Valve Begins Listing Linux Requirements For Certain Games On Steam 332
Deathspawner writes "Perhaps hinting at the fact that the official Steam for Linux launch isn't too far off, Valve has begun updating some game pages to include Linux system requirements. Some games don't list only Ubuntu as the main supported distro, with some listing Linux Mint and Fedora as well. A common theme is that Valve recommends you always use a 'fully updated' OS, regardless of which distro you use. And based on the system requirements laid out so far, it's safe to say that Serious Sam 3: BFE will undoubtedly be the most system-intensive game released at launch."
Re:Why would you want to game on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why would you want to game on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
So if you want to do both unixy world and games why not Mac?.
1) Some people like Linux more than either of the proprietary OSes. This might be because they can configure Linux more, or because it's free, or because it's ideologically free, or because their friend told them to run it, or any of a thousand other reasons.
2) Why not? Many indie developers have already made Linux-compatible games that are also on steam. For instance, most of the Humble Indie bundles have had a requirement of running on Linux, and most of those games also provided steam keys.
3) Other people aren't a Apple shills/trolls?
Someone is misunderstanding... (Score:5, Informative)
... what "fully updated" means. It certainly sounds like the author thinks that the latest distro and kernel is what's recommended.
It's not.
>Ubuntu 12.04
Valve is recommending the LTS and not 12.10, as well they should. Recommending the latest kernel and distro is asking for nothing but pain for everybody involved.
As far as the hardware recommendations go, they're not outrageous either.
--
BMO
Re:Why would you want to game on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Because I run Linux, I like Linux, and I want to play games on Linux. Does there have to be a more complex answer than that?
Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why would you want to game on Linux (Score:2, Informative)
No, no it can't. A two or three year old PC can have a new GPU and a memory upgrade and be semi-competant again. A five or six year old PC needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up.
I know, because I'm in the process of doing that right now. My Core 2 Duo + AMD 5570 has gone as far as it is going to go. It's had a GPU update and a memory refresh. It is now CPU limited in most games and buying a new GPU for this old box would be a waste of money.
Updates sometimes break things ... (Score:5, Informative)
So you promise to update your application forever whenever a problem with such a library is found?
Do you promise not to complain when an update to the library breaks the game? Or when the game fails to run on your favored niche distro?
Re:Uneducated Virtualization Suggestion (Score:5, Informative)
its fun to bash java for being slow (having slow execution speed), no matter how untrue it is. I'd rather bash it for its faults -- to start I'll name two:
1. Slow startup. This may contribute to the reputation for slowness, but is really just the setup. It isn't slow execution speed, its the latency from "I want to run this" to "application is started". I'm not saying startup speed should inherently be faster, just that this is a negative and it is also true.
2. Static memory allocation. WTF! You too can re-live the glory days of Apple's operating system before they jumped the shark and went bsd. How much memory an application can possibly use is set as a property/execution parameter and can only be altered between executions. Ummm... seriously? I've always assumed this was due to the VM model they chose and a misguided attempt at security by shackling programs to outdated paradigms, but really?