New Steam beta replaces Trident/IE with WebKit | Hacker News Reader

New Steam beta replaces Trident/IE with WebKit

store.steampowered.com

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Here's some screenshots of the new client.

New games list: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/506504/new_steam_ui_library.jpg

New store site: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/506504/new_steam_ui_store.jpg

New in-game overlay and browser: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/506504/new_steam_browser.jpg

I wonder if this a step towards multi-platform Steam...

There's OS X style close buttons and menu layouts in the Steam files now, so I'd guess that multiplatform Steam is a good bet.

I'll send a big bunch of flowers to the good peeps at Valve if they deliver Steam, TF2 and CSS for Mac OS X!

I already bought these games, but wouldn't mind paying a bit more again just to cover the port costs.

FWIW, I use Wine via Code Weavers' Cross Over Games (http://www.codeweavers.com/) to play my Steam games on a few different older Mac laptops I have. It works pretty well.

I have CrossOver Game 8.0. I used to play HaloPC a lot in it, despite horrible mouse lag.

In TF2 I noticed the performance was quite a lot worse than in Win7.

It works though.

It doesn't matter how Steam is cross-platform as soon as no one bothers to develop games for other platforms.

BTW about 10 years later none-console gaming will be such a niche we'll see less and less games, and only lemonade tycoon quality :)

Why do you think the PC gaming industry will die?

Many reasons:

Look at the sales of PC games and console games. It's clear that PC games are going down. Many companies don't even release PC versions any more.

PC gaming is more expensive, you got keep your hardware up to date and that's truly expensive. A good graphic card's price is more expensive than an XBOX 360.

Piracy is a big issue in gaming and piracy rate in console is much lower (none in PS3, although potentially next year we'll see PS3 as well).

Developing games for a fixed hardware is much easier unlike developing games for a platform such as PC or God forbid, Linux.

PC is going to a be only niche players complex MMORPGs, indie game developers, some RTSs.

I guess you've never heard of World of Warcraft.

Cue a post explaining in detail why that "doesn't count" in 3... 2... 1...

I guess you can't understand difference between hundred thousand games and a hundred games.

FreeBSD is dead

Specifically, they're using the Chromium Embedded Framework:

http://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Fr...

I'm looking forward to seeing them release the modified source. Always nice to see a game studio participate in the open source community.

One more bit of evidence that the GPL may not be the best thing for Open Source software. Think about it: if CEF used GPL, Valve might not have used it fearing that if they built Steam and decided they did not wish to release the source, they would have no choice but to not distribute Steam. With the BSD license, they could put in the work and decide once the project was complete whether or not to release the source code. But now we get a shiny new Steam and the source code. Epic win for everyone involved.

The GPL cannot force somebody to release their source code.

You are mistaken if you believe that you can distribute an application built using GPL code and not release the source code (and all derived code) as well. In the event that you were confused by my wording, check again. I have attempted to clarify.

That's not what your original post said, and even now that you've edited it, it's still wrong. There is no requirement that Valve release source code for an internal development build, and just because GPL'd code was at one point used in Steam wouldn't prevent them from distributing it without source in the future.

The GPL isn't some magical infective uber-license; it's just plain copyright.

Right, it can't force them to release an internal build. But that's not what this is, it's an external beta. At this point they could still back out from releasing the source code if they wished, but not if they had used the GPL. If they had used a GPL program, they would at this point have to sacrifice a great deal of work to avoid releasing the source. That is my point. The GPL can force you to plan for things that you have no way of knowing about (For example, are we going to have to modify this program to couple with our internal APIs at a level that we don't want documented? Is the source code going to be ugly to an extent that it would be embarrassing to us to release it? etc.).

The GPL can't force Valve to release source even if they had used GPL'ed code for an external release. However, a court could force Valve to stop distributing the infringing binary, and to pay damages to the owners of the GPL'ed code.

It is possible that Valve would choose to release source for the steam client after negotiation with the owners of the CPL'ed code instead, but that would require agreement from both parties. And it is actually not totally unlikely that Valve would seek such a solution, the steam client represents a very little part of the total value of steam, the main value is in the content of their rights database, and in their reputation and connection with gamers and publishers.

Check http://gpl-violations.org

GPL cannot force somebody to release their source code, as long as they are not supposed to have the binary (for example, internal studio - you can use binary tools compiled ith GPL, and be happy knowing that that stuff does not go outside of the company).

With GPL 3 I think that's changed, but IANAL.

If you don't see the irony in saying "GPL may not be the best thing for Open Source software" then you may not be fully grasping the issues.

About time! I always wondered how such a successful product could lag so behind in polish. That embedded IE control steam uses is an absolute pain in the ass.

Precisely because they had such a successful product. Initially that product wasn't Steam, but Half-Life 2. Once other studious picked up on it as a distribution model (because who doesn't want to take advantage of the entire HL2 install-base to market their game?), they were golden.

Also, despite its lack of overall polish, occasional crashiness, and the inconsistent and slow UI, for the most part Steam works exactly as advertised. It lets me install my games anywhere as many times as I like for free, I can play them offline if they're single player, and online I get a lovely Xbox-Live style server browser and social management right in the client.

The worst I can say about it is that I'd be a little happier with it if it were more polished, and I'd kill a man for a Mac port (including, obviously, the games I care about).

Why is the fact that they're switching to WebKit buried in the document so deeply? That's like the best thing they did.

Their customers care more about the surface symptoms than the technical details behind why it's an improvement. If you use the new UI, it's immediately obvious why it's a big deal: Because the UI is vastly improved. The fact that WebKit is involved isn't really important (though it is a cool detail).

Because it is written for regular people who care about regular things.

Wow, that looks much better! Does anyone know how much better it performs compared to the IE-based client?

As far as subjective measurements go, it's night and day. Repainting is quicker, pages load faster, content (like images) streams in more quickly onto the screen, and the UI in general pauses less. It helps that they also overhauled the user interface so that it's easier to use, which makes it feel faster even if it actually isn't.

I always speculated that a lot of the random pauses/hangs in the Steam UI were caused by IE, and now I'm fairly certain as most of them are gone in the new one.

I tried using it earlier and it is a lot quicker. The only downside I've noticed is that an individual game sometimes takes up to 5 seconds to load, but I suspect it's my connection rather than the client itself.

Anyone tell me if this allows you to choose different install directories for different games?

Huge win.

Great! Maybe now they'll update counter-strike.

That will never be done, I played source for many years and for the year that they updated it and ruined many competitive features it wasn't that great and actually made me buy a new computer to even play the game with an HDR update. Now I can see them release a new Counterstrike in a few years that looks and plays tf2 but thats about it.

I don't know, it seems like that game is basically done (in the sense of being a complete, finished work of art).

Semi-related yet off-topic, but in not divulging their sales figures, Valve is hurting the PC as a gaming platform in huge and undeniable ways. They are, in essence, destroying it by making it appear that no one buys games for Windows. All format charts are dominated by console titles and almost all games are initially developed for those and pooly ported to the PC in what seems to be an afterthought. Piracy is then blamed for those apparently falling sales figures and the PC is no longer an attractive platform for development.

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