SteamVR To Get Linux and Mac OSX Support Within 'a Few Months' (roadtovr.com) 64
Valve is planning to introduce beta versions of its SteamVR platform for Mac OSX and Linux users within a few months, RoadToVr reports citing an executive. From the report:One thing's for sure, if you're a PC user wanting to indulge in a spot of immersive entertainment right now, the choice of operating systems on which you can do so are mostly limited to just one. Windows dominates the VR PC landscape right now and that looks set to continue for a while longer. However, Valve will soon move to encourage a diminishing of that monopoly, as it plans to bring SteamVR -- the company's Steam-integrated VR platform -- to both Linux and Mac OSX platforms within the next few months. The initiative was revealed by Valve's Joe Ludwig during a talk at this year's developer-focused Steam Dev Days event in Seattle last month. During the talk, Ludwig outlined the company's view that VR should be as open to innovation as possible, touting the benefits for the long term evolution of virtual reality and how Valve, with OpenVR, are trying to keep what Ludwig calls platform "gatekeepers" from (as they see it) stifling progression in the VR space. Additionally, Ludwig stated that it's been listening to developer and user feedback during SteamVR's first year in consumer hands, and says that they've heard clearly that a version of SteamVR is wanted on other operating systems.
Can't wait to return to my home, Linux! (Score:2, Interesting)
The only reason I run windows 10 on my computer (and I have to admit, totally against my will) is for the HTC Vive and Steam VR games. Windows 10 has been nothing but a sorry experience of me, numerous security kernel crashes, freezes, lockups and whatnot. On the SAME computer I had NO freezes or lockups on the Mint Linux 17.3 platform.
The Minute I can run Steam
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Except millions run Windows and don't experience the doomsday scenarios you push as commonplace. Linux zealots are so threatened by Windows they'll say anything to demonize it at this point. There are plenty of things one could be critical of where Windows is concerned, but stability? That hasn't been a serious problem for a long time now.
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That's because there is not one. Instead there is a pile of complaints from people who have had to fix or workaround broken stuff. Sure, a reboot fixes a lot of the problems caused by update weirdness (eg. start menu and all icons gone), but the people who called in techies like us for help did not know that so we got to see those problems.
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I mean, think about it. You have a negative experience with Windows at some point so you swear off it and make the transition. Now you use Linux and your world is perfect - or at least as perfect as it can be in your situation. A decade passes
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As for the "perfect" bit - see the discussions about systemd - the exact same annoyance at a faulty product only it's one associated with linux.
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MS Windows is all over the place so I cannot see how you could possibly be so deluded as to suggest so many of your shadowy conspirators could have managed to avoid it. What motivates you to push a line that is so obviously false? Is this some attempt at a joke, a troll, an especially pathetic case of being a fanboy to the point of making yourself look stupid or are you one of those paid "social media workers" we keep hearing about?
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In comparison I believe windows 10 is a faulty product.
Now consider who is the zealot when having such an opinion is considered unacceptable and must be shouted down.
The mystery here is what motivates you to shout such opinions down. Would you like to tell us.
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Have you tried Windows 10? (Score:3)
I'm writing this on a windows 10 computer.
but this shit is _more_ true than 15 years ago! windows 2000 was _great_.
Have you tried to debug for example the problem WHY the start menu doesn't pop up sometimes? have you reached the conclusion that installing Classic start menu is a must because of that? the start menu doesn't open up because it's a METRO APP that the operating system puts into sleep/hibernation mode and DOESN'T WAKE IT UP. it saves like 2 mbytes of ram. I think it does it less if you have all
Re: Can't wait to return to my home, Linux! (Score:3)
I have to agree with this. It is getting a bit silly, people repeatedly spouting all this bs about win10 etc. In everyday use win10 is not all that much different than 7, and is not too much more unstable. OK it has some disappointing crashes with the start menu and such, but often this seems to occur when it has started doing updates and needs to reboot/complete some changes. Yes it seems poorly managed at times but it doesn't justify the continuous over-reacting and bitching we see here. I am not a hu
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Personally I think if a product is noticably unstable it's not fit for release.
