&gt; thus expect Valve to be an OS developer on top of creating software for their gaming hardware. That&#x27;s a different set of expectations and I wonder how they&#x27;ll navigate it.They&#x27;ve been doing it since Steam Deck launched, or even since they started to contribute to Proton&#x2F;Wine (depending on exactly what you see &quot;OS&quot; to be). They seem to have grips on it more or less already, Deck upgrades are a breeze and the machine and software itself is open enough for a Linux hacker like me to be very comfortable on it, and also closed down enough for my nieces to not be able to brick theirs by just tapping around.

Linux is my daily driver, and I run steam to play games (though, not on a work linux partition for reasons).It can run just about everything I want to play, but yes, there are plenty of things that don&#x27;t work yet. Doom Dark Ages, for example.

I have been using Steam Deck oled as my main computing device for 2 years. It has been amazing. It&#x27;s fast and silent.

I&#x27;ve used SteamOS as a daily driver for half a year. Immutable distros have limitations and my distrobox images failed to work after a SteamOS update.If you&#x27;re ok with running work stuff in a separate VM within SteamOS, that works great. Using Geekbench I saw only a 5% cpu performance penalty. Io takes a bigger hit, but that wasn&#x27;t a blocker for me as I was intending to run VMs with encrypted storage anyway (which adds even more latency) but still a good experience for my work.

I&#x27;ve used it as a daily driver for years and its good. Updates do break things though so it&#x27;s not the total linux bug-free dream.

I like SteamOS a great deal, though it&#x27;s not my daily driver (yet). I&#x27;m curious if people will begin to use it as a daily driver and thus expect Valve to be an OS developer on top of creating software for their gaming hardware. That&#x27;s a different set of expectations and I wonder how they&#x27;ll navigate it.

Gamescope is really nice. I am running Steam headlessly with that on my home server.

It doesn&#x27;t boot into the desktop by default — it uses its own session with the Gamescope compositor. The desktop is easily accessible through the power menu though.

&gt; Interesting that it uses KDE Plasma for the desktopSteamOS on the Steam Deck already used KDE Plasma for the desktop.

Steam is the only reason I have a Windows desktop, I&#x27;ll probably just get one of these next time I want a hardware refresh (which admittedly will probably be many years).Interesting that it uses KDE Plasma for the desktop

I think this is a form of an announcement but without many details. I&#x27;m curious to see how well it works

Valve deciding to support Arm-based gaming is HUGE news

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ValveSoftware&#x2F;Proton&#x2F;issues&#x2F;1493" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ValveSoftware&#x2F;Proton&#x2F;issues&#x2F;1493</a>This is fun, just found this issue from 2018 which was closed with this comment:&gt; Hello @setsunati, this is not a realistic objective for Proton. As @rkfg, mentions wine for ARM does not magically make x86 based games work on ARM cpus.&gt; Even if Steam were brought to ARM, and an x86 emulation layer was run underneath wine, the amount of games that could run fast and without hitting video driver quirks is small enough not to entertain this idea any time in the near future.It&#x27;s mentioned in this issue <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ValveSoftware&#x2F;Proton&#x2F;issues&#x2F;8136" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ValveSoftware&#x2F;Proton&#x2F;issues&#x2F;8136</a> which was closed Oct 2024 with this comment by kisak-valve:&gt; Hello @Theleafir1, similar to #1493, this is not a realistic objective for Proton any time in the near future.

I believe this work is a continuation of the work the asahi linux people did to get games working on M-series macs. It seems Alyssa Rosenzweig works at valve as a contractor. Super cool work. Some seriously talented folks.

Have to wonder if there is a world where Proton comes to macOS.

There was also a parallel effort to this end, targeting Android rather than plain Linux, resulting in an app called <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;winlator.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;winlator.org&#x2F;</a> — which also works quite well at this point. (See e.g. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=aP0yUqcyY18" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=aP0yUqcyY18</a>)

Valve has been quietly working on integrating the FEX x86 emulator into Proton for a while, and it&#x27;s official now.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tomshardware.com&#x2F;peripherals&#x2F;gaming-headsets&#x2F;hands-on-with-valves-new-steam-frame-headset-arm-powered-mixed-mode-device-uses-new-fex-translation-layer-for-traditional-x86-games" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tomshardware.com&#x2F;peripherals&#x2F;gaming-headsets&#x2F;han...</a>

Maybe they&#x27;ve cracked the code with the dongle? Usually, you either have to invest both time and money into setting up the perfect streaming network, deal with annoying cables or resign yourself to inferior on-device game versions. The ergonomics matter more than you&#x27;d think.But if it&#x27;s a very easy plug-n-play type deal to run SteamVR games (and on Linux!), that&#x27;s a huge ergonomic improvement. Don&#x27;t have to think too much about whether everything is running correctly or what-have-you.

I recommend preparing a drink or two and loading up VRchat and joining one of the rave club groups. Check out the metaverse zuck wishes he ran.

I don&#x27;t think there is foveated rendering. There is foveated encoding, when game streaming.Looks like a very competent headset indeed though! Nice combo of fast streaming that can prioritize well with foveated encoding, and hopefully a pretty nice malleable capable standalone headset too.

My NVIDIA Shield is getting old and slow. I can see this as a good replacement, because it supports HDMI CEC, so you can control it with your remote control.Install Plex, JellyFin, FreeTube et.al. to it and you have a nice open source TV box.You also get 4k gaming from Steam, GOG, Epic etc. and you get emulators. I&#x27;ve been wanting to build a computer like this, but CEC is hard to find and the adapters that exist don&#x27;t support full 4k resolution.

I lowkey hope it&#x27;s good enough for coding. Really wanted to try out the xreal glasses, but multiple people said they aren&#x27;t crisp enough for text.

