Considering how much of a pain in the ass AMD and NVIDIA are when it comes to Linux support, this surprises me... big time.
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/
Oh, and with regards to:
QuoteWe?ve been working with NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel to improve graphic driver performance on Linux. They have all been great to work with and have been very committed to having engineers on-site working with our engineers, carefully analyzing the data we see. We have had very rapid turnaround on any bugs we find and it has been invaluable to have people who understand the game, the renderer, the driver, and the hardware working alongside us when attacking these performance issues.
This is a great example of the benefits that are the result of close coordination between software and hardware developers and should provide value to the Linux community at large.
That's funny. As in, really funny. It takes Valve and their source engine coming over to Linux to finally decide they want to play ball with Linux developers (specifically glaring at NVIDIA here). Here's Linus Torvalds' take on NVIDIA's support (or lack of) to Linux.
** Language Warning **
http://youtu.be/IVpOyKCNZYw
What is going on? Why is every other company failing or acting retarded while Valve is like the paragon of righteousness and virtue?
My god...
This has the potential to be kind of a big deal. I'm not a Mac user, but I've noticed that there's a surprising variety of games on Steam that are Mac compatible, and if they can do the same for Linux it could definitely shift some tides in PC gaming. Of course Windows is so well-established that even multiple major blows won't completely dethrone it, but with more cross-platform support lately and the bizarre ideas being used in Windows 8 it'll be interesting to see how things change over the next few years.
And the Source Engine performs really good on Windows. So it must be liquid gold on Linux. Anyway make games now on Linux Mr. Gabe.