivity right now, in the year 2012 is to edit xorg.conf manually.
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:4, Funny)
Shit. Jumped the gun. My bad. -1 plain stupid for me.
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:5, Funny)
ALSA.
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:5, Funny)
I think you misspelled "Pulse."
Re: (Score:2)
Apple. Or even modern versions of Windows, I guess.
For me at least, the clear advantages of a Linux desktop withered away about 4-5 years ago. Even the price of commercial OS's are almost inconsequential these days.
Re: (Score:3)
That depends. For Windows 8, OEM versions can be used for personal use.
From: Microsoft [microsoft.com]
Q. I am not a system builder, but I am building my own PC for personal use. Can I purchase OEM System Builder software?
A. Yes. Anyone who is building a PC for personal use with Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro software can use the Personal Use License.
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
In fact I most recently bought & installed windows 8 just to eke out a bit more gaming performance.
Its honestly a fantastic OS(for windows) once you get rid of the thing where they try to force you to use a tablet interface with a mouse & keyboard.
I also keep most of the PC's in my house on Windows because nothing except my router plays nice with linux for some reason.
Re: (Score:2)
Reality.
Be more specific plz (Score:3)
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:4, Insightful)
--
--
Lack of support from third-party vendors and hardware makers (or inferior support where support does exist). I am back tor running Windows almost exclusively on my primary PC (my laptop) for:
- RAW support for my DSLR (DCRAW is horrible compared to Lightroom or even Canon's DPP raw processing)
- Adobe CS and photoshop plugins
- my embroidery machine and embroidery software
- My iPhone (like it or not, it's a great product but it's tied to iTunes)
- Games (less work to configure than futzing around with WINE or Crossover or Cedega**)
- CD/DVD publisher (Bravo SE) at the office
- Brother label printer
- SilverLight (Ick. see: Netflix)
** now discontinued(?) - which brings up another point: products/projects being abandoned/discontinued seemingly at random
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:4, Interesting)
RPM is not one of the better package managers. Yum uses RPM, but even that sucks.
Drivers are easy, its a checkbox in Ubuntu.
You are blaming an OS for a company shutting down? Is it Microsofts fault when a windows software company dies?
Re: (Score:3)
* RTFM: still happens, but not as much as it used to.
* Distro-vs-Distro: yes, this is still annoying as hell
* RPM Hell: yea, what? Seriously, when was the last time you got this when you wern't doing stupid things like trying to use SuSE RPMs in Fedora? Likewise with the debian family.
* I can say nothing about marketing, beyond the claim that all involved in it should die in fires (along with lawyers)
* Binary Blob holy war: Blame US copyright law. Not an issue for end users, usually.
* SAMBA doesn't matter i
Re: (Score:3)
Haha, you're really funny. Try reporting a bug or making a feature request to Microsoft.
Re: (Score:2)
[...]what else is in the way of making 2013 the year of the Linux desktop?
Gnome
Re: (Score:3)
Clearly you're not scaring the Windows users away.
So that sort of thing shouldn't be a problem for Linux either.
Re:Yet another YOTLD estimate (Score:4, Informative)
That is a pretty good imagination you have.
Every linux user I know is pretty happy about this.
Re: (Score:2)
Valve can choke twice, once on me and once on steam. I'd rather get an old game I meaingfully own for four bucks than a new game that I don't for the same four bucks.
On the other hand, I'm quite glad to see nVidia improving driver performance, and I hope that I'll see some improvement myself, with my much older card. I don't need to see performance double to be happy, either.
Re: (Score:2)
I buy the games on disk and just enter the codes in steam. If they ever screw with me I can download a cracked executable.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I use Linux not because of the ideology behind GNU, but rather because I have so much more control over my system
So, in other words, you use Linux not because of the ideology behing GNU, but because of the ideology behind GNU.
You know that's the whole point of Free Software: it's freedom for the user (i.e. you). Noone can prevent you doing what you want with it. Noone can take that freedom away. That is the point of the GNU project. IOW you are in control of it.
Re: (Score:3)
You could not be more wrong.
Ubuntu will do it all with shiny pictures for you.
Re: (Score:2)
You could not be more wrong.
