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It seems Croteam will be doing a talk at GDC this year and it sounds like it's going to be quite interesting, with it being centred around getting games to perform smoothly. The talk will be presented by the Croteam CTO, Alen Ladavac.

For those not familiar, Croteam have been pretty great supporters of Linux gaming. Thanks to them we have The Talos Principle and multiple Serious Sam games. Not only that, they were one of the first developers to get their games on Steam when it initially released for Linux.

That wouldn't exactly be newsworthy by itself, sure, but Valve has actually been working directly with Croteam in order to find solutions to the issue of micro-stuttering in games. This is the issue of a game running at 60FPS, yet it might stutter and not be as smooth as you would want and expect it to be.

Valve's Pierre-Loup Griffais tweeted this out about it:

We've been helping @Croteam with their quest to resolve frame pacing and stuttering problems that have been affecting all gaming platforms for a long time; the Linux graphics stack lets us create solutions.[…]

With Croteam's CTO then thanking both Pierre-Loup and Keith Packard "for the driver that's able to finally pull this off!". It's very interesting to see Linux being mentioned liked this, exciting to see in fact.

Hopefully the GDC video of it will be online, even if it isn't it seems we're going to hear more about it in future:

[…]If you are not attending the GDC, do not despair. Croteam and Valve will be talking about this more in the future.[…]

You can see details of the talk here on the GDC site and it's scheduled for Monday next week.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc
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drmoth Mar 15, 2018
Oh wow, this is huge news. All this behind-the-scenes Valve stuff gets me very excited.

Stuttering in games has numerous sources, but solving this once and for all in the driver sounds amazing. My guess...it's got something to do with Vulkan.
anth Mar 16, 2018
My guess is they're using the nanosecond frame timing feature.
no_information_here Mar 16, 2018
I was so impressed with how they got Talos to run so fast on Vulkan-Linux, so far ahead of everyone else. CroTeam are a huge asset to the Linux gaming community!
Comandante Ñoñardo Mar 16, 2018
I support Croteam because they support Linux, but I hate their marriage with Valve.
throgh Mar 16, 2018
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoI support Croteam because they support Linux, but I hate their marriage with Valve.

Easy as that: Stop supporting until they go full DRM-free. :)
Leopard Mar 16, 2018
Quoting: throgh
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoI support Croteam because they support Linux, but I hate their marriage with Valve.

Easy as that: Stop supporting until they go full DRM-free. :)

Easy as that: They need to be supported and whole DRM-Free freakness should cast aside until Linux gaming grows to a certain point where we don't have to beg for ports.


Last edited by Leopard on 16 March 2018 at 7:13 am UTC
TheRiddick Mar 16, 2018
Yeah warthunder had this micro-stuttering, even at above 60fps. Unfortunately patch 1.77 has completely broken OpenGL and you'd be lucky to get 40fps, most times you get graphics glitches on top with much less fps. (1080ti here)


Last edited by TheRiddick on 16 March 2018 at 8:38 am UTC
Leopard Mar 16, 2018
Quoting: GuestThere are relatively few real supporters of Linux gaming. I, too, want DRM-free games but if all Linux gamers would have a "Not DRM-free, No Bux" attitude, linux gaming will not grow.

There are three kind of Linux users:

1-) Dual booting and keep buying Windows games , then hopes to jump Linux entirely when there is title parity

2-) Drm-free fanatics. They still didn't realize without Valve , there is no chance to grow. Without Steam on Linux , you probably wouldn't see so many indie titles on GOG too because devs wouldn't do a Linux version at all.

3-) Only Linux booters. Who only cares about growth of Linux gaming because they know if Linux gaming reaches to a certain point , there will be much more options on market. Even beneficial to Drm Free stores because there will be much more Linux games on there too.
Adamfx990 Mar 16, 2018
IMO the serious engine is the best engine in the world right now. It runs great on absolutely anything! I'd love to hear what they have to say on this matter.
coeseta Mar 16, 2018
Croteam is awesome. I like how their games are ~30% faster on Linux :)

There is also a nice benchmark

QuoteWe've been helping @Croteam with their quest to resolve frame pacing and stuttering problems that have been affecting all gaming platforms for a long time; the Linux graphics stack lets us create solutions.[…]

You are welcome Windows gamers.
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