It looks good until I reached one bit:&gt; Passthrough - Monochrome passthrough via outward facing camerasThis is an outright bone-headed move that I can&#x27;t believe Valve is making. Only having monochrome cameras means augmented reality is basically a non-starter.AR has a lot of potential. I literally bought a Meta Quest 3 just for PianoVision [0] when I already had a Valve Index. I would love to see some sort of AR-based game you could play outdoors. But with only monochrome vision, that&#x27;s gonna be awful.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;apwZTV-Rg0s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;apwZTV-Rg0s</a>

Wow this looks great. Foveated streaming, great resolution, wireless, 144hz, looks much more comfortable... As much as I want this, I feel like it&#x27;ll end up being a really cool thing that just sits on the shelf.Edit: foveated streaming, not rendering

Even if they are, Valve has a long track record of contributing back to open source projects.

&gt; arch doesn&#x27;t officially support ARMDoesn&#x27;t really mean much to Valve as SteamOS vendor:- linux kernel supports aarch64 just fine- user space supports aarach64 just as fine- Valve provides runtime for games (be it via proton or native linux), so providing aarch64 builds is up to them anywayThe main point of ArchLinuxARM is providing compatible binaries, which isn&#x27;t something hard to do in-house.

Arch doesn&#x27;t support ARM at all. Arm is somebody else hobby project.

I&#x27;m more confused that it&#x27;s running SteamOS which is supposedly Arch based, but arch doesn&#x27;t officially support ARM. You have to use the ArchLinuxARM distro for that, which is less maintained. They got to be doing something off label for that.

The headset isn&#x27;t natively running games, right?

Just to clarify that&#x27;s for the Steam Frame VR Headset. The Steam Machine PC uses an AMD Zen 4 x86 CPU.

Mainly check out the Valve-sponsored FEX project.

&gt; So Steam + Proton works on aarch64?CodeWeavers just announced[0] CrossOver on ARM a couple of days ago, so yes.[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.codeweavers.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;mjohnson&#x2F;2025&#x2F;11&#x2F;6&#x2F;twist-our-arm64-heres-the-latest-crossover-preview" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.codeweavers.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;mjohnson&#x2F;2025&#x2F;11&#x2F;6&#x2F;twist-ou...</a>

It also looks like they&#x27;ve launched a new version of the Steam Controller.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;sale&#x2F;steamframe" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;sale&#x2F;steamframe</a> [1]&gt; Steam Frame is a PC, and runs SteamOS powered by a Snapdragon® 8 Series Processor. With 16GB of RAM, Steam Frame supports stand-alone play on a growing number of both VR and non-VR games without needing to stream from your PC.So Steam + Proton works on aarch64? Is this something already available&#x2F;supported, or is this an announcement?[1] Steam Frame, which is the VR Headset releasing alongside the Steam Machine. Dedicated discussion here <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=45903325">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=45903325</a>

There&#x27;s a certain category of person who spends thousands of dollars seemingly just to see bigger numbers in benchmarks and to flex their consumerism on people. I&#x27;ve seen quite a lot of commenting about how certain games are &quot;unplayable&quot; on the steam deck, games which I have been playing just fine. I just turn the settings down to low and enjoy the game.

The main appeal of a console (for both consumers and developers) is that&#x27;s it&#x27;s a &quot;stupid&quot; and &quot;fixed&quot; device. Your game either runs well on it or it doesn&#x27;t, but you can always count on this remaining consistent prior to shipping it.If Steam Machine gains enough foothold, it will be treated like a console. It won&#x27;t run the latest title in 4K@120, but the title will still run great on default settings.

Honestly I&#x27;m hoping the steam machine is gonna put some pressure on game devs to knock it off with the absurdly high spec requirements. There&#x27;s plenty of modern titles that require a top of the line card that don&#x27;t look any better than 10yr old games.

One of the things I&#x27;ve noted for a while is that PC gaming as a platform seems to be polarizing between high and low spec, especially if you look outside of North America&#x2F;Western Europe to places like South America or SE Asia. The steam deck and now this seem to be a reference&#x2F;target platform for the low spec group. It might not be able to play the prestigious high spec titles well if at all, but so long as &quot;your mileage may vary&quot; is messaged well I can&#x27;t see it being a problem, it hasn&#x27;t so far.

Both consoles allow more than 8GB to be used for the integrated GPU.

Actually looks like its just _slightly_ less powerful than them.

it meets or exceeds the ps5 and xbox series x, so it might not be top tier, but it&#x27;ll be fine. I have a plenty good time on my series x, cant think of any stutters.

Even modern low-end GPUs should have more than enough fill rate for high-res textures. The texture quality setting in games is usually not affecting performance at all until VRAM runs out.

No DisplayPort 2.0 is interesting because RDNA3 should support that.More importantly, FSR4 (currently) doesn&#x27;t support RDNA3, so you&#x27;ll be limited on upscaling too.

It&#x27;s a very low end Radeon 7000 series. It&#x27;s absolutely incapable of the highest texture quality and rendering resolutions that need more than 8GB of VRAM. You&#x27;ll likely never go above 1080p on this card (1440p is going to be rough based on benchmarks of the existing low end 7000 series).There&#x27;s absolutely no reasonable way to use more than 8GB of VRAM on this card.

8GB just isn&#x27;t enough for modern AAA games. Battlefield 6, probably the most highly optimized AAA game to have come out in the past few years, still has a 16GB RAM minimum and Arc Raiders, which is also incredibly optimized, still has a 12GB minimum. Games are only going to become more resource hungry from here, so 8GB in early 2026 would be a terrible idea.

The RAM&#x27;s upgradable, it&#x27;s standard DDR5 on a SODIMM module

Not sure how heavy SteamOS is, but wouldn&#x27;t modern games actually prefer a flipped memory configuration? So, 8 GB RAM and 16 GB VRAM would make this a more &#x27;balanced&#x27; gaming appliance. But it is advertised as a general purpose PC, so 8 GB RAM wouldn&#x27;t be enough.

I think it does also help that a big chunk of Steams userbase are playing smaller indie titles that don&#x27;t need obscene amounts of vram. The steam deck audience for example has a lot of people playing both a mix of AAA and smaller games. Given this is advertised as 6x as powerful as the deck I&#x27;m sure they&#x27;ll be fine. It&#x27;s not meant to be a top of the line console thats for sure, and if it was people would be moaning that its too expensive.

