Not-so Epic anymore, eh? - Epic won’t update Fortnite to run on the Steam Deck (well, Linux in general too)

[Kisai]

13 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly I think a big reason why the switch and other Nintendo handheld were so popular is because Nintendo did a great job creating games that were designed around being played on a handheld. I do see this being a problem for the steam deck as most steam games are designed for keyboard and mouse and maybe controller. They aren't really designed to be played on a handheld. 

And that is why Valve should have released software designed for it. HalfLife 3, Portal 3, Left4Dead 3, etc. The fact that they seem to have completely abandoned game development, doesn't really give us any incentive to buy their hardware. Did Halflife Alyx get people to buy VR Kit? No. I don't believe it did. If you were not inclined to buy VR kit, you probably watched someone stumble around playing it on a stream, or didn't bother at all.

 

Nintendo gets away with what it does because it doesn't port it's first party games to other platforms, despite the fact that they really should be porting the old (7+ year old) games to cull the piracy market, and should be porting the party games to as many devices so that people can play together instead of sitting back and letting other companies produce knock-offs of those games.

[Ydfhlx]

16 hours ago, porina said:

So something more like an early gen SATA SSD and competitive with bigger hard disks.

Random IOPS is horrible on these cards. Linus tried to boot windows from fastest card available on the market, barely booted. Not competitive with hard disks at all.

 

Now, does it matter for games? I have no idea.

[porina]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

We've had "gaming laptops" for years, and they are:

I specifically said "not laptops" since I wasn't looking at comparing them in this category. Still they remain viable options for many people, and I even seriously considered if I still need a desktop with my latest gaming laptop purchase.

 

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

Yes, you can run a game on a laptop, no it does in fact suck compared to the Nintendo devices which are silent.

How many fps does a Nintendo device get in Crysis? Might as well play with pen and paper.

 

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

Yet both Google and Valve have a track record of "devices they make get binned in two years", 

I think Homer Simpson once said "The first step to failure is to try." But as a parallel, if you never take a risk, you never move forward. If one thing in 10 works, you're still going forward and not stagnating.

 

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

Right, but are these game developers going to make a Linux SteamOS native port?

They don't have to. Stick Windows on it and compatibility is pretty much a non-issue. Working the UI will remain a problem to start with but isn't a major deal breaker.

 

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

I'm not into the Steam Deck precisely because I don't see it as a solution to anything that needed to be solved.

It is a solution for "I want to play (some) PC games while out and about." That isn't everyone. I never use my Switch outside of the dock for example. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

I strongly doubt that's the case. Anti-cheat being able to run on linux natively or through proton is a prerequisite to any of this working but that doesn't mean it's the only thing they need to touch. Plus by allowing it they'd be opening the flood gates to linux specific support tickets, which are inevitable especially when you use a compatibility layer.

Well, valve has said that time and  time again, pretty much saying that all the devs need to do it flip the Dutch, and valve would handle the rest

[porina]

2 minutes ago, Ydfhlx said:

Random IOPS is horrible on these cards. Linus tried to boot windows from fastest card available on the market, barely booted. Not competitive with hard disks at all.

 

Now, does it matter for games? I have no idea.

Is it hard disk bad or?

 

Windows will do lots of reads/writes and can be quite punishing in that sense. Try doing a Windows Update on a budget SSD compared to a high end one and you will notice a big difference. Still, games are much more read-only outside of the original install and patches. 

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Well, valve has said that time and  time again, pretty much saying that all the devs need to do it flip the Dutch, and valve would handle the rest

I'd say Valve has a vested interest in saying that... and if something doesn't work you'd still be complaining to Epic, not to Valve.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Just now, Sauron said:

I'd say Valve has a vested interest in saying that... and if something doesn't work you'd still be complaining to Epic, not to Valve.

Ok I was slightly misinformed in the past, but

Valve has instructions posted on their website, it it no recompile though.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Valve has instructions posted on their website, it it no recompile though.

 

again this is ONLY EAC, it doesn't guarantee the game itself will work well.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

6 minutes ago, Sauron said:

again this is ONLY EAC, it doesn't guarantee the game itself will work well.

Yea, but it would get your game tested for compatibility with steam deck for just a bit of time (like bassically 20 minutes max)

 

and it’s not up to the devs to fix issues with Linux proton compatibility, that’s valves job

[Ydfhlx]

55 minutes ago, porina said:

Windows will do lots of reads/writes and can be quite punishing in that sense. Try doing a Windows Update on a budget SSD compared to a high end one and you will notice a big difference. Still, games are much more read-only outside of the original install and patches. 

It's not just writes that are the problem for these cards. Random reads are too. OS can barely boot, and booting is basically just reads. As I said, I don't know if games have random or sequential reads, and it obviously depends on specific game too.

[joaopt]

Everyone agrees gaming on linux is dead and mostly a waste of time for developers. Idealy it wasn't so, but it is. Epic says this exact same thing, everyone jumps on them.

How many of you will switch to Linux gaming? zero

 

If Valved wanted with the marketshare they had they could have made us all be gaming on Linux now. It wasn't easy but they bleed money, they certainly could do it. This is not Epic's fault.

 

But Epic bad. Valve good.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

7 minutes ago, joaopt said:

Everyone agrees gaming on linux is dead and mostly a waste of time for developers. Idealy it wasn't so, but it is. Epic says this exact same thing, everyone jumps on them.