Ubuntu will do it all with shiny pictures for you.
While I can't speak for the AC, his experience mirrors mine, ubuntu 12.10 with a nvidia 5950 ultra.
Re: (Score:3)
12.10 with a GTX460.
Checked the box for the updated versions of the driver and that was it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
By default Ubuntu will use the open source video driver called Nouveau for your NVIDIA graphics card.
Usually you will see a notification and/or an icon in the top panel, reminding you that restricted drivers are available.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia
Going to be hard to spot that notification icon when the installer doesn't even work...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
nethack is a hardcore video game
I still enjoy playing nethack every so often. One day my brother had me show my niece and nephew a nethack game. At first they couldn't believe games were so crude in the old days, but then they started getting into the game play after a bit.
Today (Score:2, Funny)
Is it measured in Valve Time?
Re: (Score:2)
As long as it is not the third anything we will be ok. Since we all know valve can't count to three.
Re: (Score:2)
At this point, there's a part of me that's expecting to see the third installment of everything from Valve all come out on the same day. Would explain why HalfLife 2 Ep 3 took so long if they had to wait to also have Team Fortress 3, Portal 3, Left4Dead 3 and DOTA 3 in the pipe and ready to go.
That said, it's not a big piece of me that's actually expecting that though. About 1/3.
Re: (Score:2)
TAKE MY MONEY PLEASE!!!!
Valve please be reading this.
Re: (Score:3)
Well this is the third platform Steam has come out for. First Windows, then Mac OS, now Linux.
Re:Today (Score:4, Funny)
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
You might end this right here and now if Gabe sees that post.
Some perspective needed (pun optional) (Score:3)
Re:Some perspective needed (pun optional) (Score:4, Informative)
No need to go far [slashdot.org].
Steam Programs (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
How exactly does that work assuming you aren't silly enough to run Steam as root?
Re:Steam Programs (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Not a bad idea, actually, so long as it's only an option for those who want it (and not a requirement for either the drivers or steam).
I think I'd rather have driver updates integrated with my software repositories than with any particular application, however gaming specific it is (which I'd also like to have integrated with my software repositories). Steam coming to Linux, and any effort around it, is a big deal, absolutely. Big because Steam has a serious user base (many of whom think of it as synonymous
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
At least in its Windows incarnation, Steam doesn't run with admin privileges. It simply, when necessary, starts whatever the installer is with a request for elevation. You get the pop-up and/or username and password prompt(depending on your system settings) and the privileged process does whatever install needs doing while steam continues to chug along at its usual level. Presumably a linux implementation of the idea would work in roughly the same way: Steam downloads the installer package and, depending on
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Ubuntu already updates the nvidia driver through default repositories.
Re: (Score:2)
not required you could go dig it up on your own if you wanted to they would just be a convenience.
What a Slip! (Score:5, Informative)
Nvidia's announcement also indicated the Steam beta for Linux should be out today
I think Valve's [steampowered.com] announcement kinda indicated that too.
OMG could this be (Score:3)
the year of Linux on desktop?
Will the evil Microsoftians interfere?
Will the diablolical Appleites unleash the dooms day Software and Plastic part patents?
????
Stay tuned!
Hear that, Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
Music to my ears, baby! :)
304.10 won't build against the 3.7 kernel source.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nvidia needs to get their shit together and at least put some of the driver in the mainline kernel.
At least all the Source games should run fine on the intel driver.
Nouveau, Please (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And dare I ask what is so important about the framebuffer console? I hate the high res text console (vga=791 was plenty fine), and not having KMS or whatever setting the console is fine with me.
32 bit OS? (Score:2)
This means that it was running that crappy PAE kernel.
Far better to test on a 64 bit OS instead.
10 % better than Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
10 % better than Windows if the numbers at
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-670_4.html [xbitlabs.com]
can be used straight away (which they possibly can to some extent as Left for Dead 2 probably isn't CPU bound) for GTX 680
Windows - 276 fps
Linux - 301.4 fps
Quite an improvement anyhow!
Congratulations to all involved!!!
Re: (Score:3)
It's the first time one of the premier game distribution services has been ported to Linux with a 10% performance increase on their most popular games.
Even if performance has been better on Linux before, there's never been the AAA games collection to pull in the numbers before now.