Memory is also not that abundant anymore. Over the last month PC memory costs have more than doubled due to AI datacenter builds buying out all the manufacturing capacity.

This. Absolutely this. 
It is complete bonkers to suggest that game devs dictate consumer hardware, insane to run the asylum.All game development should follow Nintendo model: there’s a fixed hardware and game devs should go out of their way to optimize to the spec, not consumer shelling out thousands every years because someone can’t be bothered to optimize their cashgrab.

Games publishers&#x2F;developers are going to have to wind in their necks a little. Whilst memory is abundant it&#x27;s also still quite expensive. We should still be aiming for efficiency and the chances are 16gb+ are in the minority here. Fact is, the more VRAM and compute you demand the smaller your customer-base becomes.I&#x27;ve played many games with 8GB VRAM* and will do so for the forseeable. If that&#x27;s not enough, I am not a customer. Simple as.The truth is, there is going to be a massive motivation with the likes of Steam Deck&#x2F;Machine to actually make titles that are optimised and perform well within their hardware parameters. It&#x27;s money you won&#x27;t want to ignore.*One example was Silent Hill remake on PC, which used the unreal engine. It was optimised beautifully and ran without visual glitches and stutters even with the highest graphic demands on a 8GB RTX

It should be good enough for any game with a toggle on textures quality, which is pretty much every big title for the foreseeable future?

You always have the option of streaming a game, though.8 GB is good enough for most everything, and can you stream on an exception basis, if something truly demanding catches your eye.

&gt;RAM 16GB DDR5 + 8GB GDDR6 VRAMHmm. Not that it is big deal, but I would be somewhat worried about true longevity with the VRAM. Not sure if SteamOS helps there, but on PC some new titles are going over the 8GB VRAM.

Opening them in a private tab circumvents that behavior (at least for me)

If I uninstall the app, I’m unable to login to Steam due to 2FA.

I had to install the app to try and work around a problem with Steam, and then had the same problems just browsing. You can probably disable that behavior, but I ended up just uninstalling the app entirely.The support experience was so bad that I got really soured on Valve, and can&#x27;t even get excited for these announcements now.

Forcing the use of the steam app for 2FA is such an ass move. Keeping this as a reminder of Valve still being a corporation with interests that can shift to the worst in a single day.

These links open the Steam app on my phone and crash. :(

My Shield is 7 or 8 years old at this point and still going strong. Was very much hoping for something like this from Steam just in case something were to happen to it.

I haven&#x27;t had any problems with my shield since the update that killed it about 3 years ago.Or maybe I&#x27;ve just gotten used to it?Are you having issues with yours?

Wonder if there is a good remote with voice input to use for YouTube and Kodi so I can replace my shield TV.

Yes, the xbox skinned version of windows is in the ROG Xbox Ally

From what I could tell, the ROG Xbox device was just Windows desktop mode with a full screen &quot;Xbox&quot; application open, which you can minimise and see the normal desktop behind it.

&gt; the Xbox skinned version of windowsIsn&#x27;t that what the ROG Xbox Ally devices have? At least that&#x27;s what it looked like to me. Something like a SteamOS&#x27;s gaming mode counterpart for Windows.

If MS even bothers to make another xbox this is what it will be.

One (maybe the only) advantage that the hypothetical new Windows-based Xbox console is that it&#x27;ll be able to play all online games that require anti-cheat like COD, Battlefield, and Fortnite. All games that are mega-popular but are unfortunately unwilling to support anti-cheat on Linux.

In 2026 we should be getting Windows on a Xbox console with the Xbox skinned version of windows. This would be a direct competitor to that since most PC gamers have the majority of their game library on steam.

&quot;Steam Machine’s pricing is comparable to a PC with similar specs&quot; [0]I&#x27;s say max ~800€ at this point0, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;tech&#x2F;818111&#x2F;valve-steam-machine-hands-on-preview-specs-announcement" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;tech&#x2F;818111&#x2F;valve-steam-machine-han...</a>

Maybe we are meant to vote on it.   I vote $299.

Yup. This really needs to be fixed. There have been on-going bug reports on it for years. AMD just needs to move the hdmi 2.1 stuff behind a firmware binary blob already like NVIDIA does. It&#x27;s so annoying not having full quality HDMI. It&#x27;s the only think keeping me from using Linux on my current gaming PC that is hooked exclusively up to my TV... Either that or TV&#x27;s need to start having Display Port.

After commenting i looked up the actual capabilities of the port and it turns out while the port is officially only HDMI 2.0 it actually still supports 120Hz, HDR and VRR anyway. So basically it only doesn&#x27;t support Display Stream Compression for 144Hz and beyond.I quickly tested this by connecting my PC running Linux with a RX 6800 to my TV (LG C4). 120Hz, VRR and HDR were all available.

This is a big miss for me. I can’t use my TVs 120Hz VRR mode without HDMI 2.1.I realize the Xbox Series X is beleaguered at this point, but apart from playing games that are on Steam but not Xbox, I can’t see why I would prefer the Steam Machine.

&quot;Luckily,&quot; the hardware won&#x27;t allow for 4k@120Hz on visually cutting edge games anyway.

&gt; HDMI 2.0The HDMI Forum yet again rearing it&#x27;s ugly head by continuing to block GPU manufacturers from implementing HDMI 2.1 in the Open Source drivers

you can already do whatever you want to the steam deck. it&#x27;s just linux with a readonly base that gets atomically updated. but you can rip it out and do whatever. it&#x27;s your hardware.

It might be PR speak ... but for me it is working.

&quot;Yes, Steam Machine is optimized for gaming, but it&#x27;s still your PC. Install your own apps, or even another operating system. Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?&quot;

The only thing that crock of shit is attracting is grifter bucks.

