4 ms·

Why more PC gaming handhelds should ditch Windows for SteamOS

90 points by jlpcsl 3y ago

novagameco 3y ago
If compatibility isn't an issue (I have yet to have any compatibility problems with my Steam Deck), I don't see why they shouldn't move to SteamOS. However, I fear a future in which people develop games on Linux targeted directly at SteamOS: I find C++ development to be far better with First party Microsoft tools (Visual Studio, MSVC, DirectX, DirectXTK) than on Linux. I vastly prefer Microsoft style APIs to Linux style APIs (DirectX over OpenGL especially, though Vulkan is ok), and I have yet to find a C++ development environment that I like as much as Visual Studio. With solution files, vcpkg, and project files native to Visual Studio, managing projects and dependencies has become a breeze in Windows. Comparably, few IDEs on Linux provide comparable debugging tools or good UI (CLion being the only one I can think of, though I personally hate most of Jetbrains' UI) and cmake is such a poorly designed tool and syntax to me, I would hate to have to deal with it directly than just having vcpkg manage the builds and dependencies for me (though I think vcpkg is compatible with Linux). I don't mind targeting Linux as a platform via Proton, but I would really hate to have to write Linux specific bindings for a game
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
  Unity started as a game engine on macOS with monodevelop as the official IDE I think you overestimate the number of game developers who depend on Microsoft's tools, game engine devs who target Xbox/PS5/Switch, sure, vendor tools require windows, but for 1 engine dev, you find 100 game devs Besides, cross compilation is a solved issue nowadays, all it takes to target Linux, Windows, mobiles or console is a checkbox in Unity/Unreal/Godot https://steamdb.info/tech/ https://steamdb.info/tech/ This data speaks for itself DirectX 12 wasn't a huge success, except for Xbox; wich sells 3x less than both PS5 / Switch [1], you don't see it anywhere else Vulkan gets on on both Windows/Linux, but also Switch and Android, so if you are a small indie studio who work on your own engine, Vulkan makes a lot more sense .. and even cloud gaming ;) https://www.phoronix.com/news/Amazon-Linux-Graphics-Jobs https://www.phoronix.com/news/Amazon-Linux-Graphics-Jobs .. even for Ubisoft, even for their Windows release https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-updates/6VFn74oMO2nVQGZxvFhBb5 https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-up... [1] - https://www.vgchartz.com/ https://www.vgchartz.com/
  - novagameco 3y ago
    I'm not talking about the industry in general, I'm talking about my personal preferences. I like to use C++ with Visual Studio and DirectX. I would hate to find myself in a position where I had to develop everything in Linux for compatibility reasons. I hate the fact that some web dev tools only run on Linux or Mac right now and I have to use WSL2 (bun), I would really hate to see game dev go the same direction. Personally, I like Windows as a platform and I don't go out of my way to target Linux or Mac
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    > Unity started as a game engine on macOS with monodevelop as the official IDE It certainly did not. Unity only added Mono to their stack when they went cross platform, during their Mac OS X days, they only supported Boo and JavaScript for scripting.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      Boo ran on Mono though. Their flavor of JavaScript, UnityScript wasn’t even remotely similar to standard JS besides syntax, it also ran on Mono. I vaguely remember them trying Python initially but IIRC Boo and “JavaScript” were always based on Mono.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        So I went into some archelogy, turns out we were both kind of right. Me less so. Unity 1.0 did not have .NET in the picture in 2005, however they went cross-platform already in Unity 2.0 around 2008, so Mono was anyway part of the story early on.
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  > but I would really hate to have to write Linux specific bindings for a game What are you upset about? You’re worried people will target windows to target steam? Or worried people will…target Linux?
