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Valve makes paid 'Advanced Access' a clear feature on Steam now
By LungDrago, 27 April 2024 at 8:14 am UTC

Quoting: Eike
Quoting: LungDrago
Quoting: Phlebiac
Quoting: MasterSleortI say let free market forces dictate whether it is a feature that will stay or not. If people are getting burnt or don't feel the value is there, publishers will be hesitant to use the feature. After all it's also a way to get advanced negative reviews.

This is true - "advanced access" could result in negative reviews that destroy "release day" sales. Hopefully that's enough incentive for greedy publishers to be cautious about milking this too heavily.

It really depends on the number of people who get roped into this advanced access thing versus how many people wait patiently for the actual release day, and how many people in the advanced access actually refund their game. If you make most of your sales in AA and then people don't refund your mess, well, you're golden. :D

Aren't most release days sales preorders being fulfilled?

Yeah, I was taking into consideration the worst case scenario and AA is overall a slightly better idea than EA, I suppose.

Proton Hotfix update fixes Fallout 4 frame pacing issue on Steam Deck OLED
By Vortex_Acherontic, 27 April 2024 at 7:36 am UTC

Quoting: JarmerWhat exactly is "frame pacing" ...?

Usually frames are rendered in sequence 1,2,3,4,5,6,7...
Frame paceing means frames are displayed in the wrong order.

1,3,2,5,4,7, and so forth.

Lefties unite! Counter-Strike 2 now lets you swap hands
By brokeassben, 27 April 2024 at 3:10 am UTC

Slightly off topic, but I've had a ton of issues with CS2 with it going from 4-6GB of RAM usage and 100 fps after a couple rounds of death match or arms race all the way up to 20ish GB with its performance tanking to single digits fps. Lowering texture quality delays that memory creep a bit, but it does eventually happen. Playing on the map, Shoots, makes that RAM usage spike super quickly and it doesn't recover till I close out of the game and re-open it.

There's a github issue here dating back to February, but no updates. Anyone else experiencing this?

Factorio devs detail their 'Linux adventures' in a new blog post
By Andrew_Beaver, 27 April 2024 at 5:24 am UTC

[quote=whizse]
Quoting: slembckeNot sure why they link statically though. SDL still advises against doing so.

Might have something to do with enabling modding?

Proton Hotfix update fixes Fallout 4 frame pacing issue on Steam Deck OLED
By Jarmer, 27 April 2024 at 2:19 am UTC

Quoting: Pyretic
Quoting: JarmerWhat exactly is "frame pacing" ...? Is that just referencing lower than expected fps? Or general stuttering like with a lot of unreal engine games? Or some specific technical issue I've never heard of before?

Frame pacing is the time taken to generate a new frame.

LOLOL: I didn't think a perfect person would come along, but lo and behold: it happened!

Proton Hotfix update fixes Fallout 4 frame pacing issue on Steam Deck OLED
By redneckdrow, 27 April 2024 at 1:58 am UTC

I knew when they announced the update that it would have teething problems. What I hate is the fact that Bethesda always seems to go out of their way to break their own stuff in new updates. Modding goes without saying.

Fortunately, I've always set their games to only update when launched. I also use a very simple script to run mod organizer 2 in each separate prefix.

Open source NVIDIA Vulkan driver NVK gets more enhancements
By Calinou, 27 April 2024 at 1:54 am UTC

QuoteWhy? Turns out fixing these new extensions also fixed "an ancient 3D graphics feature in an actual game". Since it fixes issues in one game, it no doubt fixes issues in others too.

While shader derivatives are a 20 year old feature, they're still pretty important for modern games (and even some non-game applications) as they're used for things like smooth line drawing (without needing expensive MSAA or non-portable GL_LINE_SMOOTH).

Lefties unite! Counter-Strike 2 now lets you swap hands
By redneckdrow, 27 April 2024 at 1:40 am UTC

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThat's nice to see. Not that I ever play shooty games, but I'm left handed so it's a good feeling.

You and me both, brother!

This is great, but, realism be darned, I would like to have an old-school centered option as well as left and right. The only shooter I'm any good at is Wolf3D.

Without revealing too much, Cerebral palsy has left () me left-handed. Thus, in non-turn-based games, I'm usually resigned to using a controller or joystick.