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That's because a lot of those computers used in offices stayed on Win7 instead of the fragile and deliberately confusing new MS platforms. Hidden controls offscreen? There must be some seriously strong weed for sale in Seattle.
Re:Can't wait to return to my home, Linux! (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows is meant to be a "set it and forget it" kind of OS. Not a "tinker until it does exactly what you want" OS. It's meant for the "just get crap done" crowd.
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The windows is a storebought OEM windows 10 USB edition, updated to the anniversary edition with all the latest drivers for every bit of the hardware.
Any useful sugg
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Adding to this,
It could be a windows auto-update drivers issue. You will need to disable auto-update drivers and uninstall and reinstall stable drivers (this can be hard as you need to back trace updated drivers).
If all else fail, I blame it on windows auto-updates. Download a full copy of the AE windows 10 and install it on a separate hard drive. After startup, let it stay idle for 10mins. Everything should works, but just remember which patch or driver windows updated afterward (or disable auto-update dri
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get bluescreenview and post in some microsoft forums. they have some great gurus that will pinpoint what's causing your bsod. i'm both a windows and linux user and these days windows is a lot more stable than linux is. the nature of open source is that there are lots of small pieces made by lots of people with no integration/cohesion of any kind.
I have had grave bugs even on enterprise distros (such as virt-manager crashing on a fully updated centos 7 install) and other bugs easily catched in QA such as nou
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You've not tried Linux the last 3 years, have you? I've been a registered user since 1998 and while that used to be true because of all the windows/graphics handling needed and all the library emulations, driver wrappers etc. While it still holds true for certain 2D games, this certainly ain't the truth for 3D games. I can pretty much tell you that CS GO runs exactly the same on Linux Mint 17.3 as it does on any windows, of course you need p
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Yes i have. Running ubuntu 16.04 at home. Go search for benchmarks: the only linux games that have decent, nearly native windows speed are those based on the Source engine, which surprise surprise, Valve makes.
Try any other game and you will see the frame rate drops quite heavily. And this is with the nvidia binary driver, which is very good.
The latest example is Deus Ex Mankind Divided.
Sure, you can say "this isn't Linux's fault, rather it's the developer who makes shoddy unoptimized ports" and you would b
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If I can play www.anyland.com (which is Unity Game engine based) at full speeds, I'm a happy puppy.
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Windows is meant to be a "set it and forget it" kind of OS.
best laugh i had for today!
Okay, Valve (Score:2)
Statistics (Score:2)
and says that they've heard clearly that a version of SteamVR is wanted on other operating systems.
According to the latest hw/sw survey:
Windows 95.46%
OS X 3.52%
Linux 0.89%
I'm sure they're vocal, but I doubt Steam is any real hurry.
... And how to lie with them (Score:2)
Windows 95.46%
What's this you say, most people who want to run VR are running the only computer OS that can do so! Amazing.
The percentage will climb when OS X and Linux support comes to pass... in no way does current use indicate total platform demand.
You do not understand (Score:2)
This is a survey of Steam users, not SteamVR.
Yes, and?
The fact that SteamVR users must run Windows means that the Steam numbers are pushed towards the Windows side of the spectrum by people who just default to running Steam in Windows because otherwise they would have to switch to use SteamVR.
The numbers would be 0% if it were for SteamVR since they cannot run it at all.
Sigh. Any Mac user can make use of it via Bootcamp running Windows on Mac hardware. Which has been true for ages now.
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Sigh. Any Mac user can make use of it via Bootcamp running Windows on Mac hardware. Which has been true for ages now.
While you're correct that a Mac user can use Boot Camp, what you seem to have missed is that it wouldn't impact what the previous poster said. A Mac running in Boot Camp would appear as Windows so far as those statistics are concerned (since they're for OS, not hardware), meaning that the percentage of SteamVR OSes other than Windows would indeed be 0%, were that statistic posted.
Moreover, VR may be a hot topic, but it's a remarkably small portion of the market, despite the hype surrounding it. Very few peo
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While you're correct that a Mac user can use Boot Camp, what you seem to have missed is that it wouldn't impact what the previous poster said.
Yes it would, because they would be people capable and possibly willing to run SteamVR on the Mac if they were able to, with no new computer purchase. The overall point was about potential market.
