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Editorial: On paying for Linux games when you already have a Windows version
By Alm888, 23 March 2017 at 3:54 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: JanYes. But if you buy a Steam key from Feral it counts as a Linux/Mac sale and they might even get a little bit more money for their efforts.

As long as they will provide only DRM-ed ports their efforts are meaningless to me, sorry.

Quoting: JanThere was no DRM, just a simple CD-check.

That is called DRM in my book. I'm fed up with StarForce and SecuROM "copy protection" technologies.

Quoting: JanNo porting company (except Aspyr's Bloober Team games) offers DRM-free titles on GOG or similar sites.

Their loss.

Quoting: JanThey have never been seriously interested in games.

No, sir! Be it that way they had not invented Metal API targeted directly against Vulkan ("Mantle" back at the day) and "Direct3D 12". Apple is clearly trying to dominate gaming market (mobile gaming market, specifically) by deliberately excluding "OpenGL ES" and placing developers in the "either/or" situation.

Quoting: Jan...I don't think Apple cares too much about Vulkan.

Cares? No! Is afraid of? Most probably, yes.

Space sandbox game 'Avorion' has a whopper of an update, considering getting a server for it
By Cybolic, 23 March 2017 at 3:52 pm UTC

Quoting: linuxjacques[...]I'm curious - what FPS are you seeing?
Never mind, I had an issue with my driver and it was running without GPU acceleration on my main monitor :P I'm seeing ~70 FPS with everything on high now :)

Yaakuro shows off SteamVR on Unreal Engine 4 using Vulkan on Linux
By roothorick, 23 March 2017 at 3:48 pm UTC

Quoting: ison111I heard that you can use Vulkan in UE4 only by using the "mobile rendering pipeline" or something like that.

Is that what he's doing? Or is this full blown Vulkan support we're talking about?

People keep missing this -- SteamVR can be used from OpenGL. It's just very slow for the time being, probably due to a fairly dirty and unoptimized first pass at transferring framebuffer data out of an OGL context into the compositor's Vulkan context; they'll be bringing it up to speed over time. This could be in OGL and he's just dealing with the performance hit for now.

I probably should watch the video before I post, eh?

Wine Staging 2.4 released
By Alm888, 23 March 2017 at 3:39 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: ArehandoroIs it really? That would be amazing! Do you have any link with those news? If possible, of course :)

Please, take not of the wording JudasIscariot used. I highlighted it for clarity. ;) Other than that, it was sarcasm on my side.

Kona, an eerie narrative-driven adventure game is now out on Linux, it's a bit buggy
By Comandante Ñoñardo, 23 March 2017 at 3:34 pm UTC Likes: 1

KONA is available for Linux on GOG too.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By buenaventura, 23 March 2017 at 3:21 pm UTC Likes: 5

Quoting: liamdaweSeems reddit doesn't agree with me on this article.

Note to self: Don't read reddit.

This is such a boring trend among developers in general, the response to any user tweaks is always "nooeee dont tinker with our perfectly logical programs, just spend hours replacing your tuned ubuntu with the utter standard, wash your hands, then start the game and get all these logs and send them to me so that I can ask you to do it all again for reproducability. THEN we might file a bug that will sit in some list for a year. Have fun.". Yeyeye that's all rational and stuff, but I think they get blinded by their own position as computer experts, computers is essentially mumbo jumbo magic IMO, like other complex stuff humans deal with. Things just work, and they are generally too complex/contingent/systemic for any person to understand, so people tinker and code away and sometimes it just works. Trying to force it to be rational and understandable is just too time consuming when users can get improvements with random tweaks.

As long as it doesn't break anything, let us play with irrational tweaks and pray to the CPU gods like we want.

Editorial: On paying for Linux games when you already have a Windows version
By Jan, 23 March 2017 at 3:20 pm UTC

Quoting: Alm888But I thought Feral Store is just Steam-keys re-seller. Am I right?

P.S. I wonder whether Feral will be able to easily maintain Mac releases profitable with Apple's Metal push (and OpenGL abandonment) or not... Current setup with "enemy of my enemy is also my enemy" with Direct3D 12 vs. Metal vs. Vulkan makes things extremely murky. Most probably Apple will pay developers for MacOS exclusives for the time being (till Metal gains enough of traction). Apple is not Valve, they will not repeat Gaben's mistake with SteamOS.

Yes. But if you buy a Steam key from Feral it counts as a Linux/Mac sale and they might even get a little bit more money for their efforts.

Back in the day I used to buy Feral's Mac games directly from their store on DVD. There was no DRM, just a simple CD-check. Nowadays you can get Feral's ports on the Mac App Store and Steam (Linux and Mac).

No porting company (except Aspyr's Bloober Team games) offers DRM-free titles on GOG or similar sites.

