Nvidia Played a Part in SteamOS Development
Nvidia helped Valve Software port its library of games over to SteamOS, reduce controller latency and more.
Nvidia posted a new blog on Wednesday talking about Valve Software's invasion of the living room. The update wasn't the streaming tech announcement the supposed Valve employee claimed would be released during AMD's event in Hawaii, but rather shows how enthusiastic the company is over the Steam Machines initiative and the company's involvement in the SteamOS development process.
"Engineers from Valve and Nvidia have spent a lot of time collaborating on a common goal for SteamOS," writes Nvidia's Mark Smith. "To deliver an open-platform gaming experience with superior performance and uncompromising visuals directly on the big screen."
He said that Nvidia engineers embedded at Valve Software collaborated on improving driver performance for OpenGL and optimizing performance on Nvidia GPUs. He pointed to Nvidia's launch of the GeForce R310 drivers for Linux back in November 2012 that doubled the performance and reduced loading times for Linux-based games running on GeForce GTX 600 Series GPUs and lower, and Valve's Steam client.
He also pointed to this PDF, stating that Nvidia helped Valve port its content library to SteamOS. This 90 page document covers topics like why port to Linux in the first place, the problems of moving from Windows to Linux, using different types of OpenGL, and so on. Nvidia also helped Valve tune SteamOS to lower latencies between the controller and on-screen action.
"The collaboration makes sense as both companies strongly believe in the importance of open-platform innovation, and both companies are committed to providing gamers with a cutting-edge visual experience," Smith said.
SteamOS was announced on Monday, a new Linux-based operating system specifically tuned for gaming machines. The OS will be free to download and use, and can be installed on any x86 system. SteamOS will also be the default platform for Steam Machines provided by hardware partners, but like any PC, owners will have the freedom to install whatever operating system they want.
"SteamOS is built around the already familiar Steam and is a version of Linux," he said. "But it's enhanced for gaming — and for gaming on the big screen in particular. Combined with the fact they're giving it away to users, and hardware providers, for free, SteamOS has the potential to usher in a new era for gaming in the living room."
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"This means that anyone can build hardware and software for use in the living room, on an operating system designed to be lightweight, extensible and optimized for gaming. Suffice to say, we here at NVIDIA are very excited!" he added.
The final piece of the Valve puzzle will be revealed on Friday. We already know what that will be, and it's not Source 2 as the supposed Valve employee suggested.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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meowmix44 noooooooooooo! Its gonna ruin it fo rAMD cards :( NVIDIA has some tricks up their sleeve!Reply
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clutchc I doubt it will ruin anything for AMD card users. $team has no desire to ruin their experience for anybody.Reply -
Darkk Video performance in linux always behind other OS. Glad to see Nvidia stepping in to help address that. Going to guess in exchange for that kind of help for Steam is advertisement on the platform. I wonder if ATI-AMD will do the same?Reply
I love ATI cards but linux video drivers always give me stability issues. I've heard it's the same issue for both companies. -
Nilo BP This is a bit puzzling. AMD is listed on the Steam store page as one of their "partners". Either Nvidia is pulling a stunt, or partnership ain't all it's cracked up to be.Reply -
Grandmastersexsay "To deliver an open-platform gaming experience with superior performance and uncompromising visuals directly on the big screen."Reply
Open-platform? Like a PC, but less open. -
lpedraja2002 Haha love the last bit in the article:Reply
"The final piece of the Valve puzzle will be revealed on Friday. We already know what that will be, and it's not Source 2 as the supposed Valve employee suggested."
Good to know but still the second announcement on the leak turned out to be true. Valve made 3 announcements, revealed every 3 days, on the 9th month of the year 2013 and 9/3 = 3 so If the last announcement isn't half-life 3 they are worse trolls than EA. -
sykozis NVidia believes in "the importance of open-platform innovation"....yet they don't really believe in open source or open standards. If NVidia actually believed in open-platform innovation, PhysX wouldn't require CUDA, but instead would be OpenCL based.Reply -
wiinippongamer AMD driver support is a joke outside of windows. Nvidia's has much better linux drivers and also BSD/Solaris drivers for years; so It's fair to say they support the advancement of open OSsReply -
fonzy "The final piece of the Valve puzzle will be revealed on Friday. We already know what that will be, and it's not Source 2 as the supposed Valve employee suggested."Reply
If you already know then why don't you just tell us! -
smeezekitty ReplyAMD driver support is a joke outside of windows. Nvidia's has much better linux drivers and also BSD/Solaris drivers for years; so It's fair to say they support the advancement of open OSs
BOTH have garbage support in Linux.