  - novagameco 3y ago
    I'm worried that SteamOS would make Linux to default target and game development platform and that a lot of tooling would shift in the direction of Unix-likes and the Windows + DirectX ecosystem would wither as a result. I want windows to continue to be a good platform for game development and not have to move over to an ecosystem I find really grating
    - ShamelessC 3y ago
      That’s a bold strategy. We’ll see if it works out for you.
    - rfl890 3y ago
      It's not like everyone's going to switch to Linux immediately. I think Windows will stay on desktop for a while. On a side note, what about Windows APIs do you like? I always thought they were a disorganized mess.
      - novagameco 3y ago
        Within DirectX I like the usage of types compared to OpenGL, where everything is GLuint. I like the explicit management of state and the use of views on resources to bind the same memory to different contexts. I vastly prefer HLSL to GLSL also. I know there's vulkan, but my experience was going to DirectX 11 from OpenGL 3+ Within Win32, it's similar though there's an overuse of HANDLEs. I like initializing things as structs and I like that ComPtrs provide built in memory management. A lot of posix APIs feel underpowered (semantically designed around reading files from tapes), and Microsoft often provides a safe _s version of most of them (Yes, some of which are part of the C standard library and some of which are not). There are various Win32 APIs I like (IOCP, for example), and it's all tied together with MSVC and the static analyzers available to the compiler (SAL). I don't think GCC has anything even close to SAL. I also haven't found a C++ IDE I like nearly as much as Visual Studio. I used to hate jetbrains UI but I actually tried IntelliJ recently and they redesigned the entire thing to be quite nice now, so maybe clion is nice (but I'm not willing to pay for it). I also VASTLY prefer powershell to bash
ThrowawayR2 3y ago
Nah. A Windows handheld has far less game compatibility issues than SteamOS does, which even the article admits, and can also be used as a Windows machine to run apps if docked or accessed through RDP.
- ParetoOptimal 3y ago
  Yeah, but then I'd have to use a windows machine with all its spying goodness.
ksjskskskkk 3y ago
and lose those sweet windows oem kickbacks?
rchaud 3y ago
> Yes, a Windows installation means a gaming portable is compatible with almost every PC game ever made, including many that still don't run on SteamOS for one reason or another. But SteamOS's robust Proton compatibility layer means an ever-expanding list of thousands of games are certified as at least "Playable" That's the pitch? Some games that run fine on Windows 'might' work acceptably on SteamOS? SteamOS doesn't do anything besides play games distributed on Steam. There's absolutely no benefit for a Windows OEM to drop it for an OS that has < 1% market share. Not everybody has the luxury of purchasing different computing devices for different use cases. An ASUS ROG will play games (Steam + everything else), but it's also a real computer you can write programs on or school papers with. We need to reverse the tide of electronic products getting dumbed down every year in the name of "user experience".
- slmkbh 3y ago
  SteamOS literally has a desktop mode, standard KDE, and you can install any applications that are in Arch repos or served as flatpaks.
- Arrath 3y ago
  > SteamOS doesn't do anything besides play games distributed on Steam. Handling input from the gamepad and having a massive library of community contributed controller configs is a massively underrated selling point, imo.
- mikhael28 3y ago
  Dude you can write papers and code and whatever you want on SteamOS. Linux is pretty awesome.
- nyankas 3y ago
  This is straight up false. SteamOS is not limited to playing games distributed on Steam. It's a Desktop PC running an optimized interface by default. You are always just three button presses away from launching Desktop Mode and installing whatever you want, as long as its either made for Linux or runs using a compatibility layer. I'd even argue that a device like the Steam Deck, with its open approach in almost every design choice, is a counterexample for "dumbed down devices". It has an easy-to-use UI for people who don't want to fiddle around with it, sure. But as even its operating system is, for the most part, open source, you have many more possibilities than you have on a proprietary platform like Windows if you want to tinker around with it.
