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Ars Technica reports:
For decades after Linux's early '90s debut, even the hardest of hardcore boosters for the open source operating system had to admit that it couldn't really compete in one important area of software: gaming.
Now, more than a year into the SteamOS era (measuring from that beta launch), the nascent Linux gaming community is cautiously optimistic about the promise of a viable PC gaming market that doesn't rely on a Microsoft OS. Despite technical and business problems that continue to get in the way, Valve has already transformed gaming on Linux from "practically nothing" to "definitely something" and could be on the verge of making it much more than that.
For those already running Linux on their main machines, though, finally having significant gaming options on their platform of choice will continue to be a happy side effect of Valve's still-developing push into this new market. "I do know that in the absolute worst case, the chicken-and-egg problem is solved," Gordon said. "You get people to a platform with games, but games won't come until people are on a platform. Valve being there has clearly given developers the faith to stick their toes in the water right away."
Linux gaming has come a long way. I have a couple hundred games on Steam than run under Linux. (Well, most of them ;) Here's to the next era being freedom oriented from it's foundations. Oculus selling out to FB was a blow, but I think Steam will do it right if only because they have thrown their hat into SteamOS.
"Steam is bringing the best games and user-generated content to exciting new destinations. At GDC 2015, we’ll be giving demos of the refined Steam Controller, new living room devices, and a previously-unannounced SteamVR hardware system."
http://store.steampowered.com/universe/
http://steamcommunity.com/app/250820
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/23/steamvr-announced/
And because it's related, interesting and open source.
http://osvr.com/
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday March 02 2015, @03:47PM
Uhhhh...again THAT IS WHY you run Linux has the guest and Windows as the host! And I've run plenty of VMs using VirtualBox with Windows Home as the host and various OSes as the guest...no issues, especially when it came to net applications.
Again playing games? Unless the game you are running is something from the early days its gonna be more CPU/RAM/GPU bandwidth intense than a net application by a country mile, and moreover you can get one of a couple dozen Linux VirtualBox VMs already preconfigured and ready to go. Puppy Linux works REALLY well for this as its file system is designed to be run from RAM, but there is Xubuntu, Slax, OpenSUSE, just set the VM to take 1 or 2 cores and a GB of RAM and BAM, there ya go, instant net application/s in a box. Again if you run them on SSD its really gonna only take a second or two to launch and load, so if You have Windows running ONLY the games and the Linux VM for your net apps? You have exactly what you want, full speed Windows games without a translation hit while your Linux programs can runn full speed in the VM...logical, yes?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday March 02 2015, @06:53PM
The program I was talking about -- Freenet -- is a secure, onion-routing P2P network. Depending on how it's configured, it can be holding hundreds or even thousands of network connections open at any one time. If Linux is your guest, all that traffic has to be routed through *both* the Windows and the Linux machine. If Windows is your guest, it only routes through the Linux system. Since the problem with Windows at that time was that it couldn't handle the volume of active connections, putting Windows as the host will screw your Windows performance, where putting Linux as the host won't because Windows won't even see those connections. Of course, this issue could be fixed in newer versions -- I haven't tried that since WinXP. So it's certainly been a while.
The issue isn't the game, it's the server. And it's not just the bandwidth, it's also the number of active sessions.
But unless your server isn't doing anything, *that's not what you have.* Whichever system is the host is also acting as a router. That's the issue. Windows (XP at least) isn't as good *as a router* as Linux, because that version of Windows was never designed to be used as a router. I suspect Windows still isn't designed to be a router, because that would be absurd. I also suspect there are Linux distros that might fail this test just as badly as Windows has if they're specifically tuned for home desktop use. So it's less Linux vs Windows, more about if your server should host your home system or should your home system host your server. And that answer depends on the specific load on each system.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday March 04 2015, @07:07PM
If you are doing Onion routing of hundreds of connections? Honestly you should have a small dedicated box for the routing, trying to get 1 box to do it all is just gonna suck dick performance wise.
Look if you wanna game? You are gonna have to run Windows as the host because of the simple fact that translating all those GPU and memory calls in real time? Is just gonna tie a boat anchor to performance. Pretty much any graphics intensive game and most games made after 06? Its just gonna suck dude, the performance hit is just too high. I've talked to enough guys in the VM forums attempting this to know you are gonna take a huge penalty on performance, sometimes as much as 60%-70%. If you have a quad core with a Gb of VRAM? Its gonna run like a weak dual core with less than 512Mb of VRAM thanks to the extra layers between the game and the hardware.
Considering that most places you can grab a C2D on Craigslist for dirt cheap or pick up an ULV AMD E350 or Celeron dual board refurb on Amazon for like $30? It really just doesn't make any sense to try to force one box to do it all, not when you are running a shitload of connections like that. Just slap it on a C2D or ULV box and SSH into it and leave the gaming for the gaming PC, or if you are just dead set against running Windows on the main unit you'll just have to deal with a console and their shitty prices and paying for MP access. Because unless your standards for gameplay and graphical quality are REALLY low you just aren't gonna be happy with running the games in a VM, it just ties too big a boat anchor to the game. Don't take MY word for it, head over to the VirtualBox or VMWare player forums and ask around, you'll find out the same thing, unless of course you are willing to pay out the ass for ESX Server and run everything off a low level hypervisor but even with those they are having to run some crazy expensive beefy cards to get any real performance, which you'll find its often just cheaper to slap a cheapo ULV on your network and let it deal with the netapps.
Anyway if you decide to go the ULV route and need some help picking parts just let me know, depending on how many parts you got lying around you can throw together a pretty nice ULV X86 for between $80-$120, and if Freenet runs on ARM you can always grab an ultra cheap Linux dual core box for around $50, those use less than 15w and are smaller than your average router,so they make a pretty cheap and easy solution to your problem. But even if your CPU has VM extensions the GPU and memory hit is gonna be pretty rough, I just wouldn't recommend gaming on a VM for most genres, its just gonna suck.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.