Moreover, VR may be a hot topic, but it's a remarkably small portion of the market
But a much larger percentage of the PC gaming market than it is if you factor in consoles.
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There are a lot of Steam gamers already with Oculus or Vive rigs.
No, there aren't. In fact, almost nothing you've claimed is born out by the statistics.
1) There have only been about 140,000 Vive unit sales so far [techcrunch.com] according to HTC. That was as of last month.
2) Vive represented 60% of SteamVR gaming according to the latest survey [steampowered.com]. If we generously assume (for your benefit) that all 140,000 Vive users were active in SteamVR this last month, that'd mean that the other 40% number about 95,000. Put together, we can say that...
3) There are less than than 235,000 active SteamVR
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Technically, I'm at least two of the above. It all matters about whether you bother to fill out the survey and - if you have once on Windows - would you bother again on Linux?
But 1/3rd of my 1000 game Steam library runs on Linux. It's not a negligible percentage.
And, same as last year, make one Linux / Steambox exclusive title (even for a month) and those numbers could flip rapidly.
Gosh, I wonder which franchise the owners of Steam could release a long-awaited, hotly-anticipated, cross-platform titles for
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Yes but its chicken and egg. If there's no way for people to play AAA games on linux then guess what, there won't be many linux users showing up in a steam survey.
At least by supporting stuff on other platforms its working towards giving people a real option, which when the playing field is even, ultimately will mean numbers are skewed by user-preference rather than necessity. At that point I'm hoping Linux will eat Windows's lunch.
I agree that Windows will likely be dominant for gamers at least for a few y
If you're a rabid gamer... (Score:2)
... you're running Windows.
But if you're running OS X or Linux for other purposes, you play games but you won't go out of the way to access them, this is a "very nice that it's available" option.
What this announcement mainly shows is that Valve is still looking for options to not be so dependent on Microsoft.
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> I am one of those guys who preordered Vive
This is the problem, sadly. There are companies that are reliably worth preordering from, if you are into their stuff. Preordering a Nintendo product has never left me disappointed- they all turn out pretty similar to what you expect, within reason. But in the general case, a preorder is a huge mistake. Most ESPECIALLY with Linux support. The Linux community is small but very passionate, and will organically boost anything that is pro-Linux. While Linux g
Is there even a Mac that meets minimum spec? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's not a single OSX running machine I'm aware of that meets minimum spec for Vive. I'm not sure why they're bothering with that...
it runs.. (Score:2)
but.. it's not like you wanted textures and stuff, yeah?
look, a lot of the vr stuff on the market is actually developed for cardboard(daydream) and gearvr. it doesn't really need that much to run 90fps.
also the more photorealistic you try to go the more diminishing the returns are - also partially due to that the vr displays are a bit low resolution still - going with ultra high texture counts and polygon counts doesn't really help all that much with the experience.
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It doesn't matter: accounting for Valve Time [valvesoftware.com], in "a few months" the base OSX machines will probably handle VR no problem.
There's only one problem (Score:3)
Most of the computers Apple sell only have built-in Intel graphics. Others have laptop-class GPUs. And they keep making their computers, even their desktop ones, thinner for absolutely no logical reason.
Tim Cook seems too happy to push users to iPhones and iPads, the Macs appears to be merely an afterthought at this point.
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> Most of the computers Apple sell only have built-in Intel graphics.
Is this true? More importantly, is it important? If you are looking to use VR or other 3D stuff on your Apple, you bought an Apple computer with some 3D capability. The same is true of desktops and laptops in the rest of the PC world.
I think we'll see some bigger boxes announced from Apple at some point here. If they don't update the Mac Pro within a couple months, they will really begin bleeding power users and devs within the next
Gaming Mac implied? (Score:2)
Linux supports all the best hardware, so not having on Linux is a simple market decision- there are way more Windows customers.
Mac is a different beast. While smaller than the PC market, almost everyone with a Mac has some money to spare, and their ecosystem is rich in people who would use VR to create, view, etc. Additionally, there are some die-hard Mac gamers (seriously lol), who, like the much smaller Linux base, buy cool game related stuff at a higher rate than the equivalent section of the PC market
Playstation VR Works on Linux (Score:2)