Gabe Newell: Valve will release its own console-like PC

[zed]

I somehow fail to see AAA games at ~8-30 GB being developed with smartphones as a primary or even tertiary target.

they wont be, the thing is soonish I expect the top tablets will be >= than the lowest PC hardware supported. True input will be different but I think companies will be foolish to turn down this possibility, like the above figures say mobile will soon be equal to PC in dollars earnt.

And it's the AAA style games that really benefit from DirectX's advantages over OGL for cutting edge graphics.

So what are these AAA games that exist now that cant be done with say opengl 4.0?

Anyways, since when have games utilized the cutting edge?
Checkes the facts
D3D11 - first game comes out > a year after its release, and > 2 years after its shown
D3D10 - first game comes out > a year after its release, and > 2 years after its shown
you seeing a pattern, the reason is the publishers are not dumb, why make a game if the majority of ppl cant play it

And oh god, I really don't wish to go back to the days when OGL was a dominant 3D gaming API.

Better than the d3d option at the time, which was
1/ slower
2/ buggier
3/ less capable
the reason opengl was the developers choice was d3d was junk (I know cause I've been programming it since d3d3)

And then having to wonder whether your graphics card supported this vendor specific extension or that GPU specific extension

And of course this exists today, with todays games?
So I need to use all these extensions to do say crysis 22?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Anyways, since when have games utilized the cutting edge?
Checkes the facts
D3D11 - first game comes out > a year after its release, and > 2 years after its shown
D3D10 - first game comes out > a year after its release, and > 2 years after its shown
you seeing a pattern, the reason is the publishers are not dumb, why make a game if the majority of ppl cant play it

DX11 supported first game actually came out shortly after the release of the first Dx11 compliant video card the Radeon 5870. Multiple games featuring Dx11 features were out within the first year.

And you seem to completely ignore the development cycles of AAA games. As the complexity and capability of 3D rendering increase, so does the development time. So it's no surprise that the first game to only support Dx11 GPUs is releasing this year. And that could have possibly been even sooner except full development of it couldn't commence until that development house had finished the title they were already working on when Dx11 came out.

Better than the d3d option at the time, which was
1/ slower
2/ buggier
3/ less capable
the reason opengl was the developers choice was d3d was junk (I know cause I've been programming it since d3d3)

Sure that was true up until D3D 7/8 where Direct3D started to achieve parity in performance and features. And was completely passed up and made virtually irrelevant with DX 9.

Considering you were developing OGL and D3D at the time you should know that. As well as noticed all of the developers abandoning OGL during D3D 7/8 even though it had a slight advantage to D3D 7 and was roughly similar to D3D 8.

And of course this exists today, with todays games?
So I need to use all these extensions to do say crysis 22?

Not even remotely the same. You could possibly have made that claim back in the Dx9 and prior days when D3D caps allowed hardware vendors to pick and choose what to support and what to expose. Dx10 removed those, and while Dx11 has given some flexibility in optional features, it isn't nearly the mess it is for OGL or earlier version of D3D.

Regards,
SB

 

[trinibwoy]

Hopefully this means that the SteamBox will indeed play your current library of windows games.

http://m.techradar.com/news/gaming/...-box-in-the-eyes-of-valves-co-founder-1128740

It's at this point that Newell makes his strongest argument for the Steam Box being the best grown-up gaming device for the living room.

"[Gamers will] say, 'Well, I could buy a console, which assumes I'll re-buy all my content, have a completely different video system, and, Oh, I have a completely different group of friends, apparently.'

"'Or I can just extend everything I love about the PC and the internet into the living room,'" Newell said of a gamers' thought process - making the choice seem so one-sided and easy.

 

[sir doris]

Surely the pace of advancements in the mobile space is going to have to come to a halt sooner rather than later. With smaller process nodes getting further appart and harder to attain and mobile devices limited to batteries. Quad core smart phones are already consuming their batteries in a matter of hours when playing the latest 3d games, I can't see mobile tech being anywhere close to the next gen consoles for a long time. It's the same problem the PS4/ XBox 720 have when compred to PC's, the tech may have moved on but the restrictions on power remain for the consoles.