How many of you will switch to Linux gaming? zero

 

If Valved wanted with the marketshare they had they could have made us all be gaming on Linux now. It wasn't easy but they bleed money, they certainly could do it. This is not Epic's fault.

 

But Epic bad. Valve good.

No, it’s not dead, that’s implying that it was a thing in the past.

It may be a waste of time on developers side to make a Linux compatible build, but it coasts nothing to make it not instantly say no to proton….

Steam with proton is basically making Linux gaming a thing they can be done for the first time. Valve doesn’t think that devs should Neil’s Linux versions, but using a anti cheat that purposely doesn’t let proton work is just bs, especially when it’s possible to tell it to stop that without even recompiling the game

[hishnash]

I think its quite clear, epic has been putting a lot of pressure agaist steam, with large free game handouts costing them millions the last thing they are going to do is spend time and money to help steam build up a platform of thier own (even if it is open).  Fundamentally the entire Epic games stuff is all about them being able to become the dominant gaming platform (that is why Tencent invested in the company after all). 

Unless he sees a way of supplanting steam store on steam dec with epic game store he will not be interested in supporting the platform.

[Kisai]

7 hours ago, porina said:

 

It is a solution for "I want to play (some) PC games while out and about." That isn't everyone. I never use my Switch outside of the dock for example. 

See the thing is, repackaging a laptop into a switch-like does not make it a switch.

 

Personally, I think anyone who bought one is a fool, or just likes to buy weird electronics like they were pieces of art. I'm absolutely certain this device is going nowhere, and had Valve decided to even re-release their existing games and marketing (eg Portal) on it, we might be having a different conversation. Yet Valve can't even be arsed to make new games anymore. Valve hasn't release any new games since 2013 that people could play. Why would you want to buy a game console from a company who can't even produce games?

[Ultraforce]

7 minutes ago, Kisai said:

See the thing is, repackaging a laptop into a switch-like does not make it a switch.

 

Personally, I think anyone who bought one is a fool, or just likes to buy weird electronics like they were pieces of art. I'm absolutely certain this device is going nowhere, and had Valve decided to even re-release their existing games and marketing (eg Portal) on it, we might be having a different conversation. Yet Valve can't even be arsed to make new games anymore. Valve hasn't release any new games since 2013 that people could play. Why would you want to buy a game console from a company who can't even produce games?

It's quite inaccuarte to say they can't produce games. The Lab and Half-Life Alyx are both VR games that they have released and while they are near dead Dota Underlords and Counter-Strike Nexon: Studo are theoretically still playable. Even if you don't like Valve's games or the Steam Deck what you are say is simply not true. And I say this as someone who has no plans really on ever buying a steam deck since I can just play a handheld console or phone game instead.

[porina]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

See the thing is, repackaging a laptop into a switch-like does not make it a switch.

I see that as a big positive.

 

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

had Valve decided to even re-release their existing games and marketing (eg Portal) on it, we might be having a different conversation.

I have no idea which games work on SteamOS, but I presume Valve back catalog is likely to be on it. Besides, I still think if I were to ever go for such a device, I'd just go Windows anyway.

 

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Why would you want to buy a game console from a company who can't even produce games?

Unlike game consoles this could run software from anyone on Windows platform.

[Kisai]

8 minutes ago, porina said:

I see that as a big positive.

 

I have no idea which games work on SteamOS, but I presume Valve back catalog is likely to be on it. Besides, I still think if I were to ever go for such a device, I'd just go Windows anyway.

You know what's funny. No sooner than I said "Portal" on switch... Guess what Valve did. Portal and Portal 2 on Switch. Wow why would I ever need the SteamDeck now.

 

8 minutes ago, porina said:

Unlike game consoles this could run software from anyone on Windows platform.

Wishful thinking. I'll reserve judgement until the people who actually risked the money for it try to play something older than 2008.

[Chrysalairus]

On 2/9/2022 at 4:50 PM, Kisai said:

You know what's funny. No sooner than I said "Portal" on switch... Guess what Valve did. Portal and Portal 2 on Switch. Wow why would I ever need the SteamDeck now.

Well, if you don't have a switch and already own the games on steam it makes for a compelling reason. I like that I don't have to buy my games all over again like on the switch.

 

On 2/9/2022 at 4:50 PM, Kisai said:

Wishful thinking. I'll reserve judgement until the people who actually risked the money for it try to play something older than 2008.

Yeah, I'd be worried about that as well. Windows has issues with that, so I can imagine it'll be even worse with proton. 450 games on my steam library are gold or platinum rated. Some of them are older than 2008 so when I buy the deck I'll have to see what happens.

[RejZoR]

People are forgetting the point of Steam Deck is not to create exclusivity. It's to create accessibility. As many people as there can be using Steam means more income for Valve. It's as simple as that. They don't care if you repair the device, they even went out of their way to do so, which means less work for them while there is more active users. You can still install Windows on it and run GOG or Epic, but just like with Android ROM's, very small percentage of users will do that. And even if they do, chances are they'll use Steam anyways. And starting at 420€ it beats any laptop or desktop PC for gaming cost wise as well.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

its funny to see people defend EPIC at the same time wants people to switch to Linux from windows 

[Bananasplit_00]

I mean Tim has previously said(~2016 iirc) that using Linux is equivalent avoiding social responsibilities so I'm not sure why he would suddenly stop being hostile to Linux