Regarding Apple and Metal: I'm not sure if they would ever buy "exclusive" Metal titles for the App Store. They have never been seriously interested in games. It's a good way to show off new OS features or their own Ax chips at WWDC, but most devs will be very happy to get some stage time at Apple events or a nice feature banner on the App store, which helps boosting sales.

Both Unity and Unreal Engine 4 offer Metal-support out of the box. Therefore I don't think Apple cares too much about Vulkan. iOS is still the most important mobile gaming platform in terms of revenue, so devs will support Metal no matter what. Android uses Vulkan, but all the mobile app developers I talk to on a regular basis make more money on Apple's storefront, even though the market share of iPhone and iPad is smaller.

Wine Staging 2.4 released
By Shmerl, 23 March 2017 at 3:18 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: ArehandoroIs it really? That would be amazing! Do you have any link with those news? If possible, of course :)

I don't think anything changed recently. Someone just noticed long existed note about "coming soon", and didn't realize it's Soon™.

Rocket League gets Easter goodies and a new game mode in free update
By Ehvis, 23 March 2017 at 3:15 pm UTC Likes: 1

So far, I haven't seen any crashes either. In fact, the only big problem that RL has, is its ability to demonstrate that I suck at skill games.

The Whispered World Special Edition is now available for Linux
By Eike, 23 March 2017 at 3:14 pm UTC

Wow! Didn't expect that much non-exaltation! Seems I need to rebuy it and play again just to see if I remember all wrong. ;)

Kona, an eerie narrative-driven adventure game is now out on Linux, it's a bit buggy
By Xpander, 23 March 2017 at 3:12 pm UTC Likes: 1

i did not have this issue. but i didnt use saves i think.

this is another unity game done right in terms of performance.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By Liam Dawe, 23 March 2017 at 2:43 pm UTC Likes: 3

Seems reddit doesn't agree with me on this article.

Note to self: Don't read reddit.

The Whispered World Special Edition is now available for Linux
By kokoko3k, 23 March 2017 at 2:36 pm UTC

Oh man, i played it in the past via wine.
This game is so soporific!
Not going to play it again... meh!

Wine Staging 2.4 released
By Arehandoro, 23 March 2017 at 2:35 pm UTC

Quoting: Alm888
Quoting: JudasIscariot
Spoiler, click me
In short if you want to use the Windows version of Galaxy under Wine use the most recent version of Wine Staging since Galaxy makes use of quite a few features not yet implemented in vanilla Wine.

Spoiler, click me
It sounds like there is a Linux version of Galaxy somewhere nearby... ;) Of course I want to use the Linux version and not the Windows one, but as of now I simply have no choice. Just want to have a glimpse at that client which revently was updated to 1.2 with big news on the site yet, no Linux version mentioned.

Is it really? That would be amazing! Do you have any link with those news? If possible, of course :)

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By Arehandoro, 23 March 2017 at 2:20 pm UTC

A couple of months ago saw this article on the Steam forums addressing the same issue, with another tweaks too, and it's what I use. I believe it's basically cpufrequtils with a script to switch performance mode on and off.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By , 23 March 2017 at 2:17 pm UTC

Quoting: buenaventura
Quoting: meggermanRunning AMD CPU/APU's i have always turned of Turbo mode in the BIOS and cool & quiet.

How do you do this? Entering bios with F2 during boot, I see no option to turn Turbo on/off. Perhaps it is not supported by my "AMD A8-6410 with Radeon R5 Graphics (up to 2.4ghz)". However, in bios it says that my computer has only 2000mhz cpu freq, so clearly the CPU is not turboin :P

I have the settings in BIOS

My CPU has a turbo of 4.2ghz and a base clock of 3.8. I just disable turbo and increase the multiplyer to give me a constant 4.2 ghz. I found that in particular source engine games would stutter more and jump in FPS with the CPU switching between its core clock speed steps. If i get ryzen i probably shouldnt have to worry as much given that there will always be enough base line performance for source engine games and that titles are now moving to more GPU orientated APi's.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By MayeulC, 23 March 2017 at 2:15 pm UTC

Quoting: Cybolic
Quoting: HailToTheGrail
Quoting: CybolicI wish there was a way to not have to put in my password on every change, maybe someone knows how to work around that?

You could give setuid a try. Make a shell script as root, and then: chmod u+s script.sh
You should be able to run it as a user with it's owner rights, which are root.

No go on my Arch system. I've also tried editing the sudoers config file with visudo and using sudo instead, but that still asks for a password :/

Are you sure it is owned by root?
chown root script.sh

A plasmoid to change the CPU governor doesn't seem a bad idea, I might look into that.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By Kuduzkehpan, 23 March 2017 at 2:09 pm UTC

thx for all info all helped alot. and ++ for indicator-cpufreq

Wednesday Madness, a quick look at some good Linux gaming deals
By g000h, 23 March 2017 at 2:05 pm UTC

Crypt of the Necrodancer is a fantastic game. Well worth picking up. 75% is highest discount to date AFAIK.