I wish more games would still let one use either the mouse or keyboard exclusively, instead of requiring me to juggle both. The only ways I can manage to move in pc games that require both are mashing W or the up arrow with my right thumb. But after ~30 years of using computers, I'm somewhat used to it.

SteamOS 3.5.19 for Steam Deck out now for everyone
By Raaben, 27 April 2024 at 1:40 am UTC

Anyone else have an issue where controllers - external and the Deck itself - no longer work at all in any game? In menus and steam it is fine and normal, but nothing registers in game. It was working fine within the last few weeks at most but when I picked it up and updated today it completely broke.

Check out the free spooky fan game Aliens: Redacted
By chuzzle44, 27 April 2024 at 12:22 am UTC

Weird, I'm getting sever performance drops depending on the direction I'm looking. No settings seem to have any effect.

SteamOS 3.5.19 for Steam Deck out now for everyone
By juniuslib, 27 April 2024 at 5:24 am UTC

NTSync will probably arrive for SteamOS the next time that they upgrade the kernel in use. I believe that SteamOS currently uses the 6.1 LTS kernel. I’m not sure when the next LTS kernel will be released but that will likely be the next kernel upgrade for SteamOS. Waiting until the next LTS kernel will also give more time for testing the new NTSync subsystem and any other kernel changes that might benefit SteamOS.

Check out the free spooky fan game Aliens: Redacted
By Phlebiac, 26 April 2024 at 11:06 pm UTC

Looks like the Doom engine? Would be nice if it ran with GZDoom.

Edit: Sounds like it's using EFPSE, a tool that's similar to (based on?) those older engines:
https://ragnarrandom.com/uefpsew/index.php/Tips_%26_Tricks

Win a Steam Deck OLED or a golden egg game bundle in Fanatical's Mystery Egg Bundle
By Purple Library Guy, 26 April 2024 at 10:38 pm UTC Likes: 1

I have picky and idiosyncratic taste in games, so this sort of thing isn't really for me--hardly any of a random bag would be something I was interested in. But if my taste was less narrow, I could see the appeal.

NVIDIA developer contributing to the open source NVK driver
By pilk, 26 April 2024 at 10:00 pm UTC

I'm really glad to hear that NVK is being worked on with the help of NVIDIA employees.
Feels like soon enough, NVIDIA won't be this massive thorn in my side, and I can just use my GPU without driver complications getting in my way.

Win a Steam Deck OLED or a golden egg game bundle in Fanatical's Mystery Egg Bundle
By Pengling, 26 April 2024 at 9:15 pm UTC

Quoting: whizseNow Pengling, you seem to be doing exceptionally well at these, so don't go nicking the Deck too, that one is mine!
HAHAHAHAHA! I'll do my best.

Win a Steam Deck OLED or a golden egg game bundle in Fanatical's Mystery Egg Bundle
By whizse, 26 April 2024 at 9:04 pm UTC Likes: 1

I'm only in it for the golden egg and the Deck lottery.

I figure with a €1 egg my chance of winning goes from zilch to infinitesimally small. Buying a second, third, or even twenty eggs would still put me in the infinitesimally small bracket of winning, so I stopped there.

Even if I don't win I either get the joy of a random new game, or the joy of giving away the game to someone else!

Now Pengling, you seem to be doing exceptionally well at these, so don't go nicking the Deck too, that one is mine!

Win a Steam Deck OLED or a golden egg game bundle in Fanatical's Mystery Egg Bundle
By Pengling, 26 April 2024 at 8:42 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: artixbtwWell, I'll be damned. Indeed, I was wrong. I based my estimates on the countless times I ran across people buying "mystery bundles" on other sites, and getting half a dozen <0.10 EUR keys out of them.
There are some rubbish key sites out there, but I'd have to say that Fanatical's definitely not one of them.

Quoting: artixbtwIndeed, the value is there. I suppose they were bundle leftovers, which conveniently made it viable to offer them for such a low price (but also invalidates comparing to regular store price).

Indeed, they don't appear to be garbage, some of them at least. Probably the same reason as the one above.
Oh for sure - Fanatical's clearly got the buying-power to do that. But we don't, so I don't feel that it's too cheeky of them (or me, haha ) to compare to the regular price, because that's all that we'd get otherwise!

Quoting: artixbtwStill, I find much more value in knowing what I get. Indeed, their not-so-mysterious bundles tend to provide a lot of value, and I make use of the fact quite often,
Oh man, I love those too! I've gotten plenty of good things out of them as well.

