Valve Offers Complete Game Library to 'Steam Link' Mac Customers Due to Delayed Support

[sudo1996]

Those that do have the resources put out Mac versions quite successfully.

Eh, there's the notable exception of Counter-Strike:GO, which is made by Valve and is one of the most popular games on Steam. The Mac version has lag spikes no matter how good your hardware is and what you put the settings on. I have to either boot into Windows or run it in OS X and "spray and pray". So frustrating. I expected Valve to support OS X better. In general, OS X tends to take second priority for game developers.

 

[sudo1996]

For all those who are saying the Mac is not the ideal gaming platform (which it isn't), Valve is actually doing us Mac users a huge favor in the long run.

Thanks to SteamOS we'll see more and more OpenGL ports over the next few years. And if Valve really manages to gain traction with their platform, developers may even choose Vulkan (OpenGL's successor) in favor of DirectX 12 for future developments. It's a long shot, but SteamOS may have the potential to compete with Windows on the PC gaming front. And with that success, Mac success could follow.

Yep, I'm glad about what Valve is doing (even though I hate Steam), and I want DirectX to get killed off. It's a PitA even if you're using Windows.

 

[verpeiler]

..and I want DirectX to get killed off. It's a PitA even if you're using Windows.

Why is it a pita? You have zero interaction with it....

I really wish apple would give an opportunity to build a gaming machine with OSX, but it's hopeless. iMacs have laughable GPUs and even the MacPro sucks for gaming (aside from it's gigantic price). Yeah I know, I could build a Hackintosh, but that can a real pita if you want it to be up to date.


Consoles? Give me a break, they're for kids or people who don't want a deeper gaming experience....

 

[mazz0]

I got my Steam Controller on Friday, but I haven't had any emails from Valve

 

[till213]

Thanks to SteamOS we'll see more and more OpenGL ports over the next few years. And if Valve really manages to gain traction with their platform, developers may even choose Vulkan (OpenGL's successor) in favor of DirectX 12 for future developments. It's a long shot, but SteamOS may have the potential to compete with Windows on the PC gaming front. And with that success, Mac success could follow.

Unfortunately Apple, in all their wisdom, chose to roll their own solution called Metal. Whether that means that we will never see Vulkan on OS X is not clear yet, but it certainly doesn't raise the expectation level...

(After all, Vulkan is "not yet pulic", so there's still a slight chance that Apple might add support for it in OS X 10.12 next year).

 

[scottishwildcat]

There's nothing that can be done on a PC that can't be done on a Mac. The only reason - the only reason - gaming on Macs is "inferior" is because most developers don't have the resources to develop on both platforms concurrently. Those that do have the resources put out Mac versions quite successfully.

That's part of it, but it doesn't help that Apple just don't put (or offer) what would be considered anything other than low-end gaming GPUs at best in any of their Macs. Nor do Macs natively support (for example) the near-ubiquitous Xbox 360 controller as a plug and play device -- yes, it's reasonably trivial to get them to work with a third-party driver, but the most popular one is already too old to work on Yosemite, and since it's a kext, the forked version that does work may not do so on El Capitan due to SIP (but I haven't checked). All these things add up.

Another example: OS X used to include drivers that supported Logitech's force feedback wheels, but they've been gone since 10.7, and now not a single force feedback wheel is supported on OS X. Yes, the wheel hardware manufacturers are partly to blame, but again, it's a step backwards from where we were.

 

[attila]

This is why I pirate...

The controller doesn't work even if you pirate the game.

 

[adnbek]

Oh, I was more alluding to the reason for the pirating as opposed to the method.

Because people who pirate will use any excuse as a justification?

 

[2457282]

Angry Birds isn't exactly quality gaming.

Agreed. But Asphalt8 is. And there are plenty of quality games in the AppStore. Not everything has to be a "kill everything in sight" game that requires a dedicated console. They have there place, for sure, but it frankly is no longer required for most.

 

[wovel]

Nope, and our IT dept don’t care to put the effort in either. Strangely enough we have some devices that will only work when connected directly to th srial port on the computer and won’t work relaibly with any, (that we have found), USB to serial.
This means it’s a showstopper as some of the boards are fried during an interrupted or unsuccessful flashing op.

Some of our old software only works on our very old PCs too.

So your systems won't work with a PC from this decade either. Got it. I am not sure antiquated systems that have not been properly modernized are so much a Mac problem as a poor developer problem. USB is a serial bus and there is no logical reason any serial device you have would not work connected to to an adapter. USB has been the standard serial port on everything Mac and PC for 10 years now. If you have a legitimate need for laptop or desktop users to connect to serial interfaces and no one has found a working a working adapter, your IT department needs some changes.

