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Reminder: Update your PC info for the next round of statistics updates
By Philadelphus, 6 March 2017 at 11:05 pm UTC
Quoting: AnxiousInfusionHas it really been four months since I changed anything? Damn it's time to buy something new.
Heh. Two years, eight months, and counting, for me (since I built my computer), and that's unlikely to change in the next year or so barring freak hardware failure. Hence why this monthly reminder feels like being asked "Did you cut your hair recently?" every single day for me. :P But hey, I'm sure I'll be happy for the reminder when I finally do change something. ^_^
Razer looking to improve Linux support on their 'Blade' series of laptops
By Peapoll, 6 March 2017 at 10:59 pm UTC Likes: 4
I think we need to reflect a little on what the CEO is telling us here. It's not like they suddenly thought that it would be cool to support Linux, it's because of YOU. You made them consider Linux! And this tells us something very important. We often sit on some tiny Internet island commenting that "this and that" have bad/no support for Linux, but it does nothing good if our genuine wishes never reach the actual decision makers. Enough Linux users "bothered" Razer up to a point where Linux simply cannot be ignored, and it's largely up to us if or who of our favorite vendor will be the next.
An explanation of what Mesa is and what graphics cards use it
By Liam Dawe, 6 March 2017 at 10:44 pm UTC Likes: 5
Quoting: FaalagornHave you considered adding this to GOL Wiki Liam? It would be helpful to have an editable page later on, especially when this article gets old :)
Good thinking batman. I've opened a Wiki page as this will likely vanish after a while.
An explanation of what Mesa is and what graphics cards use it
By Faalagorn, 6 March 2017 at 10:40 pm UTC Likes: 3
Good article. It'll surely help people explain the basics behind drivers, especially when using AMD. I was confused at first what Mesa, RadeonSI and radv are, so had to look online to understand it.

Have you considered adding this to GOL Wiki Liam? It would be helpful to have an editable page later on, especially when this article gets old :)
The Council Of Linux Gamers episode 2 is now up on Youtube if you missed it last night
By Linas, 6 March 2017 at 10:26 pm UTC
Quoting: HexDSLThis is the most wonderful video on YouTube. it made my life better watching it. HexDSL is a sexy sexy man who i think deserves your subscription..... :|
Sounds legit. Sign me up!
Wine 2.3 released with more Direct3D command stream and Shader Model 5 work
By Shmerl, 6 March 2017 at 9:10 pm UTC
I suppose Steam controller could be a viable option.
Razer looking to improve Linux support on their 'Blade' series of laptops
By STiAT, 6 March 2017 at 9:07 pm UTC
Optimus. Got that shit at work. Never ever going to buy a Laptop with Optimus.

My issue is - 3 Monitors. On Windows you can have pass through, and all 3 displays connected. Linux? Not so much, at least I didn't succeed.
Razer looking to improve Linux support on their 'Blade' series of laptops
By Aryvandaar, 6 March 2017 at 9:06 pm UTC
I heard that the motherboards on Razer laptops have some serious flaws that break them.
Wine 2.3 released with more Direct3D command stream and Shader Model 5 work
By JudasIscariot, 6 March 2017 at 8:38 pm UTC
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: JudasIscariotWitcher 3 on Windows has support for the Xbox 360 controller. Have you been successful in getting that to work at all?

I don't have a controller to test at present unfortunately. Feel free to run some tests. Let me know if you need help with building Wine with all needed patches to run it.

FYI: To run TW3 you don't need the complicated WoW64 build, which requires using something like lxc container, and running 32-bit build twice. You can simply build 64-bit Wine with patches from staging and buffer pool hack.

Well, I use Arch's PKGBUILD which builds WoW64 Wine for me anyways so I don't have to worry about all that :) I only asked about controller support because the usual workaround (i.e. install x360ce in a prefix, dump some files next to the game's executable) does not work with purely 64-bit games for a number of reasons, the main one having to do with certain dotnet versions just not working in 64-bit prefixes.

I was hoping that the game may see the controller somewhat but perhaps just needs a winetrick or two...
A look at how much RAM you might need as a Linux gamer
By JudasIscariot, 6 March 2017 at 8:36 pm UTC Likes: 3
Quoting: Nouser64 GB is more memory than anyone will ever need.