Any devs that find the visuals, keyboard driven workflow, or cult of DHH appealing enough to try Omarchy are likely already Linux users.Linux has been a great platform for devs for a long time. This is exactly why WSL exists, and why MacOS has a native Linux container[1] tool.. because Linux was eating their lunch in this user segment.[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;apple&#x2F;container" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;apple&#x2F;container</a>

Jesus Christ, do you seriously not see a difference between established game development company that IS the de facto and de jure PC gaming, and a hypeman who developed some web framework?

If hype is to be believed, Omarchy is also pushing a lot of devs to Linux.

&gt; &quot;SteamOS 3 (Arch-based)&quot;Holy shit, it&#x27;s the Year of The Linux Desktop, for real this time. It&#x27;s happening. It&#x27;s actually happening.A standard Arch Linux&#x2F;KDE[0] PC for every home, in a polished, vendor-supported package. Like Apple, it&#x27;s a single standard hardware&#x2F;OS pair, so, FOSS&#x27; fatal hardware-support hell might well be made obsolete. The vendor is a household name corporation. There&#x27;s an incredibly fortuitous (for Linux) market dynamic at this point in time, of &quot;commoditize your complement&quot;—the dynamic that Valve has incentives to invest massively in giving away a nice thing for free, because that does bad things to its competitors. And Steam is... the killer super-app to end all killer apps.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;SteamOS" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;SteamOS</a>This is real life!

Yeah, I mean my comment is all speculation, guesses and opinions. Given the limited information, some jumping is required, if at least in order to ask questions :)

&gt; I don&#x27;t see &quot;soldered&quot; anywhere, so I guess maybe they&#x27;ll be switchableUnfortunately that&#x27;s quite a logical jump...

You mean &quot;16GB DDR5 + 8GB GDDR6 VRAM&quot; or something else? I took it just as they didn&#x27;t want to put VRAM next to the GPU for some reason, rather than them actually being linked somehow. Maybe I misunderstand.

Given the memory configuration it seems extremely unlikely that it&#x27;s socketed. It&#x27;s certainly not AM5.

Unless AMD&#x2F;Valve pull a rabbit out of a hat it&#x27;ll also be missing FSR4 which needs RDNA4, and is AMD&#x27;s pretty-damn-close catch up to DLSS.

I thought DLSS4 did work on Linux, and a quick glance at r&#x2F;linux_gaming seems to say the same.I agree about RDNA3 holding it back; given its specs I’m hoping its significantly cheaper than $750.

RDNA 3 is going to hold this machine back. DLSS is far and away better, but Nvidia&#x27;s apathy towards Linux has made playing on something like Bazzite a worse experience. Nvidia has little reason to keep investing in Windows gaming drivers given the AI race, so seeing DLSS 4 or something on Linux is a pipe dream.I think this machine will be decent for most people, but it&#x27;s no-one with a 3080 is going to be looking at this and thinking &quot;this is worth it&quot;, as it&#x27;s probably coming in at about $750. The question is whether it&#x27;ll have power parity with whatever the next Xbox is.

Unless you made a typo here-- Apple&#x27;s equivalent to this is Mac Mini, which has soldered CPU, GPU and RAM (and also the SSD as its not soldered, but it&#x27;s not standard).

Pretty much all (non-Apple) computers in this form factor have a soldered CPU and GPU (and of course soldered VRAM), and slots for DIMMs and M.2.

Shame, but makes sense. Thanks for finding it out for us!You happen to know if the same is true for the RAM? Video seems to mention soldered CPU and GPU only, I skimmed the video but didn&#x27;t see it mentioned.

Soldered, not upgradable <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ&amp;t=591s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=bWUxObt1efQ&amp;t=591s</a>

I do not, my expectations are also way lower for Sony and especially Windows (still, happy PS5 owner here). I already have a PC, thanks for asking!Steam specifically pitches this as a console+PC so I thought asking clarifying questions about the PC part of the product made sense.

I mean, honestly, do you ask the same question about a PS5&#x2F;Xbox? At a certain point, just build an upgradable PC. I&#x27;d equate this product more to a home console than a PC at this point

The only thing I&#x27;d like to know, if the CPU&#x2F;GPU will be replaceable? The specs say &quot;Semi-custom AMD Zen 4&quot; and &quot;Semi-Custom AMD RDNA3&quot;, but I don&#x27;t see &quot;soldered&quot; anywhere, so I guess maybe they&#x27;ll be switchable? If not with off-the-shelves components, maybe Valve will offer their own upgrade kits in the future?

Video games were the only reason for me to use Windows, now that Steam solved this problem no reason to look back anymore. I am also not big fan of multi-player games, so not being able to play games with anti-cheat system buried deep into their binaries isn&#x27;t an issue.

I do not believe that _you_ are trolling with this question, but answering this is just asking to be trolled.That said. Fortnite. Yes, I still play it with friends and cannot play it on Mac or Linux. :(I&#x27;m sure others have similar examples. Also there are just simple things like playing with friends and streaming on Discord. Anybody streaming from Windows always comes across smooth and HD to the other participants while anybody on Linux seems to consistently be received (I don&#x27;t know where exactly in the chain the problem exists, so just &quot;received&quot;, as it may not be a broadcasting or encoding problem, I&#x27;m not an expert in this) with a lot of artifacts and lower framerates.

Fortnite &amp; Call of DutyIf I could travel back in time and prevent my kids and nephews from ever learning about Fortnite, I might do it. Instead I&#x27;m out here trying to keep from getting sniped by a Simpson character.Fortunately, it seems like the rest of the family is getting tired of COD&#x27;s ceaseless churn, and might be willing to pick up something else.

BF6 and any multiplayer EA games with anticheat

Battlefield 6, GTA V online, Escape From Tarkov, likely GTA VIImagine not supporting the latest releases that all your friends are playing.

Trying to get RDR2 to work on Linux, so far no luck.

For me it&#x27;s only games the specifically don&#x27;t support Linux, which are mostly competitive multiplayer games with anti-cheat software. Apex Legends used to work great on Linux, but they removed support as an attempt to combat cheaters (there are still tons of cheaters).

In addition to what others have said, a group of friends still plays enough League of Legends that I don&#x27;t both dual booting. Also if you play RuneScape (RS3, not OSRS) the best 3rd party add-on, Alt1 Toolkit, only works on Windows.