automatoney 3y ago
As a hobbyist game developer, I would love to see the field move away from being so windows focused. It's pretty annoying that every other kind of development I do works well enough across all platforms, but when I want to do game dev I pretty much have to boot into windows. And as a game user, I would also just rather have games be cross platform, than use whatever OS specific optimizations happen now. But I've also never really cared too much about having high framerates, high resolution, millions of polygons, etc.
- retrochameleon 3y ago
  Riot Games recently announced that Vanguard, their kernel-level anticheat, is going to be required to play League of Legends soon. There was a considerable Linux community for League at r/leagueoflinux, and they are obviously upset. But regular users are also rightfully upset and stated their intent to give up league if this goes through. Vanguard must be launched during boot, and has to remain running 24/7 in order to launch and play the games. Not to mention that Riot Games was bought by Tencent... TikTok mass surveillance spyware was bad enough. Fat chance I would ever let the CCP pwn my personal rig with 24/7 running kernel-level malware/spyware that can never be validated because it's obviously closed-source.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    damn think of the pwn possibilities there -- kernel level right from boot, and updated regularly, without having to obfuscate. red team wet dream.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  It isn't only Windows, we also have XBox (ok, a Windows flavour), PlayStation (a FreeBSD fork), Switch (a mikrokernel OS with POSIX like stuff), Android (a Linux where no one ports games to GNU/Linux from), iOS/macOS (NeXTSTEP derived OS). Many of those, with UNIX like OSes, could easily port their games to GNU/Linux (specially the Android NDK ones), they don't because it isn't worth it, monetary speaking.
  - 3y ago
happymellon 3y ago
I've had a Steam Deck for about 1.5 years now, and I've been running SteamOS via HoloISO for 8 months now on my ITX lounge PC and it's amazing. It's easy enough that the kids and wife can pick up the Deck or power on the PC and get a gaming environment that's nicer to use than the PlayStation's. Hogwarts gave a bit of a problem on the Deck, but the desktop was fine and luckily none of use want to play any of the online crap that requires anti-cheat. Couch co-op and competitive is much more fun.
pjmlp 3y ago
Whishful thinking, Windows games are better played on Windows. It is going to be netbooks all over again.
- ranguna 3y ago
  Flashbacks to smoother Linux gameplay on Linux for elden ring.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Most likely a driver issue, not really OS related, as any game developer will attest with their GPU scars.
    - Kipters 3y ago
      A game issue in Elden Ring's case specifically. It suffered from bad shader compilation stutters (even up to 900ms in the initial area). Valve solved the issue on Steam Deck by distributing a precompiled shader cache with the game.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        Shader compilation issues is another way of saying driver issues.
        devwastaken 3y ago
        Yes but Microsoft isn't fixing it, valve is. Support changes quality.
        Kipters 3y ago
        Other games running on same hardware and same drivers go around it one way or another.
skhm 3y ago
I really want one of these overpowered handhelds so I can run https://jovian-experiments.github.io/Jovian-NixOS/ https://jovian-experiments.github.io/Jovian-NixOS/ as a semi-portable daily driver
happymellon 3y ago
I don't get some of these Windows fan comments on here. There are plenty of Windows handhelds if you really want that awkward interface. For a large percentage of us, we don't need Windows to play all of our games. I don't have any which doesnt work on the Deck (there were a few teething issues but they've now gone). Why are you so angry that there is choice and we can use what we want, and you use what you want?