For the next 5 years :P
The Mesa GLSL shader cache is now enabled by default
By KuJo, 6 March 2017 at 8:30 pm UTC
Quoting: ungutknut
Quoting: KuJoand with this ppa the OpenGL Version is up to 4.5 :).
But it looks like your version string still says 3.0... so I guess dying light still won't work with it? Anybody tested that?
I have 4.5 running. This is the essential line:
Max core profile version: 4.5
Razer looking to improve Linux support on their 'Blade' series of laptops
By Mountain Man, 6 March 2017 at 7:58 pm UTC Likes: 1
Has Razer improved their quality? They have a well-deserved reputation for selling overpriced junk. You can get much better products for the same money.
A look at how much RAM you might need as a Linux gamer
By Philadelphus, 6 March 2017 at 7:40 pm UTC Likes: 2
I built my Linux gaming rig 2½ years ago with 8 GB originally, but upgraded to 16 GB a month later after seeing how much RAM various programs required (I also learned about swap partitions and what happens when you run out of RAM without one set up! :D). This turned out to be necessary for me and a buddy playing Minecraft together, as we play large modpacks and I host the server, so with various Feed The Beast modded servers + client running it takes up ~70% of my RAM, judging from the system monitor. I usually have to close my several-dozen-tabs-open Chrome in order to run it, plus anything else that's eating a significant amount of RAM, but it works fine other than that.
A look at how much RAM you might need as a Linux gamer
By razing32, 6 March 2017 at 7:15 pm UTC Likes: 3
Then there's me with 2 browsers running paused videos and about 30 tabs each , several apps like gimp and godot and atom in the background. And my idle is 10 GB :D

Yes I am insane , why do you ask ?
Deep Sixed, a very unique looking space survival roguelike will have Linux support
By Beamboom, 6 March 2017 at 7:04 pm UTC
Quoting: SolitaryHow did you come up with the idea they use Flash?

Because it looks like it could have been.
Razer looking to improve Linux support on their 'Blade' series of laptops
By harshbarj, 6 March 2017 at 6:47 pm UTC
Only if they are price competitive. Right now I'm rocking a Lenovo Z70-80 and find it does everything I need. Every game I have thrown at it with native Linux ports have run great. So unless they can offer similar hardware at the same price, I don't see a good reason to switch to their hardware as Lenovo already does a good job with Linux compatible hardware.
A look at how much RAM you might need as a Linux gamer
By lejimster, 6 March 2017 at 6:37 pm UTC
This is why I need a new PC. I only do the occasional light gaming and I have to close pretty much everything. I'm gaming with 4GB ram. I'd agree with 16GB over 8GB for future proofing and so you don't have to do what I do and kill all non-essential apps when running games.
Wine 2.3 released with more Direct3D command stream and Shader Model 5 work
By Shmerl, 6 March 2017 at 6:04 pm UTC
Quoting: JudasIscariotWitcher 3 on Windows has support for the Xbox 360 controller. Have you been successful in getting that to work at all?

I don't have a controller to test at present unfortunately. Feel free to run some tests. Let me know if you need help with building Wine with all needed patches to run it.

FYI: To run TW3 you don't need the complicated WoW64 build, which requires using something like lxc container, and running 32-bit build twice. You can simply build 64-bit Wine with patches from staging and buffer pool hack.
Wine 2.3 released with more Direct3D command stream and Shader Model 5 work
By JudasIscariot, 6 March 2017 at 6:02 pm UTC
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: qptain NemoFantastic. Are there any non-graphical issues or does everything function as it should?

So far I didn't notice any non graphical issues.

Witcher 3 on Windows has support for the Xbox 360 controller. Have you been successful in getting that to work at all?
Deep Sixed, a very unique looking space survival roguelike will have Linux support
By BlackBloodRum, 6 March 2017 at 5:54 pm UTC Likes: 1
Sure I can't be the only one who instantly thought of this song when reading article title? :O

View video on youtube.com
The Mesa GLSL shader cache is now enabled by default
By Purple Library Guy, 6 March 2017 at 5:52 pm UTC
Quoting: MadeanaccounttocommentThe results also show an FPS increase which is weird because from what I've gathered this feature shouldn't improve FPS. Someone on forums mentioned it has something to do with the benchmark restarting itself but honestly I don't quite understand the explanation given.

Quoting: pal666there is no fps improvements from this feature. it is seen on benchmark only because benchmark is short and restarts game. if you don't restart game, you will see no fps improvements during play after first shader loads.

From the looks of that explanation, it sounds like the benchmark runs the game on some sort of loop--starts, "plays" for some set sequence, ends, and starts up again to run the game some more. So over the course of the benchmark, the game is restarted multiple times. If the restarts take less time, then over the course of the benchmark it will get through more frames just because more time is spent in game doing frames and less doing restarts. So you get an improvement in "FPS" over the whole run even though while the game is running it is not, in fact, doing more frames in a second.
Note that I have no idea whether this is true, but it looks like that's what this person is saying.
Deep Sixed, a very unique looking space survival roguelike will have Linux support
By Solitary, 6 March 2017 at 5:52 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: BeamboomNot to be a debbie downer but... Is it made with Flash? Couldn't this just as well have been a browser game?