For me the thing that pushed me to reinstall windows after I got a cheap $10 copy was Kerbal Space Program. Though, in my specific case I strongly suspect it was older hardware &amp; driver issues than anything else, since I&#x27;ve not had any major problems on steam deck.I do have more random crashes on certain games even on steam deck, but not as bad as Kerbal Space Program on my old (12 yr) desktop.Factorio seems to work better on Linux. Which is both good and bad (since it&#x27;s so addictive).

Battlefield, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, PUBG, Rainbow 6 Siege, FortniteBasically all the games I play regularly with my friends.

Just wondering, what games are you playing that dont run on Linux yet? I can&#x27;t think of games I&#x27;d play much with family that dont work well

I have a bazzite box connected behind my TV. Even with a non optimal choice of graphic card (an old Nvidia) it works better than I was expecting.

Loved the concept, tried it out, didn&#x27;t work, at least not for RDR2 which I was trying to play. But how would it work, there is Linux, Bazzite, then there is Steam, RDR2 needs the Rockstar launcher, it&#x27;s such an intricate web of dependencies, I&#x27;m not surprised something isn&#x27;t working.

Gaming on Linux is hit and miss, depending on the distro you use and your desktop environment. Some games should be launched with gamescope if you are using Gnome&#x2F;GDMTo have HellDivers run in borderless window on Debian 14. It required me to manually compile gamescope (wasn&#x27;t that difficult but Valve&#x27;s instructions are out of date), and use the backports on Trixie to upgrade the kernel to 6.16, and update wireplumber and pipewire (sound was flakey on some games). Kernel 6.16 performs much better than 6.12 just generally.All the Arkham games work perfectly. Doom Eternal has some weird latency in the mouse and aiming doesn&#x27;t feel right.I could never get my Xbox One bluetooth controller behaving with Linux. I ended buying a 8bitdo Xbox style controller which works perfectly. It is much better made than the Xbox controller and roughly the same price.

How&#x27;s the Nvidia driver support in Bazzite?

I was in the same shoes, then one day I decided to give a shot to Bazzite. To my surprise the installation was extremely smooth, and everything worked right away. Now I’m playing almost everything on it (Arc Raiders, EU V, HLL and Horizon FW recently). If you want to _try_ all you need is 15 minutes, some HDD space and an empty USB. You don’t have to give up Windows at all, dual booting is also pretty smooth.

now with gabecube, maybe steamos would be directly available for desktop too

I used to also have a dedicated Windows machine just for gaming, but two years ago I formatted the Windows drive and put SteamOS (via ChimeraOS) instead. I can legitimately say that it has been more stable than running the same games on Windows. Just flawless.

Pop_OS is pretty rough. Theyre running on a super outdated base while working on COSMIC

The 24.04 beta is really stable and the new cosmic DE is great! I&#x27;ve got it on my desktop and laptop, no problems.System76.com&#x2F;pop&#x2F;pop-beta

For me it&#x27;s been super stable. 
I&#x27;ve hardly seen any bugs. And in those remote cases, it would be more correct to call them quirks than bugs, which have later been fixed anyway. 
I&#x27;ve been using for intensive gaming, AI projects, and audio production. And when I say audio production I don&#x27;t say Audacity. I say recent versions of Ableton Live running on ASIO drivers with windows VSTs and Max 4 Live instruments at 5 ms latency, all of this running through Wine with an amazing Wine managing software called Bottle (hehe). 
As for gaming,, it&#x27;s not hard to see people claming they get even more fps than they get with windows. 
It&#x27;s not a PopOS thing, it&#x27;s the Linux ecosystem that is finally getting mature enough to pull this out (this time for real).
On top of this, System74, the company behind PopOS who is selling laptops with that OS, are also optimizing the kernel to make sure everything runs super smoothly... 
I really don&#x27;t see where your &quot;buggy as hell&quot; is coming from.

I&#x27;ve been using Pop_OS, buggy as hell but steam games work great!Everything is kinda a dumpster fire, but they nailed steam games.

one limitation for Bazzite for instance would be some titles that require anti-cheating won&#x27;t work but just like OP, only use case I have for windows is gaming and running some banking app which won&#x27;t work on non-Windows devicelove to see more and more users realize they can game just fine on linux

Like other commenters, I also recently made the switch. Figured I would dual-boot windows but have never needed to boot it back up again.ProtonDB is a goldmine when a game doesn&#x27;t work. Oh, and switching from Nvidia GPU to AMD GPU seems to have worked great to get games to &quot;just work&quot;.

&gt; This promises 4k 60fps gaming and Valve is good with hardware, so this is an immediate buy from me if it&#x27;s under 1000€Does it promise that? It seems like the hardware might do it, didn&#x27;t see that anywhere

It’s &lt;= a Radeon 7600 GPU (28 CUs RDNA3 vs 32), so I’m not sure I’d have advertised it as a 4k60 machine. Then again I’m not a marketer so what do I know. 4k60 is a flexible target with FSR I suppose.

This promises 4k 60fps gaming and Valve is good with hardware, so this is an immediate buy from me if it&#x27;s under 1000€No need to mess around building a gaming PC anymore.

Would be great of Valve to just drop a Steam Machine Max++ with an AMD Ryzen AI 395 and 128GB unified memory. I know this is not going to happen, but SteamOS should boot fine on that SoC, so you can DIY a Steam Machine that also runs LLMs (albeit a bit slow) :).

Last year I read a lot of reviews making a fuss about the RTX 4070 (mobile) having &quot;only&quot; 8GB VRAM but it&#x27;s what I ended up buying and it just hasn&#x27;t been an issue where I&#x27;m like, shoot my games aren&#x27;t fast enough or pretty enough to have fun. Sometimes I think number-based reviews miss the point, and I miss HardOCP!

Same, if they also released something like a Steam Machine Pro with more ram+vram and bit higher specs I would instantly purchase it. Nvidia and AMD have been rightly criticized for releasing 8GB video cards in the past year and valve shouldn&#x27;t be immune to that criticism.

