Last week, Valve started taking sign ups for its Linux Steam beta tests. Today, Valve announced that the first outside beta test of the Linux Steam client has been released to a limited number of outside beta testers.
The company said that the test includes a Linux version of Valve's multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2. Valve said that 24 other games available on Steam can be played with the Linux beta as well. Currently, the beta supports Ubuntu 12.04, but Valve said it will "support additional popular distros in the future."
At the same time, NVIDIA has announced it has released a major new update of its GeForce R310 graphics drivers for Linux. The company said it has worked in collaboration with Valve and others on these new drivers, which NVIDIA says have double the performance of its previous Linux software, along with reducing game load times.
Valve's vice president Doug Lombardi stated, "NVIDIA took an unquestioned leadership position developing R310 drivers with us and other studios to provide an absolutely unequalled solution for Linux gamers."
Recently a Valve employee, Drew Bliss, claimed at a Ubuntu developer summit in Denmark that Linux was going to be more viable for PC gaming than Windows 8.
Source: NVIDIA | Image via Valve
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