Also, their prices for single titles are very often cheaper than Steam, too. Back when I was waiting for Super Bomberman R 2, last year, I ended up pre-ordering at Fanatical because their price was a good chunk lower than the launch-day RRP and there was an offer on at the time where certain spends got you a mystery Steam-key as well. I did well out of that.

Quoting: artixbtwand don't have to deal with keys I don't need.
My rule for buying mystery-bundles is that I go for the cheap options, so I'm always likely to get at least one keeper that would've cost more than the bundle otherwise (and it's usually more than one keeper). Anything unwanted goes into a giveaway thread on the GOL forum.

Quoting: artixbtwLastly, the biggest reason why I was so negative was that it is clear that this type of bundle encourages addictive spending behaviour. I know that gambling is technically legal, but whenever I see a service employ these types of behavioural mechanics, it feels wrong to me.
That's totally fair, and I must admit that it's something I didn't think of because I'm not prone to that sort of spending myself (I was always the kid who never set out to "Collect Them All" with blind-bags, as well - I'd just pick up a few as long as I knew I'd be happy with any of the options ). I have to agree with dpanter on the below, though;

Quoting: dpanterIt goes without saying that you can't expect to win the top tier prizes, that's the lure. If it happens, happy days! But you don't buy mystery bundles with an expectation to get something specific or extremely valuable.
This is my approach, and it hasn't steered me wrong. For me, these are always "It'd be nice to get some random new stuff because there's not a Steam sale right now, and it'd be a neat bonus if I won a prize." type spends.

I can still remember how thrilled I was to get the Doom titles, too - they weren't something I'd've bought normally because I get motion-sickness from first-person games, and they prompted the discovery that a little at a time on a handheld doesn't make me queasy, which has opened the gates for me to try out more stuff than I ever would have otherwise.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) is now available
By morbius, 26 April 2024 at 8:41 pm UTC

Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoAfter upgrading to 22.04 from 20.04, I can not take screenshots anymore with the keyboard.. And that is an usefull feature for me.

Can you screencap with 24.04?

Also upgrade from 22.04 from 20.04 here, print screen button works great, starting a little tool for capturing or recording the screen. You can choose between the whole screen or a selected area.

Proton Hotfix update fixes Fallout 4 frame pacing issue on Steam Deck OLED
By Pyretic, 26 April 2024 at 8:40 pm UTC

Quoting: JarmerWhat exactly is "frame pacing" ...? Is that just referencing lower than expected fps? Or general stuttering like with a lot of unreal engine games? Or some specific technical issue I've never heard of before?

Frame pacing is the time taken to generate a new frame.

Microsoft open sources MS-DOS 4.0
By Eike, 26 April 2024 at 8:25 pm UTC

Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: elmapuli bet they did that because wine/dosbox already can run 100% of dos 4.0 games/softwares, so it would be useless to keep this codebase proprietary anyway and by open sourcing it they create an good image for thenselves.

And if DOSBox wouldn't run the games? They'd sell MSDOS 4.0?

if dosbox cant run, probably the game was made for MSDOS 5.0, 6.0 or something like that.

that is exactly what im saying, if the full scope of an tech is already supported by an open source alternative, there is no reason to keep the secret an secret anymore.

If it wouldn't be supported by an open source alternative, there would be no reason to keep the secret a secret anymore either. It's not like they would make money from MSDOS 4.0 anyway.

Factorio devs detail their 'Linux adventures' in a new blog post
By whizse, 26 April 2024 at 8:21 pm UTC

Quoting: slembckeHuh, so one nice thing about SDL is that it mostly "just works". Why did they need to add the Wayland protocols into their source tree, and link with libdecor themselves? I predominantly test my SDL stuff on Wayland and I've never had to even think about that. Is it because they are statically linking maybe?
I only skimmed the post, but I think these were all issues involving compiling SDL from scratch. Not compiling the game against SDL.

At least the libdecor issue becomes mostly moot unless you hobble yourself with a castrated version of SDL.

Not sure why they link statically though. SDL still advises against doing so.

Win a Steam Deck OLED or a golden egg game bundle in Fanatical's Mystery Egg Bundle
By artixbtw, 26 April 2024 at 8:10 pm UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: PenglingSorry for the double-post, (...)
Quoting: dpanterSorry, you're talking out of your ass. (...)