Extremely hard pass on a laptop. They already have the steam deck, and now they have this. Whether you want it portable or not, there are options. Laptops always end up being just... so disappointing.

the limit last time was anything competitive or multiplayer that required a weird launcher or some low-level permissions or something. I just want to play CS2 and hunt showdown.

I recently got a tiny and mighty GPD win mini. I booted windows once to shrink the data partition and installed Bazzite Linux. Painless install, never even considered booting in win again, and so far all games I tried worked flawlessly. I know there are issues with anti-cheat, but I usually don&#x27;t even like those games..

seconding this. I bought a SteamDeck OLED -- and it blows my mind more people havent heard about these. it&#x27;s essentially a bad ass handheld laptop. yes it plays games great, but the OS side when you boot into desktop mode is quite capable - I spend more time on it than my home pc these days

The thing that makes that different though is the packing&#x2F;unpacking experience. With a laptop it&#x27;s just... opening and closing the lid. With a steam deck (or really any mini PC with a screen and battery), if you go wireless as you suggest, there&#x27;s now at least 3 devices (deck, KB, mouse) that need to be handled and charged separately. Given my previous negative experiences with BT I&#x27;d go wired but that makes every move take even more effort.I could see a setup with a case for the deck gives it a laptop form factor, but that doesn&#x27;t seem like what you&#x27;re suggesting. I might also ask how often you move your setup? My schedule requires I do so at least 8 times&#x2F;week.

A Uperfect lapdock with a USB-C PD injector from one of the AR glasses sets (can be bought separately) is even more convenient for Deck as a laptop replacement.

&gt; If Valve pivoted into making a well-supported laptop with good hardware that ran Linux and played games...SteamDeck is out since February 2022 and does all that. You can use a BT mouse&amp;keyboard, plug a USB-C screen or dongle for HDMI. I did live presentations with that quite a few time. It&#x27;s just a computer with another form factor.It&#x27;s not &quot;dangerously close&quot;, it&#x27;s been there for years now.Basically only competitive gaming with kernel level anti-cheat are problematic.

AMD GPU here, but I had issues connecting my Xbox controller to it and using it with Steam. On Bazzite this all works out of the box. Would love to know what the issue was but could&#x27;ve been my bluetooth chipset or something of the sort -- Don&#x27;t know what Bazzite does differently from Linux Mint sadly.Overall barely ever in Windows anymore and a happy Linux gamer.

&gt;with my kids and family.if you have an AMD GPU, Linux Mint does everything - including installation, bluetooth and printing(!) better than Windows

&gt;with my kids and family.if you have an AMD GPU, Linux Mint does everything &#x27;gaming&#x27; - on top of installation, bluetooth and printing(!) better than Windows

I made the switch to Linux for gaming maybe six months ago. I play A LOT of games and have only encountered a single game that didn&#x27;t just work.

They already proved with the Deck that you don&#x27;t need Windows for a great gaming experience anymore

Laptops are difficult to cool down, they&#x27;re bad for gaming.Unless they remove fans, or have limited hardware, but that&#x27;s already a steam deck: just add a keyboard and a larger screen.

I have a System76 laptop, and I bought it because they supported Linux and because I could buy replacement parts if I needed them.The battery swelled, so I contacted them and they don&#x27;t sell the battery anymore. I tried ordering one from, literally, half a dozen places online and was refunded each time because it simply does not exist.

I believe you&#x27;re looking for <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;system76.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;system76.com&#x2F;</a>

Playing PC games with a controller, lounging back in a good recliner, is much more relaxing. Many games work great like that, and Steam tells you how well any particular game works with a controller.

Only reason I even had a windows machine too. I got rid of it because I realized after a long tiring day sitting upright, I really did not find sitting even more upright and playing games relaxing. I wanted to plop down on the couch and do it. And it was a gigantic tower that was taking up too much space in my officeIf I could have a machine like this instead, I&#x27;d happily buy it instead. Windows has zero use for me other than playing games

&gt; If Valve pivoted into making a well-supported laptop with good hardware that ran Linux and played games...The Steam Deck is kind of close to this although the screen isn&#x27;t the best. I think the closest you can get to this right now is adding a graphics card module on a Framework laptop.

Pretty much the only reason I boot to Windows anymore is to play games with my kids and family. The direction of this thing is dangerously close to being all I&#x27;d care about from a desktop computer.If Valve pivoted into making a well-supported laptop with good hardware that ran Linux and played games...

This is the speculated-about gap in the Steam store events, then?

To the HL3 faithful, this is your reminder thatNOTHINGEVERHAPPENS

All you need is good HID driver in OS... unless the application hardcodes expectations about XBox controller

I&#x27;m just hoping it has a standalone &quot;pretend it is an xbox&#x2F;generic controller&quot; mode that doesn&#x27;t rely on steam, so I can bring it to friends easily.

Hoping it&#x27;s there just not mentioned.

Wow lol. I just posted the exact same comment, there are dozens of us! I literally cannot play rocket league without the steam controller for this reason.Also set rotate left and right to the grip triggers (roll in aviation terms I guess).

Steamdeck has the dual stage triggers right? (Though maybe just in software?) I&#x27;d be shocked if the new controller is less capable than that.

You can set a dual-stage trigger in Steam Input binding with any controller its trigger range, its not something unique to the Steam Controller.

No mention of dual stage trigger though, which was my cheat code in rocket league to have one button for accelerate and boost

It&#x27;s because the two-thumbstick, 8 face buttons, 2 shoulder and 2 trigger form factor covers so many games there&#x27;s not been a real reason for super wacky controllers. They kind of hit it out of the park on the 360 design and the only real sticking point left is the exact ergonomics which mostly fall into the PS thumbstick position (both lower) vs XBox position (left high and right low).

USB HID actually works pretty much how you describe, for instance a Physical Descriptor can contain metadata about which body part a button&#x2F;control is supposed to be used with.It&#x27;s extremely complicated however (like many things USB), which is probably why everything just emulates an XBox 360 controller like you said.

