3 ms·

This is one of the main selling points for me. I threw my CV1 in the trash when facebook required a login. I want to see what OpenXR apps are like. Is freeca

This is one of the main selling points for me. I threw my CV1 in the trash when facebook required a login. I want to see what OpenXR apps are like. Is freecad and blender usable? I want to tinker with gaussian splatting. When finger tracking starts to develop can I reasonably use it for input without controllers? Could this ever be a practical replacement for a six monitor desk? Also, my simracing seat has been very lonely. I'm so happy that there is an HMD running arch that gives the user root.

iririririr 19d ago
valve whole business model is invasive drm tho. far from claiming they are as low as meta, but that is their business model which never gets mentioned in this comparison, leaving readers to confuse gabe newel with RMS as some freedom authority
- willis936 19d ago
  DRM isn't really the story with Valve. Their business model is offer good service. Part of that is not being hostile to users. Users don't want to be spied on and have their data sold, so Valve doesn't do that. People want autonomy over their hardware, so they give them that. It's even in their marketing material for the steam machine. The frame is a computer running arch. If you want to 100% opt out of Steam and write your own driver stack, they're not standing in your way. That is uniquely pro-user and freedom in the tech industry. Also, their open source initiatives with proton and fex should not be discounted. If there's a morally grey stone to turn over then imo it's the not-gambling-wink-microtransactions and even then it's no more predatory than what is common in the gaming industry.
  - cyber_kinetist 19d ago
    There is a real danger if Valve ever gets sold in bad hands - the only hope is Gabe Newell living long enough or find a good successor who can continue having a majority stake in the company.
    - Akronymus 18d ago
      one of his sons is slated to take over the business, afaik. Specifically the racecar driver one.
  - morgoo 19d ago
    Their business model is cloud rent and lootboxes - I love their approach to service, hardware and Linux but let's not pretend they're noble.
    - fragmede 19d ago
      loot boxes, sure but how is cloud rent amoral/ignoble?
      - morgoo 16d ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
  - iririririr 17d ago
    valve service is terrible! they just have first mover monopoly advantage. absolutely fan boyism thinking they have good service. steam was and always will be awful. they just publish whatever the game studio sends them. try installing gta V from steam... you get Two Launchers besides steam! all three ad ridden.
    - kbenson 17d ago
      Is that a Steam problem or a developer not caring to provide a good experience for the platform problem?
- Grombobulous 19d ago
  Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market. The only way to be less invasive is to not have DRM at all. Obviously that’s preferable, but Valve’s setup is one that keeps publishers on the platform: provide a basic DRM system and allow publishers to add more if they want. If you don’t like what someone like Ubisoft does on the platform you’ve got plenty of other options (and third party DRM is clearly labeled within Steam). I don’t think people see Gabe Newell the way you describe. They just appreciate that Valve makes business decisions that have basic respect for their customer base. They are fully aware that he’s a billionaire yacht aficionado. Capitalism and likability are not mutually exclusive, it’s just that so many capitalists have taken the route of maximizing serfdom.
  - pdpi 19d ago
    > Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market. In fact, their own documentation spells this out specifically[0]: > The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy (i.e. copying all game files to another computer) and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker. 0: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm
- johnnyanmac 19d ago
  Their model is DRM, but they have no vendor lock-in (in theory, at least). You can use a Valve product (or non-valve product) and never use Steam, or use Steam on any of the 3 major OS's. You can't say the same for an apple product. I say in theory because yes: Steam in reality has a monopoly in the PC gaming market. And while many games are on multiple stores, odds are many games will only be on Steam. That's a more invisible hand form of a walled garden, but there's definitely an argument to be made there.
- pknomad 19d ago
  Valves bread and butter has been their distribution channel. Before Valve, there was no major player that provided a seamless gaming download experience. Anyone who’ve gamed in early 2000s understand the pain point of downloading and correctly installing patches from a daemon site.
- freehorse 19d ago
  > valve whole business model is invasive drm As much as I like gog and their game distribution model and buy most games there, this is a huge exaggeration and actually false. A game studio/publisher does not have to use DRM in steam and many of them don't. Examples are Larian (baldur's gate 3), cd project red (witcher, cyberpunk), and quite a few small and big studios that don't. Basically afaik most games that are in both gog and steam don't have DRM in steam. DRM is far from steam's fault, it is game studios/publishers that have pushed that, long before steam too.
  - p_l 18d ago
    And the built-in Steam DRM is laughably easy to bypass once you've bought the game, IIRC - just a small thing that responds with fake user id + license status. None of the crazy VM wrapping etc.
  - iririririr 17d ago
    valve ships ad ware launchers from ea et al. they don't do it for free. hence...
    - freehorse 17d ago
      No, EA etc decide to ship adware launchers and steam distributes them. Plenty studios do not ship adware launchers, and steam does not inject adware into them or anything. Even if steam gets percentage from the ads or whatever (I dont even know if this is the case) EA anyway ships the same adware outside steam. I do not like this but let's blame it to the ones actually doing it, than the ones that dont oppose it.
cmdr2 19d ago
> Is freecad and blender usable? Blender works in VR (using any OpenXR compatible headset). To view scenes in VR, you can use the free built-in VR Scene Inspector addon. To edit and create scenes in VR, you can use the Freebird XR addon for Blender (https://freebirdxr.com/ https://freebirdxr.com/). Fingers crossed for OpenXR working properly in Steam Frame! In which case Blender and other OpenXR-compatible apps will work too. Disclaimer: I'm the author of Freebird XR, a VR editing addon for Blender.