90 points by jlpcsl 3y ago

If compatibility isn't an issue (I have yet to have any compatibility problems with my Steam Deck), I don't see why they shouldn't move to SteamOS. However, I fear a future in which people develop games on Linux targeted directly at SteamOS: I find C++ development to be far better with First party Microsoft tools (Visual Studio, MSVC, DirectX, DirectXTK) than on Linux. I vastly prefer Microsoft style APIs to Linux style APIs (DirectX over OpenGL especially, though Vulkan is ok), and I have yet to find a C++ development environment that I like as much as Visual Studio. With solution files, vcpkg, and project files native to Visual Studio, managing projects and dependencies has become a breeze in Windows. Comparably, few IDEs on Linux provide comparable debugging tools or good UI (CLion being the only one I can think of, though I personally hate most of Jetbrains' UI) and cmake is such a poorly designed tool and syntax to me, I would hate to have to deal with it directly than just having vcpkg manage the builds and dependencies for me (though I think vcpkg is compatible with Linux). I don't mind targeting Linux as a platform via Proton, but I would really hate to have to write Linux specific bindings for a game

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
Unity started as a game engine on macOS with monodevelop as the official IDE I think you overestimate the number of game developers who depend on Microsoft's tools, game engine devs who target Xbox/PS5/Switch, sure, vendor tools require windows, but for 1 engine dev, you find 100 game devs Besides, cross compilation is a solved issue nowadays, all it takes to target Linux, Windows, mobiles or console is a checkbox in Unity/Unreal/Godot https://steamdb.info/tech/ https://steamdb.info/tech/ This data speaks for itself DirectX 12 wasn't a huge success, except for Xbox; wich sells 3x less than both PS5 / Switch [1], you don't see it anywhere else Vulkan gets on on both Windows/Linux, but also Switch and Android, so if you are a small indie studio who work on your own engine, Vulkan makes a lot more sense .. and even cloud gaming ;) https://www.phoronix.com/news/Amazon-Linux-Graphics-Jobs https://www.phoronix.com/news/Amazon-Linux-Graphics-Jobs .. even for Ubisoft, even for their Windows release https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-updates/6VFn74oMO2nVQGZxvFhBb5 https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-up... [1] - https://www.vgchartz.com/ https://www.vgchartz.com/
- novagameco 3y ago
  I'm not talking about the industry in general, I'm talking about my personal preferences. I like to use C++ with Visual Studio and DirectX. I would hate to find myself in a position where I had to develop everything in Linux for compatibility reasons. I hate the fact that some web dev tools only run on Linux or Mac right now and I have to use WSL2 (bun), I would really hate to see game dev go the same direction. Personally, I like Windows as a platform and I don't go out of my way to target Linux or Mac
- pjmlp 3y ago
  > Unity started as a game engine on macOS with monodevelop as the official IDE It certainly did not. Unity only added Mono to their stack when they went cross platform, during their Mac OS X days, they only supported Boo and JavaScript for scripting.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    Boo ran on Mono though. Their flavor of JavaScript, UnityScript wasn’t even remotely similar to standard JS besides syntax, it also ran on Mono. I vaguely remember them trying Python initially but IIRC Boo and “JavaScript” were always based on Mono.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      So I went into some archelogy, turns out we were both kind of right. Me less so. Unity 1.0 did not have .NET in the picture in 2005, however they went cross-platform already in Unity 2.0 around 2008, so Mono was anyway part of the story early on.
ShamelessC 3y ago
> but I would really hate to have to write Linux specific bindings for a game What are you upset about? You’re worried people will target windows to target steam? Or worried people will…target Linux?
- novagameco 3y ago
  I'm worried that SteamOS would make Linux to default target and game development platform and that a lot of tooling would shift in the direction of Unix-likes and the Windows + DirectX ecosystem would wither as a result. I want windows to continue to be a good platform for game development and not have to move over to an ecosystem I find really grating
  - ShamelessC 3y ago
    That’s a bold strategy. We’ll see if it works out for you.
  - rfl890 3y ago
    It's not like everyone's going to switch to Linux immediately. I think Windows will stay on desktop for a while. On a side note, what about Windows APIs do you like? I always thought they were a disorganized mess.
    - novagameco 3y ago
      Within DirectX I like the usage of types compared to OpenGL, where everything is GLuint. I like the explicit management of state and the use of views on resources to bind the same memory to different contexts. I vastly prefer HLSL to GLSL also. I know there's vulkan, but my experience was going to DirectX 11 from OpenGL 3+ Within Win32, it's similar though there's an overuse of HANDLEs. I like initializing things as structs and I like that ComPtrs provide built in memory management. A lot of posix APIs feel underpowered (semantically designed around reading files from tapes), and Microsoft often provides a safe _s version of most of them (Yes, some of which are part of the C standard library and some of which are not). There are various Win32 APIs I like (IOCP, for example), and it's all tied together with MSVC and the static analyzers available to the compiler (SAL). I don't think GCC has anything even close to SAL. I also haven't found a C++ IDE I like nearly as much as Visual Studio. I used to hate jetbrains UI but I actually tried IntelliJ recently and they redesigned the entire thing to be quite nice now, so maybe clion is nice (but I'm not willing to pay for it). I also VASTLY prefer powershell to bash

ThrowawayR2 3y ago

Nah. A Windows handheld has far less game compatibility issues than SteamOS does, which even the article admits, and can also be used as a Windows machine to run apps if docked or accessed through RDP.

ParetoOptimal 3y ago
Yeah, but then I'd have to use a windows machine with all its spying goodness.

ksjskskskkk 3y ago

and lose those sweet windows oem kickbacks?

rchaud 3y ago

> Yes, a Windows installation means a gaming portable is compatible with almost every PC game ever made, including many that still don't run on SteamOS for one reason or another. But SteamOS's robust Proton compatibility layer means an ever-expanding list of thousands of games are certified as at least "Playable" That's the pitch? Some games that run fine on Windows 'might' work acceptably on SteamOS? SteamOS doesn't do anything besides play games distributed on Steam. There's absolutely no benefit for a Windows OEM to drop it for an OS that has < 1% market share. Not everybody has the luxury of purchasing different computing devices for different use cases. An ASUS ROG will play games (Steam + everything else), but it's also a real computer you can write programs on or school papers with. We need to reverse the tide of electronic products getting dumbed down every year in the name of "user experience".