Maybe with 10 fingers&#x27; budget, considering that at least three per side must hold the device, it&#x27;s the most rational setup to allow for reaching two directional pucks and some buttons?

I&#x27;m happy we stumbled into in a state where you can buy a controller and plug it into your computer and it&#x27;ll likely work hassle-free with basically all of your games. And I think that&#x27;s what most people care about, more than being able to use wacky controllers with extra buttons.Hell, configuring my own controls for a game is one of my least favorite things to do. I haven&#x27;t even played the game yet, I don&#x27;t know what button should do what!The way it is, the devs know what kind of controller everyone will likely be using, they can figure out their ideal mapping for how the buttons should be used, and we all have an easy time using our controllers.

In my dream world, hardware enthusiasts would be constantly creating absolutely crazy game controllers with bizarre combinations of inputs that look nothing like an xbox 360 controller. There&#x27;d be a universal input protocol that would allow for self-describing gamepads with arbitrary numbers of digital buttons, analog sticks and triggers, touchpads, mouse inputs, haptics, gyro sensors, levers, sliders, wheels, etc. etc.I realize this may not be practical, but it&#x27;s kind of weird that PCs have been more or less stuck with a protocol designed for XBox 360 controllers for 2 decades now, while the locked-down console space is seeing much more experimentation and innovation around input. The original steam controller at least hinted at being sort of an open platform for this sort of thing, although it didn&#x27;t really take off. Fingers crossed for the new version.

SInput recently released and got supported by SDL, which plenty of games, but also Steam Input uses. So you can already use SInput in Steam Input. Better than XInput for sure.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.handheldlegend.com&#x2F;s&#x2F;sinput&#x2F;doc&#x2F;sinput-hid-protocol-dev-SNSaEw36nc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.handheldlegend.com&#x2F;s&#x2F;sinput&#x2F;doc&#x2F;sinput-hid-prot...</a>I don&#x27;t think Steam has ever published specs for their protocol. And without Steam, their old controller would fallback to a mouse&#x2F;keyboard mode. The Linux kernel drivers (that didn&#x27;t require Steam) were reverse engineered. Hori released a Steam Controller recently. Even that still had an XInput fallback switch.

Isn&#x27;t the lack of extensibility kind of the point?It forces everyone to make the same controller, so the developer knows what the user will have.

According to digital foundry it does have dual stage triggers

First thing I checked for! I feel like it&#x27;s such a niche feature but also distinctive. It&#x27;s actually a &quot;necessity&quot; for a proper Gamecube emulation experience, which has the two stage shoulder buttons.Like you, I also used this for boost on Rocket League and it was surprisingly intuitive. You can map it to the triggers lowest threshold to emulate it but without the tactile bump to rest against it just won&#x27;t work.

I love my OG steam controller still. I can&#x27;t tell if this new one has the dual stage triggers like the og (like if there&#x27;s an additional click on full trigger pull).I used that to set things like boost in rocket League and it felt super intuitive.

&gt; They should have put them just above the joysticks, like the PS5 controllerI don&#x27;t understand how that would be in any way ergonomic. The new Steam Controller&#x27;s layout has a proven track record with the Steam Deck, which is essentially identical. It allows you to play KB&amp;M games like Alpha Centauri on the Steam Deck without any external peripherals. It would be utterly unplayable if the trackpads were in the same place as the PS5&#x27;s pad, which is basically just used to open a menu or map or for gimmicky in-game gestures.

I found the original Steam Controller&#x27;s trackpad placement to be just about perfect.

The trackpads are a deal breaker for meThey should have put them just above the joysticks, like the PS5 controllerBetter, they should have made them detachable with a magnet, similar to the Switch JoyCon&#x27;s system, what a missed opportunity

My kids have been using the steam deck since they were 3 years old. Granted, their hands were a bit too small but the Deck is way more manageable than it appears.

I own a steam controller and have been using it for multiple years. It&#x27;s actually really comfortable with the way it sits in my hand. Far more comfortable than whatever sony had going on with the PS4 dualsense stuff

Maybe in size, but at least by weight, it&#x27;s not bad at all.Steam Controller weight: 292g.Nintendo Switch 2 controller: 235g.Sony Playstation 5 DualSense controller: 280g. DualSense Edge: 322g.Xbox Wireless controller: 280g. Wireless Elite series 2: 345g.

You do not need big hands to use a classic steam controller, you just need to shift your grip. It&#x27;s actually hard to use a steam controller with big hands. With long thumbs, the proper grip doesn&#x27;t land your thumbs in the middle of the track pads.Failing to better communicate the proper grip for the steam controller was a real fuck up on valve&#x27;s part though. They should have tried to communicate it through design, making it harder to hold wrong.I am kind of concerned about the size of the new controller, but valve seems to have decided there&#x27;s no place in the market for a controller without sticks.

As someone who has big hands (not chunky, just long fingers), I find the Steam Deck sooo comfortable and satisfying to hold. I still use my Nintendo Switch from time to time, but holding it now feels like it was designed for a child (which it was!).

It looks way too chunky, just like the original Steam Controller, Steam Deck or original duke Xbox controller. Not everybody has Jack Reacher hands.Microsoft really did it right with the XSX controller. They took the old X360 &#x2F; Xone design (perfect for large and medium hands) shrunk it slightly and then added cut-outs and and angled button surfaces (perfect for medium and small hands). The Elite is similarly good, with the back buttons being elongated and thin, meaning everyone can reach them comfortably without them getting in the way.

Can&#x27;t you just use joycons without a Switch or VR controllers without a headset on PC?

Same here. The trackpads on the steam deck work great. Might get this for docked mode. Kinda wish a splittable controller was more common for ergonomics ( not great to be clenching your chest on a centered object like that for hours on end, similar to non-split keyboards ). Seems like split controllers are still reserved for VR and nintendo switch style systems for now…

I&#x27;ve been using a Stadia controller with my Steam Deck OLED but finally it&#x27;ll have a worthy upgrade.