iririririr 19d ago

valve whole business model is invasive drm tho. far from claiming they are as low as meta, but that is their business model which never gets mentioned in this comparison, leaving readers to confuse gabe newel with RMS as some freedom authority

willis936 19d ago
DRM isn't really the story with Valve. Their business model is offer good service. Part of that is not being hostile to users. Users don't want to be spied on and have their data sold, so Valve doesn't do that. People want autonomy over their hardware, so they give them that. It's even in their marketing material for the steam machine. The frame is a computer running arch. If you want to 100% opt out of Steam and write your own driver stack, they're not standing in your way. That is uniquely pro-user and freedom in the tech industry. Also, their open source initiatives with proton and fex should not be discounted. If there's a morally grey stone to turn over then imo it's the not-gambling-wink-microtransactions and even then it's no more predatory than what is common in the gaming industry.
- cyber_kinetist 19d ago
  There is a real danger if Valve ever gets sold in bad hands - the only hope is Gabe Newell living long enough or find a good successor who can continue having a majority stake in the company.
  - Akronymus 18d ago
    one of his sons is slated to take over the business, afaik. Specifically the racecar driver one.
- morgoo 19d ago
  Their business model is cloud rent and lootboxes - I love their approach to service, hardware and Linux but let's not pretend they're noble.
  - fragmede 19d ago
    loot boxes, sure but how is cloud rent amoral/ignoble?
    - morgoo 16d ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
- iririririr 17d ago
  valve service is terrible! they just have first mover monopoly advantage. absolutely fan boyism thinking they have good service. steam was and always will be awful. they just publish whatever the game studio sends them. try installing gta V from steam... you get Two Launchers besides steam! all three ad ridden.
  - kbenson 17d ago
    Is that a Steam problem or a developer not caring to provide a good experience for the platform problem?
Grombobulous 19d ago
Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market. The only way to be less invasive is to not have DRM at all. Obviously that’s preferable, but Valve’s setup is one that keeps publishers on the platform: provide a basic DRM system and allow publishers to add more if they want. If you don’t like what someone like Ubisoft does on the platform you’ve got plenty of other options (and third party DRM is clearly labeled within Steam). I don’t think people see Gabe Newell the way you describe. They just appreciate that Valve makes business decisions that have basic respect for their customer base. They are fully aware that he’s a billionaire yacht aficionado. Capitalism and likability are not mutually exclusive, it’s just that so many capitalists have taken the route of maximizing serfdom.
- pdpi 19d ago
  > Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market. In fact, their own documentation spells this out specifically[0]: > The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy (i.e. copying all game files to another computer) and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker. 0: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm
johnnyanmac 19d ago
Their model is DRM, but they have no vendor lock-in (in theory, at least). You can use a Valve product (or non-valve product) and never use Steam, or use Steam on any of the 3 major OS's. You can't say the same for an apple product. I say in theory because yes: Steam in reality has a monopoly in the PC gaming market. And while many games are on multiple stores, odds are many games will only be on Steam. That's a more invisible hand form of a walled garden, but there's definitely an argument to be made there.
pknomad 19d ago
Valves bread and butter has been their distribution channel. Before Valve, there was no major player that provided a seamless gaming download experience. Anyone who’ve gamed in early 2000s understand the pain point of downloading and correctly installing patches from a daemon site.
freehorse 19d ago
> valve whole business model is invasive drm As much as I like gog and their game distribution model and buy most games there, this is a huge exaggeration and actually false. A game studio/publisher does not have to use DRM in steam and many of them don't. Examples are Larian (baldur's gate 3), cd project red (witcher, cyberpunk), and quite a few small and big studios that don't. Basically afaik most games that are in both gog and steam don't have DRM in steam. DRM is far from steam's fault, it is game studios/publishers that have pushed that, long before steam too.
- p_l 18d ago
  And the built-in Steam DRM is laughably easy to bypass once you've bought the game, IIRC - just a small thing that responds with fake user id + license status. None of the crazy VM wrapping etc.
- iririririr 17d ago
  valve ships ad ware launchers from ea et al. they don't do it for free. hence...
  - freehorse 17d ago
    No, EA etc decide to ship adware launchers and steam distributes them. Plenty studios do not ship adware launchers, and steam does not inject adware into them or anything. Even if steam gets percentage from the ads or whatever (I dont even know if this is the case) EA anyway ships the same adware outside steam. I do not like this but let's blame it to the ones actually doing it, than the ones that dont oppose it.

cmdr2 19d ago

> Is freecad and blender usable? Blender works in VR (using any OpenXR compatible headset). To view scenes in VR, you can use the free built-in VR Scene Inspector addon. To edit and create scenes in VR, you can use the Freebird XR addon for Blender (https://freebirdxr.com/ https://freebirdxr.com/). Fingers crossed for OpenXR working properly in Steam Frame! In which case Blender and other OpenXR-compatible apps will work too. Disclaimer: I'm the author of Freebird XR, a VR editing addon for Blender.