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It looked for a little while there two years ago that gaming on Linux was finally beginning to take off, mostly thanks to Valve. That push seems to quickly be evaporating. Valve's latest Steam statistics shows that usage of both Linux and MacOS X on Steam is declining, while Windows usage is actually gaining. Linux usage on Steam is down to 0.94% from 1.05% last month, while Windows usage is up to a whopping 95.81%. Was that push for SteamOS in particular and gaming on Linux in general just all smoke?
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
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Linux Usage on Steam Continues to Decline
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by jasassin on Wednesday May 27 2015, @11:40PM
Who wants to spend hours of their life getting a proprietary GPU driver working to have your entire system shit and break on each kernel or xorg patch? Not to mention the way they revision xorg, on a whim, and permanently bust older hardware compatibility. Its not that gaming on Linux sucks. Its the driver architecture of Linux. Hairyfeet is right about the driver deal. If you wanted to use an AMD Radeon 3450 you have to use a distribution of Linux using xorg 1.2. So you're stuck using an ancient OS.
So if you want to game there's no reason to use Linux. Unless you like ripping your hair out and eating it.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday May 28 2015, @12:02AM
Those are the exact kinds of issues that SteamOS was supposed to solve. Linux driver support has improved [pcworld.com] since release [reddit.com].
The real problem may be slow development and few commercially available Steam machines [arstechnica.com] (page 2). The Steam Controller was announced in 2013. It's 2015. Where's Half-Life 3?
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Orion Blastar on Thursday May 28 2015, @01:39AM
There was supposed to be a lot of Linux ports of popular games on Steam. They didn't happen either.
Linux and MacOSX usage went down because more games for Windows exist so people went back to using Windows for their games. MacOSX can only be used with Apple branded hardware and they got rid of the ATX design of the Mac Pro so they cannot upgrade the video card like they used to which put a big dent in OSX gaming. Why build a hackintosh when you could just run Windows and play more video games on Steam?
Steam Machines got sold but with Windows instead of SteamOS.
Drivers and compatibility with Kernels and X is really a big issue on Linux and it hasn't been solved yet.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:52PM
I have to be somewhat careful about the GPU I pick but it isn't bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:29AM
They needed to have them in stores in quantity for Christmas 2014.[1]
Synchronicity with that holiday is critical.
Grishnakh (above) said "Steam/Linux really needed to get a lot of converts from Windows", which parallels my thoughts.
Steam has another chance this year but, if they drop the ball again, that may be it for their big idea.
[1] Chromebooks were available in quantity then and those sold like hotcakes.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 29 2015, @12:34AM
I'm still shocked how well Chromebooks sell. Pursuing the education market was a good idea (as proven by Mac and Windows in past decades).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:02AM
No proprietary video drivers here. My Intel graphics based system runs most games in the Steam Linux section just fine - and that's an old Ironlake (first gen Core i5), if I were to upgrade to Haswell, I could probably get four times the performance.
Either way, for someone who already has a Linux machine, unless you know a supplier of free PS4s or XBoxes, if he wants to play games, there is a very good reason to do so on the system he already has.
(Score: 2) by forkazoo on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:21AM
I dunno what problems you have, but my nVidia card seems to work without too much trouble. I play a bunch of Borderlands2 on Linux, though I do wish that the characters synced between Windows and Linux, I don't think I've ever run into any graphics driver problems since I installed Steam. I don't think I spent any more time installing the proprietary drivers than I did under Windows. AMD drivers are pretty bad, but IME, that's always been true on any OS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @10:53PM
My nVidia 9800GT is still chugging along just fine.