Valve Beginning to List Linux System Requirements for Select Titles on Steam

Perhaps hinting at the fact that the official Steam for Linux launch isn’t too far off, Valve has begun updating some game pages to include Linux system requirements. While a system requirements listing is rarely interesting, things are different here based on the simple fact that we’re talking about a major gaming service becoming available for an OS that has been craving it for years. Plus, there are other factors that increase the intrigue, which I’ll get to in a moment.

The Linux system requirements for Serious Sam 3: BFE:

Based on the current list of titles that are available through the Linux Steam client, Serious Sam 3: BFE is likely to become the flagship title where graphics are concerned. Under Windows and fully maxed-out, the game runs like a dog even on a high-end modern system. Not too much should change on the Linux side, as its requirements are fairly beefy, with a quad-core and mid-range GPU recommended.

The stand-out requirement is of course Ubuntu 12.04. We’ve known all along that Valve has been focusing on supporting Ubuntu due to its massive userbase, but that doesn’t mean that all games will be supporting it exclusively. This is proven with a look at another game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent:

Here, Linux Mint is supported along with Fedora – the latter being the more impressive mention as it’s not Debian-based like Ubuntu and Linux Mint are. Not all games will require the use of the latest version of these OSes, but it’s generally recommended that you keep up-to-date for the best experience. One game is mentioned as requiring Ubuntu 10.10, but most point out the fact that it requires a “fully updated” OS, such as the one above.

What I’m really interested in seeing is how the client will run on distros Valve doesn’t specifically support, such as Arch and my personal favorite, Gentoo. In my experience, Desura has run well in every distro I’ve run it in, so hopefully the experience with Steam won’t be too different.