 

[GeneralChang]

Sucks for Mac gamers who already own all of Valve's games, because, you know, they're pretty much the only company that makes AAA Mac games worth playing. I know I have most of them in my library.

Come now, part of the reason I love Blizzard so much is every single title they make is developed for Mac as much as it is PC.

 

[Renzatic]

Why is it a pita? You have zero interaction with it....

That's what I'm thinking. DX is just a thing that's there, lurking about in the background. You never directly notice it in any way whatsoever.

 

[verpeiler]

That's what I'm thinking. DX is just a thing that's there, lurking about in the background. You never directly notice it in any way whatsoever.

That's what APIs are for.

 

[Renzatic]

If you have a legitimate need for laptop or desktop users to connect to serial interfaces and no one has found a working a working adapter, your IT department needs some changes.

It's probably not the IT department so much as very old hardware. That's one thing I've noticed about very old, highly specific, and incredibly old machines. They're incredibly finicky, and expect things just so.

I came across a good example back when I did some side work for a little computer and machine repair shop a few years back. We came across a job where we had to replace the software on a computer hooked up to a parts fabricator. Wouldn't have been too bad, if it weren't for the fact the machine only used very specific software that worked with a very specific version of Windows 95. When I asked why they didn't just get a new one, they said it was because a new one would cost them $800,000 plus, and the current one worked fine when everything was running.

 

[jinnj]

By that I mean even if you boot into Windows or virtualise.

Not true. Any software that runs on a Windows PC will run on BootCamp. There is no emulation happening. The motherboards are all intel motherboards, chipsets, cpu, etc. This is why Mackintosh works. If you can get the same motherboard with the same chipset (mostly the pricey Gigayte MBs) you can install OS X on it with little effort.

 

[macduke]

Come now, part of the reason I love Blizzard so much is every single title they make is developed for Mac as much as it is PC.

I guess I always forget about them because I'm not really into those type of games.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

Why is it a pita? You have zero interaction with it....

I really wish apple would give an opportunity to build a gaming machine with OSX, but it's hopeless. iMacs have laughable GPUs and even the MacPro sucks for gaming (aside from it's gigantic price). Yeah I know, I could build a Hackintosh, but that can a real pita if you want it to be up to date.


Consoles? Give me a break, they're for kids or people who don't want a deeper gaming experience....

It's a pain in the ass because it limits a game to one platform. That was fine in 1995 when there was pretty much only one platform, but the times have changed since then. We're all using different devices now, wether it's a tablet, smartphone, pc or gaming console.

Single platform graphics APIs should not exist today. And that includes Metal as well.

 

[Markoth]

It's a pain in the ass because it limits a game to one platform. That was fine in 1995 when there was pretty much only one platform, but the times have changed since then. We're all using different devices now, wether it's a tablet, smartphone, pc or gaming console.

Single platform graphics APIs should not exist today. And that includes Metal as well.

An industry standard graphics API sounds great, but nobody tells Microsoft to do. I'm not convinced they'll ever drop DirectX. They'd make DirectX into their own "industry standard" before they'd drop it. Such is the way of Microsoft.

 

[Renzatic]

An industry standard graphics API sounds great, but nobody tells Microsoft to do. I'm not convinced they'll ever drop DirectX. They'd make DirectX into their own "standard" before they'd drop it. Such is the way of Microsoft.

That's what OpenGL (and now Vulkan) was supposed to be, and the latter is exactly what MS has done.

The only way they'll drop (or more likely open source) DirectX is if another competitor comes out and manages to take away market share from Windows, to the point that developers see using DX over the more open alternative as a burden more than a boon.

Valve probably has the best chance of doing this, but they're a long, long, LONG way away from being a threat to the Windows game hegemony.

 

[Markoth]

That's what OpenGL (and now Vulkan) was supposed to be, and the latter is exactly what MS has done.

The only way they'll drop (or more likely open source) DirectX is if another competitor comes out and manages to take away market share from Windows, to the point that developers see using DX over the more open alternative as a burden more than a boon.

Valve probably has the best chance of doing this, but they're a long, long, LONG way away from being a threat to the Windows game hegemony.

Microsoft really has been detrimental to technological advancement for a long time now. From the Internet Explorer saga (which seems to now be finally resolved with Microsoft Edge), to the DirectX saga, to SMB, and all the other "standards" that Microsoft has forced on the tech industry. Nobody should have that much power.

 

[Renzatic]

Microsoft really has been detrimental to technological advancement for a long time now. From the Internet Explorer saga (which seems to now be finally resolved with Microsoft Edge), to the DirectX saga, to SMB, and all the other "standards" that Microsoft has forced on the tech industry. Nobody should have that much power.

I can't argue with you about IE, but DirectX has been fine. Up until recently, there weren't any equally good alternatives for people to support. OGL was the closest, but it lost its competitive edge around the time DX9 overtook it.