Ubuntu 32-bit? (Score:2, Interesting)
"All tests run on the same system using Intel Core i7-3930K CPU @ 3.20GHz with 8 GB memory, GeForce GTX 680 and Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit."
8 GB of RAM, and they're using the 32 bit version of Ubuntu ?
I know it's what Ubuntu is recommending by default, but come on, with the rig they have, why go for 32 bit?
Driver fixes for mobile platforms as well? (Score:2)
Does this mean the mobile chips will see an improvement as well? It sure would be nice to watch HD video without huge amounts of page tearing.
It's gotten better of the years, but it's still a rather large and annoying issue with these chips. Though it could be worse, I could be stuck with an AMD (ati) chipset.
How? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can any driver developers comment on how this was achieved? I know I haven't been programming OpenGL for very long, but all I see it doing is writing the data to the card and running the shaders on that data. Data transfers should already be going at full speed, so I don't see much possible improvement there. I also can't see how shader compiler improvements could result in doubled performance. Typically, compiler changes speed things up by a few percent and I don't believe that nVidia's compiler was that bad before. So what was sped up exactly? And frankly, aside from compiling the shaders and memcpying data to the card, I'm puzzled what the driver is doing anyway?
Optimus? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is not supported in the linux nVidia driver, it was said by nvidia official they would never support it and they didn't even give the OSS developers the little hints they need to make a workaround.
Unless this silliness (that made Linus call them many names) is solved, I am unlikely to buy any laptop with a nVidia board.
Re:Optimus? (Score:4, Informative)
Or you can see that they were trying to enable it but they want to use the DMA-BUF API to pass the buffers between the open source and proprietary driver but can't because it's GPLed.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIwNDI [phoronix.com]
Re: (Score:3)
I've been running 64-bit Windows and Linux since 2007. Where is this suck you speak of?
I suppose you could have been one of the sad few who used a Pentium 4 instead of the much better Athlon 64 chip.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering Prescott introduced X86-64 to the P4 in September of 2005 and Cedar Mills made it universal in 1H 2006 I fail to see how your bragging about an Athlon 64 is 2007 has any relevance.
Re: (Score:2)
I think he meant AMD64, which is what x86-64 is more properly called.
64 bit opertons were available in 2003. Intel back then was still touting Itanic.
Re: (Score:3)
Assuming you install the 32bit libs, seems like it should not be any issue to run 32bit steam on a 64bit OS.
Re: (Score:3)
You can get nvidia 64bit drivers from their site. The web page will automatically know you are using a 64bit Linux and offer that version. You can override it and download any version you wish.
Re: (Score:2)
Really - 150 FPS versus 300? No one could ever tell the difference - not even your monitor! I don't get this whole obsession with FPS, especially when monitors can't even do it this fast.
Higher frames per second translate in to more frames for physics engines to run, which brings much finer simulation detail.
Re: (Score:2)
But I bet most people can tell the difference between 15 FPS and 30 FPS. Up the complexity, and the rendering slows down.
trolling much? but I'll bite... (Score:3)
1) high frame rates in a basic game imply better frame rates in a more complicated game, or at higher resolution
2) high max frame rates imply a higher minimum frame rate, which is actually noticeable if it drops too low
Re: (Score:2)
Add a few more monitors and the difference might be noticable.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
IBM is a has-been of technology companies? Do tell.
Re: (Score:3)
They promise that every single game will be available. It took a while to build up the offering for Windows and Mac. It'll take time to do the same for Linux.
They also promise that future development will include native versions for Linux.
Re: (Score:3)
Ubuntu is or until recently was the most popular Linux desktop they the number two now one Mint is based on Ubuntu; thus ubuntu is the most obvious Linux flavor to start with. Requiring the current LTS or later is entirely reasonable, especially for beta software. Besides Valve has said if all goes well the will add support for more distros. no need to whine because it wasn't you favorite varient they chose if you don't like it you can always duel boot, try extracting the (probably .deb) package and install
Re: (Score:3)
Duh!
Except it will not be one steam game console. It will be a whole series of them. Think android phones. Lots of vendors lots of choices all running one distro provided by Ubuntu for Valve.