The disparity in power consumption between the mobile and console/ PC devices will mean even with advances in technology there will be a significant gap for the forseeable future.

 

[sir doris]

Hopefully this means that the SteamBox will indeed play your current library of windows games.

http://m.techradar.com/news/gaming/...-box-in-the-eyes-of-valves-co-founder-1128740

The indication I got from the Tech Report was that the Steam box may just stream existing PC content from the PC in your office to your living room.

 

[novcze]

The indication I got from the Tech Report was that the Steam box may just stream existing PC content from the PC in your office to your living room.

Or they may sell accessory to Steambox/PC which can allow that.

I always wanted dumb tablet acting as another monitor and input device to powerfull PC ... all that power available everywhere in the house.

 

[tuna]

There is full ICD support for OpenGL in Windows and the vendors don't need to route around anything.The problem is that there are no OpenGL drivers in the drivers that are shipped with the installation and Windows Update doesn't offer them, too.

I do not think this is true. I work for a company that make OpenGL Windows software and we have not seen this.

 

[zed]

@Silent_Buddha what you are doing is saying, D3D has moved on from its bad old days, its completely different now. But refusing to acknowledge that opengl has also moved on as well.

Heres a simple mantra to remember
Your D3D11.1 game can be done with the newest version of opengl with zero extensions

i.e. you're living in the past with opengl yet living in the present for d3d

 

[Silent_Buddha]

@Silent_Buddha what you are doing is saying, D3D has moved on from its bad old days, its completely different now. But refusing to acknowledge that opengl has also moved on as well.

Heres a simple mantra to remember
Your D3D11.1 game can be done with the newest version of opengl with zero extensions

i.e. you're living in the past with opengl yet living in the present for d3d

Sure OpenGL has moved on. Nowhere did I state that it wasn't better than it was before. But it's still a mess with various hardware and software vendors pulling it this way and that. Having to work to resolve the various directions each vendor wants to go also means that universal implementation lag time is significantly worse than it is for Microsoft who is the sole arbiter when it comes to which features will be implemented out of those that the hardware vendors say is possible and those that the software vendors have on their wishlist.

As an example, how long did it take for OGL without extensions to finally catch up to Dx11? Meaning it would also be that much longer before OGL versions of those would appear. That Dx11 only title that will be shipping on PCs this year may not be out for another 2-3 years if OGL was the dominant rendering API for gaming. As it's hard to do significant development without hardware (Dx11 level hardware wouldn't exist yet if Dx11 didn't exist, which means OGL level of that same hardware might not have started showing up until the last year or so.)

And add to that if Dx11 didn't exist, how many of those standard non-extension features would instead be vendor specific extensions? By Dx11 forcing all hardware vendors to offer similar features, it makes OGL's job a whole crapload easier. The work is already done, all they have to do is copy it. If Dx11 didn't exist we'd have the same god awful mess in OGL with regards to modern rendering tech as existed pre-Dx10. And because of that, we'd also have a mess with regards to shared features in hardware accelerated 3D rendering hardware with vendor specific features and years upon years before any hardware feature is made standard.

And speaking of extensions, it's still a mess with regards to a consistent user experience across hardware by supporting extensions which aren't necessarily available across vendors or even within a vendor's own product stack.

Regards,
SB

 

[MfA]

D3D isn't what it used to be ... vendors get to hide features in the shader compiler, development has gone glacial, new driver models are no longer backported.

What Microsoft accomplished with it in the past is irrelevant now.

 

[Blazkowicz]

The indication I got from the Tech Report was that the Steam box may just stream existing PC content from the PC in your office to your living room.

This notion entirely sounds like nvidia Shield.

Or they may sell accessory to Steambox/PC which can allow that.

I always wanted dumb tablet acting as another monitor and input device to powerfull PC ... all that power available everywhere in the house.