Well, I'll be damned. Indeed, I was wrong. I based my estimates on the countless times I ran across people buying "mystery bundles" on other sites, and getting half a dozen <0.10 EUR keys out of them.

Indeed, the value is there. I suppose they were bundle leftovers, which conveniently made it viable to offer them for such a low price (but also invalidates comparing to regular store price).

Indeed, they don't appear to be garbage, some of them at least. Probably the same reason as the one above.

Still, I find much more value in knowing what I get. Indeed, their not-so-mysterious bundles tend to provide a lot of value, and I make use of the fact quite often, and don't have to deal with keys I don't need.

Lastly, the biggest reason why I was so negative was that it is clear that this type of bundle encourages addictive spending behaviour. I know that gambling is technically legal, but whenever I see a service employ these types of behavioural mechanics, it feels wrong to me.

Proton Hotfix update fixes Fallout 4 frame pacing issue on Steam Deck OLED
By Jarmer, 26 April 2024 at 8:07 pm UTC Likes: 1

What exactly is "frame pacing" ...? Is that just referencing lower than expected fps? Or general stuttering like with a lot of unreal engine games? Or some specific technical issue I've never heard of before?

Factorio devs detail their 'Linux adventures' in a new blog post
By slembcke, 26 April 2024 at 7:50 pm UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy1: Gnome is annoying for developers

Well... Gnome is annoying for a vocal minority that don't like Gnome might be more accurate? Being the most popular DE is going to attract a bunch of ire from it's non fans. (shrug) SDL's Wayland stuff works out of the box with libdecor, and as of a year ago even provides native GTK window decorations. I'm not sure why they needed to do anything to enable it. My experience for the last few years developing SDL stuff on Gnome + Wayland is that it basically "just works". Even though they are statically linking things, I would have thought SDL's build scripts would just take care of the dependencies and such. I've only ever dynamically linked it though, so maybe not?

Microsoft open sources MS-DOS 4.0
By elmapul, 26 April 2024 at 7:49 pm UTC

Quoting: Eike
Quoting: elmapuli bet they did that because wine/dosbox already can run 100% of dos 4.0 games/softwares, so it would be useless to keep this codebase proprietary anyway and by open sourcing it they create an good image for thenselves.

And if DOSBox wouldn't run the games? They'd sell MSDOS 4.0?

if dosbox cant run, probably the game was made for MSDOS 5.0, 6.0 or something like that.

that is exactly what im saying, if the full scope of an tech is already supported by an open source alternative, there is no reason to keep the secret an secret anymore.

Lefties unite! Counter-Strike 2 now lets you swap hands
By Purple Library Guy, 26 April 2024 at 7:39 pm UTC

Quoting: PhiladelphusHave you mentioned being left handed before?
Maybe? No recollection, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's come up.

Descent 3 has been made open source
By whizse, 26 April 2024 at 7:27 pm UTC Likes: 1

Interplay okayed Icculus to release his changes! That'll bring the Linux port right up to speed. Guess the Windows boffins need to port over those changes for a more modern Descent 3 experience on their end.

Licensing is confusing again, not sure if we'll end up with two Descent 3 source releases, one GPL and one MIT?

Lefties unite! Counter-Strike 2 now lets you swap hands
By Philadelphus, 26 April 2024 at 6:36 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: NathanaelKStottlemyerEverything from ice scream scoops to scissors are against us, It's nice to know that valve has our back.
I'm a little surprised it took this long honestly, TF2 has had left-handed view models for years.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThat's nice to see. Not that I ever play shooty games, but I'm left handed so it's a good feeling.
Have you mentioned being left handed before? I had a strange premonition as I clicked on the article that you would say that.

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) is now available
By Eike, 26 April 2024 at 5:47 pm UTC

Quoting: F.UltraBecause it's much easier to only change your build environment every 4 years instead of every 2 years.

Not sure about that. You shouldn't sink too deep in the mud...

Microsoft open sources MS-DOS 4.0
By Eike, 26 April 2024 at 5:43 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: elmapuli bet they did that because wine/dosbox already can run 100% of dos 4.0 games/softwares, so it would be useless to keep this codebase proprietary anyway and by open sourcing it they create an good image for thenselves.

And if DOSBox wouldn't run the games? They'd sell MSDOS 4.0?