slmkbh 3y ago
SteamOS literally has a desktop mode, standard KDE, and you can install any applications that are in Arch repos or served as flatpaks.
Arrath 3y ago
> SteamOS doesn't do anything besides play games distributed on Steam. Handling input from the gamepad and having a massive library of community contributed controller configs is a massively underrated selling point, imo.
mikhael28 3y ago
Dude you can write papers and code and whatever you want on SteamOS. Linux is pretty awesome.
nyankas 3y ago
This is straight up false. SteamOS is not limited to playing games distributed on Steam. It's a Desktop PC running an optimized interface by default. You are always just three button presses away from launching Desktop Mode and installing whatever you want, as long as its either made for Linux or runs using a compatibility layer. I'd even argue that a device like the Steam Deck, with its open approach in almost every design choice, is a counterexample for "dumbed down devices". It has an easy-to-use UI for people who don't want to fiddle around with it, sure. But as even its operating system is, for the most part, open source, you have many more possibilities than you have on a proprietary platform like Windows if you want to tinker around with it.

automatoney 3y ago

As a hobbyist game developer, I would love to see the field move away from being so windows focused. It's pretty annoying that every other kind of development I do works well enough across all platforms, but when I want to do game dev I pretty much have to boot into windows. And as a game user, I would also just rather have games be cross platform, than use whatever OS specific optimizations happen now. But I've also never really cared too much about having high framerates, high resolution, millions of polygons, etc.

retrochameleon 3y ago
Riot Games recently announced that Vanguard, their kernel-level anticheat, is going to be required to play League of Legends soon. There was a considerable Linux community for League at r/leagueoflinux, and they are obviously upset. But regular users are also rightfully upset and stated their intent to give up league if this goes through. Vanguard must be launched during boot, and has to remain running 24/7 in order to launch and play the games. Not to mention that Riot Games was bought by Tencent... TikTok mass surveillance spyware was bad enough. Fat chance I would ever let the CCP pwn my personal rig with 24/7 running kernel-level malware/spyware that can never be validated because it's obviously closed-source.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  damn think of the pwn possibilities there -- kernel level right from boot, and updated regularly, without having to obfuscate. red team wet dream.
pjmlp 3y ago
It isn't only Windows, we also have XBox (ok, a Windows flavour), PlayStation (a FreeBSD fork), Switch (a mikrokernel OS with POSIX like stuff), Android (a Linux where no one ports games to GNU/Linux from), iOS/macOS (NeXTSTEP derived OS). Many of those, with UNIX like OSes, could easily port their games to GNU/Linux (specially the Android NDK ones), they don't because it isn't worth it, monetary speaking.
- 3y ago

happymellon 3y ago

I've had a Steam Deck for about 1.5 years now, and I've been running SteamOS via HoloISO for 8 months now on my ITX lounge PC and it's amazing. It's easy enough that the kids and wife can pick up the Deck or power on the PC and get a gaming environment that's nicer to use than the PlayStation's. Hogwarts gave a bit of a problem on the Deck, but the desktop was fine and luckily none of use want to play any of the online crap that requires anti-cheat. Couch co-op and competitive is much more fun.

pjmlp 3y ago

Whishful thinking, Windows games are better played on Windows. It is going to be netbooks all over again.

ranguna 3y ago
Flashbacks to smoother Linux gameplay on Linux for elden ring.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Most likely a driver issue, not really OS related, as any game developer will attest with their GPU scars.
  - Kipters 3y ago
    A game issue in Elden Ring's case specifically. It suffered from bad shader compilation stutters (even up to 900ms in the initial area). Valve solved the issue on Steam Deck by distributing a precompiled shader cache with the game.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Shader compilation issues is another way of saying driver issues.
      - devwastaken 3y ago
        Yes but Microsoft isn't fixing it, valve is. Support changes quality.
      - Kipters 3y ago
        Other games running on same hardware and same drivers go around it one way or another.

skhm 3y ago

I really want one of these overpowered handhelds so I can run https://jovian-experiments.github.io/Jovian-NixOS/ https://jovian-experiments.github.io/Jovian-NixOS/ as a semi-portable daily driver

happymellon 3y ago

I don't get some of these Windows fan comments on here. There are plenty of Windows handhelds if you really want that awkward interface. For a large percentage of us, we don't need Windows to play all of our games. I don't have any which doesnt work on the Deck (there were a few teething issues but they've now gone). Why are you so angry that there is choice and we can use what we want, and you use what you want?