I wonder how this will compare to the Dual Sense; the haptics on that would be tough to give up!

i love it... I have a whole set of fujitsu&#x2F;eneloop NiMH batteries

Maybe more electronics should do this to avoid so much electronic waste as when the built in battery dies, it becomes junk.

The steam controller has a rechargable battery, maybe you&#x27;re thinking of the steam frame controllers?

I&#x27;m really disappointed that the new controller takes AA batteries though.

If Valve can push a new standard that actually takes modern input seriously and gives devs better tooling, I&#x27;d be all for it

This doesn&#x27;t help with the actual button printing, but you can set any controller to use Nintendo layout in Steam input

I just hope they give us an option to buy a controller with the face buttons in the &quot;Nintendo&quot; order rather than the &quot;Xbox&quot; order. Like how the 8bitdo pro comes in two versions. The only console I actually still care about these days is the Switch&#x2F;Switch 2, so it would be nice to not have the button placement suddenly reversed when switching between controllers.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.8bitdo.com&#x2F;pro2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.8bitdo.com&#x2F;pro2&#x2F;</a>

In this big hardware refresh, honestly most excited about finally getting a new steam controller [1], which feels like it might finally give us a better, more extensible standard than the extremely outdated XInput protocol (which still doesn&#x27;t even support motion controls)[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;sale&#x2F;steamcontroller" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;sale&#x2F;steamcontroller</a>

That actually would be a cool idea and doable.

You seem to be forgetting the framework desktop which is very similar in form factor to the new steam machine: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;frame.work&#x2F;desktop" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;frame.work&#x2F;desktop</a>

What would a Framework partnership accomplish? Ship SteamOS as a preinstalled option for their laptops?

Valve, please partner with Framework. I think this could be a great partnership in the future and the whole ecosystem as a whole.

You can do that today with a Steam Deck + a dock. The performance is surprisingly good and most higher end games you buy on Steam will come with pre-configured steam deck settings to downgrade video settings if needed.I&#x27;m going to be buying the box though for the faster AMD chip, as I wasn&#x27;t able to play some like Resident Evil 2 remake. While the Silent Hill 2 Remake played decent enough.

Long time veteran Linux user. I was not able to get anything to run on Steam. It&#x27;s some sort of display driver issue&#x2F;conflict, but if it takes me longer than an hour, I&#x27;m over it.

What exactly do you mean by &quot;pc-ish&quot;? Setting aside steam deck, are you aware that you can already install steam on linux and play many games [0]? Are you aware of Bazzite [1]?0 - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.protondb.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.protondb.com&#x2F;</a>1 - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bazzite_(operating_system)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bazzite_(operating_system)</a>

Being able to play PC-ish games without Windows (all on its own) makes this pretty interesting. Looking forward to seeing its real world performance. The fact that it doesn&#x27;t take up the space of a household appliance is a plus too.

A mainstream desktop PC that supports most games without windows is actually a massive deal in the long term as I know plenty of people who don&#x27;t like windows but didn&#x27;t have an alternative

There are plenty of competing stores, they just aren&#x27;t good. I require a game to be on steam because I like the store and features, but many games are also sold elsewhere.

I don&#x27;t think there&#x27;s NO reason to be concerned, but I think it&#x27;s pretty different considering the decades of history of how Valve acts vs how M$FT acts. Also, many games available on Steam are DRM free or available from other sources and Proton itself is open source.Valve is also not publicly traded and they have a succession plan of some sort in the event that gaben kicks it, I can only assume whatever he&#x27;s come up with is sound, he&#x27;s done a great job of running the place so far.

&gt; There&#x27;s reasons why that happenedSteam&#x27;s near-monopoly was earned by simply being the best store. Other stores like Epic don&#x27;t even include basic features like a shopping cart to buy multiple games at once.I could go on and on about why Steam is so much better than any other store, but this isn&#x27;t the place.That said, I can understand being nervous. Steam is great because it&#x27;s privately owned and GabeN is happy with the money he makes from it and doesn&#x27;t feel the need to enshittify it in order to get more money. But eventually he will die or retire, and someone else will be given control. Supposedly, he&#x27;s already vetted some people to take the job, but what&#x27;s to say they weren&#x27;t merely playing the part and will take it public as soon as they can?

The built in Steam DRM is very weak. Of course that can change at any time, but at least the current catalog of Steam DRM-only games are not really tied down to steam except via law&#x2F;licensing.

FWIW 95% of the games i play on my Linux are from other stores than Steam: GOG, Zoom Platform (not related to the Zoom telething) and itch.io, all of which are DRM-free stores. The Steam games i buy are mainly from small indie devs that do not have nor plan to have releases outside of Steam.To play games i use UMU Launcher which is basically Proton minus Steam (or Wine plus DXVK, etc, depending on how you look it at). I use the &quot;raw&quot; UMU Launcher with its own command-line utility, though it can be used as part of Lutris for a GUI-based experience.

When alternatives are Epic, EA and Microsoft, you choose lesser evil.

An ongoing &#x27;background noise&#x27; concern I&#x27;ve had for a while is how PC gaming seems to be centralizing around steam. There&#x27;s reasons why that happened, but it&#x27;d be real nice if &#x27;infrastructure&#x27; was able to decouple from their store. It feels like practically requiring steam for PC gaming on windows and certainly on linux isn&#x27;t a mile away from requiring MS windows, is it much freedom to pick which Seattle based company you run software from?

&gt; Who are we to tell you how to use your computer?i&#x27;m having a hard time describing the feelings this makes me feel. like i&#x27;ve been stressed, bedraggled and worn down, and suddenly there&#x27;s a moment where i can just restit&#x27;s nice to be excited about something for once instead of the baseline expectation of a horrible adversarial experience, which is the case for most tech in 2025it is somewhat depressing that it&#x27;s this novel to expect a piece of hardware to actually exist to make my life nicer vs the default of being an abomination that tries constantly to extract money and information from me like a fucking vampire(and i guess, not having used this yet, this also speaks to valve being one of the last companies that i have any trust in to be capable of making a business decision that makes them less money in the short run in order to deliver a better product)