The equivalent has been done since someone hooked multiple world war 2 teletypes to a single computer that ran an OS, about 50 years ago.
There are two kind of problems :
- technical ones, such as streaming 3D accelerated content at low latency (not just slow 2D-only content with no sound and no input support beyond keyb/mouse). Ideally you need great, hardware based encoder and decoder, plus great software/USB etc. support so you can use a webcam, multichannel sound, gaming controller or something as simple as USB storage connected to the client device.
- licensing ones. Microsoft is happy to sell you Windows Server with additional remote use licenses, RemoteFX support. This can be more expensive that the hardware. Additional vendors sell you a well supported, complex solution (Citrix) and/or allow you a way out of using Windows Server : expensive VDI solutions that need one separate Windows Pro VM per user.

For the second point, you need Linux or Unix to get multi-user as free-for-all.
About the first point : for now either the professional/enterprise solutions are working, or specific integrated consumer ones (Wii U and OnLive/Gaikai). Nvidia appears to target enterprise (VGX), cloud gaming (geforce Grid) and now lay people (geforce Shield and using a GK107 or higher GPÜ).

They may target both Windows and Linux : for Windows, to respect the single user license, the client device (tablet or other) would display the same thing that's displayed on the server host. You're not allowed to have someone else use the computer, or to have two tablets using the feature at the same time.
For Linux the possibilty is there to have multiple users (I think it was said somewhere, up to 8 clients!) but you would need a beefy enough "server". (Luckily for us, something like an i7 3770 with 16GB memory, or something less powerful than that really is an extremely powerful computer that can serve multiple users)

 

[MfA]

10 Gb ethernet and WiHD for transmission in the room?

 

[Arwin]

Linux as OS is a bigger con than a pro right now. Serious lack of software, if millions don't buy, that won't improve.

Conversely it will never change unless a company like Valve takes those first important steps.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Conversely it will never change unless a company like Valve takes those first important steps.

There have been numerous companies taking that first important step with regards to a Linux gaming console for the past 15 years.

Everytime they do so, it is to resounding cries of support from independent game developers and console gamers looking for something other than the established consoles. As well as tons of hype and optimism. Only to have all that wither away after a year or two or three. And then to repeat that cycle the next time a Linux gaming console is announced in development.

It remains to be seen if Valve will be the first that has even minor success.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't ever recall word of a Linux based gaming console in the past 15 years, so if their have been numerous attempts, they haven't been very vocal about it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't ever recall word of a Linux based gaming console in the past 15 years, so if their have been numerous attempts, they haven't been very vocal about it.

Do a search for Linux Game Console and you'll see many hits throughout the 2000's for Linux Gaming consoles that were launched or were announced as in development.

There was one that was hugely hyped near the turn of the century, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was called. It was around the same timeframe as when Bit Boys was making noise about their upcoming GPU tech that was supposed to revolutionize the graphics industry I believe.

I could have sworn the Phantom console was originally supposed to be based on Linux as well, but wiki doesn't mention it and I'm too tired to look it up.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Do a search for Linux Game Console and you'll see many hits throughout the 2000's for Linux Gaming consoles that were launched or were announced as in development.

There may well have been, but like I say, they weren't vocal enough to reach this gamer's ears, and I doubt many others noticed either. That's where SteamBox is radically different - it has recognition/awareness.

 

[Davros]

I always wanted dumb tablet acting as another monitor and input device to powerfull PC ... all that power available everywhere in the house.

iM (unsuccessfully) trying something similar
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=62998

 

[tuna]

Do a search for Linux Game Console and you'll see many hits throughout the 2000's for Linux Gaming consoles that were launched or were announced as in development.

Why do not you do that? You made the claim in the first place, it is your responsibility to have data to back it up.

AFAIK, there have been no released Linux based game console.

 

[Davros]

The Phantom by Infinium Labs was the famous vapourware linux console
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_(game_system)#The_Phantom_console