Wine Staging 2.4 released
By g000h, 23 March 2017 at 2:02 pm UTC

Quoting: tuubiGuys? This is a wine topic. I know this is a volatile subject around here and I appreciate the joke but isn't the spoiler thing just a bit unnecessary?

Actually, I think they're just doing it for the LOLs. But yes, considering the topic it is a bit silly.

Kona, an eerie narrative-driven adventure game is now out on Linux, it's a bit buggy
By micha, 23 March 2017 at 2:00 pm UTC Likes: 3

I played ~3h in 2 sessions of roughly equal length. Not a single crash or glitch so far!

Really enjoy this game and looking forward to the weekend for more. =)

FYI: I played through SteamLink on the TV but streaming from my Ubuntu notebook. So all Linux.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By DamonLinuxPL, 23 March 2017 at 2:00 pm UTC Likes: 1

I am just use as root "cpupower frequency-set -g performance" and it works well.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By Cybolic, 23 March 2017 at 1:58 pm UTC

Quoting: HailToTheGrail
Quoting: CybolicI wish there was a way to not have to put in my password on every change, maybe someone knows how to work around that?

You could give setuid a try. Make a shell script as root, and then: chmod u+s script.sh
You should be able to run it as a user with it's owner rights, which are root.

No go on my Arch system. I've also tried editing the sudoers config file with visudo and using sudo instead, but that still asks for a password :/

Rocket League gets Easter goodies and a new game mode in free update
By tuubi, 23 March 2017 at 1:41 pm UTC

Quoting: BeamboomI've not experienced any crashes as far as I can recall, btw. On Ubuntu 64bit/Nvidia latest.
The crashes do seem quite random and some people experience them more than others even on similar hardware, but AFAICT they happen almost exclusively in between matches. For me the only way to make the game crash during a match used to be to disconnect a usb controller, but I haven't tested that in a while.

The Whispered World Special Edition is now available for Linux
By Nezchan, 23 March 2017 at 1:40 pm UTC

Quoting: Salvatos
Quoting: EikeSurprised by the reviews. Would have expected around 90%...
It's hard to overstate just how damn depressing that clown is. If the game's humor were better it might offset him, but I don't remember finding anything in the game more than mildly amusing, especially when so much of it is at the expense of a character. It's quirky in a way that could be charming but for me it felt awkward most of the way. I can't help but feel that while I could applaud Daedalic for succeeding in making Sadwick a sad and pitiful character as intended, I am more inclined to point out that not many people want a main character to be a pitiful self-defeatist that drags his feet through the whole adventure. I don't want to hate the game, but the protagonist really irks me.

Have to agree there. Plus I was sold on the game being this really solid story with some degree of seriousness, and couldn't help but feel like someone pulled a bait-and-switch on me. There's too much both of Sadwick self-deprecating and the overall game being geared toward cartoony jokes. Like you look at the "About the game" section above, that gives no indication of the kinda off the mark wacky stuff or the character you're basically stuck with throughout.

I will say, some of the non-Sadwick voices were really good. Points to Daedalic on that at least.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By Ardje, 23 March 2017 at 1:26 pm UTC

I think it was at fosdem last year that I heard how enlightenment developers used a cpu-intensive thing (busy loop) to let the governor upclock the cpu before starting any graphical updates. Just to prevent this.

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By GloriousEggroll, 23 March 2017 at 1:22 pm UTC

It should be noted you can check your current governor setting with

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

this is useful for people using custom kernels such as linux-ck or linux-zen and are unsure what the default governor is set to.

on linux-zen mine was set to powersave

You will want to force your CPU into high performance mode for Vulkan games on Linux
By buenaventura, 23 March 2017 at 1:16 pm UTC

I
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: buenaventuraHow do you do this? Entering bios with F2 during boot, I see no option to turn Turbo on/off. Perhaps it is not supported by my "AMD A8-6410 with Radeon R5 Graphics (up to 2.4ghz)". However, in bios it says that my computer has only 2000mhz cpu freq, so clearly the CPU is not turboin :P

It might be throttling down some GHz as it doesn't need them in BIOS.

I just installed indicator-cpufreq, and there I can choose between:

2,00 GHz
<etc etc>
1,00 GHz
--------------------
Conservative
Ondemand
Powersave
Performance
shedutil <--- INTRUIGING, what is this? I google and it seems like some newfangled stuff? I wonder if that will be even better than Performance!

Still, why does it only go up to 2,00ghz? Says right on the sticker on my lappy "up to 2.4 ghz", bullshiet :P

Rocket League gets Easter goodies and a new game mode in free update
By Beamboom, 23 March 2017 at 1:15 pm UTC

Every Linux gamer should have this one on their account.

I've not experienced any crashes as far as I can recall, btw. On Ubuntu 64bit/Nvidia latest.