How did you come up with the idea they use Flash? I think they are using multiplatform engine Godot.
Wine 2.3 released with more Direct3D command stream and Shader Model 5 work
By Shmerl, 6 March 2017 at 5:33 pm UTC
Quoting: qptain NemoFantastic. Are there any non-graphical issues or does everything function as it should?

So far I didn't notice any non graphical issues.
A look at how much RAM you might need as a Linux gamer
By oldrocker99, 6 March 2017 at 5:19 pm UTC
Quoting: Nouser64 GB is more memory than anyone will ever need.

And Bill Gates said in the 80s that nobody would ever need more than 640K. I have 16GB and I can't run Pan and a 8-gig RAM VM at the same time. I'll probably spring soon for another 16GB, which I will need if I continue such activity.
I finally completed Half-Life 2 on Linux and it was quite the experience
By Ehvis, 6 March 2017 at 4:55 pm UTC
Quoting: g000h
Quoting: Ehvis
Quoting: Grimfist(Yeah I was a windows gamer at that time :D, but who wasn't right? ).

I wasn't! ^_^

What games were you playing? A few examples would be interesting?

Some of the iD stuff and a few retro games on emulators. I did mostly programming back in those days. I did pick up a few of the LGP titles later. Spent quite a few hours with Sacred.
The 'System Shock' remake has switched from Unity to Unreal Engine, Linux still aiming for day-1 release
By GoLBuzzkill, 6 March 2017 at 4:46 pm UTC
Quoting: Purple Library Guy. . . This is that guy, isn't it?

Yes it is!!!

Quoting: throghAnd the Unreal-Engine is in fact better with a complete proprietary base of code? Okay, the base may be better, but your arguments are some kind of very negative combined with insults. So everyone buying a game based on the Unity-engine is a "traitor"? What about buying games complete being closed-source instead donating for open projects? Seems like a double-standard! And what about the Steam-client or the complete platform? Using the proprietary driver from NVidia or AMD? That's okay from FLOSS-perspective? I don't think so! :D

No insults just observations. M$ is an enemy, if developers made game using C#, .Net, Objective-C and other Apple and M$ slave API-s you are directly financing our enemy and you are a traitor; in case of Unity3D which is part of .Net foundation you are directly syphoning money to M$ cause. Traitor -> Treacherous Developers -> Unity3D -> .Net Foundation -> Steve Ballmer -> Steve Ballmer's cocaine dealer. Also Treacherous Developers are paying for Windows licence, Visual studio, DB's and other M$ shit and Linux users traitors are partialy financing that.

And still there is not a single fucking game that is from bottom up made to be multiplatform (Windows/Mac/Linux;Steam/Origin/uPlay/gog etc.) so that it is optimized to work on all platforms as best as it can, nada, nil, /dev/null. We are afterthought and we are paying for it, pathetic.
DiRT Rally tested on R7 370 and an A10-9600p APU
By saildata, 6 March 2017 at 4:26 pm UTC
[quote=Samsai]
Quoting: Dea1993And when it comes to DIMM amount, I'm pretty sure there's two sticks in there running in dual-channel. This laptop's an absolute bitch to get to the innards though, so verifying that isn't particularly easy. And for those interested in the model, this is an HP Notebook 15, the APU variant.

Check out lshw (list hardware)

To get the detailed memory info, sudo lshw -c memory
The Council Of Linux Gamers episode 2 is now up on Youtube if you missed it last night
By Sadistic, 6 March 2017 at 4:13 pm UTC Likes: 1
Nah, there was no ping problems with Jake, he was just choking on Ben & Jerry's.
A look at how much RAM you might need as a Linux gamer
By MayeulC, 6 March 2017 at 4:02 pm UTC Likes: 2
Quoting: ArdjeIn the FortressCraft Evolved forum, a linux guy was asking about why fortresscraft demanded 400MB/s throughput on his SSD. While he did not notice any slow downs he was wondering about that.
Turns out he had no swap partition. So after adding the swap his SSD almost went silent.
So even if you are on SSD, always, *always* use a swap partition. The swap is used to swap out not frequently used anonymous allocated memory. Every bash you start, any program linked to gcc will start out initializing memory it will never use.
In his case, his anonymous memory usage (i.e. the memory used by the game) made the kernel continously page in the static game data at a rate of 400MB. Adding swap made it possible to swap out a large part of the almost static allocation of unused memory.

There are a few things I didn't understand in your post:
1. Without a swap file or partition, how could the kernel page to disk (aka swap)?
2. Why would a swap partition reduce swapping to disk?

The only thing that could reduce it is to create a swap partition on an other disk, delete the swap partition or decrease "vm.swappiness".
Interesting read: https://www.redhat.com/en/about/blog/do-we-really-need-swap-modern-systems

Of course, every use case is different.
I keep 4 gigs of swap in case my system needs to page some background apps.
Deep Sixed, a very unique looking space survival roguelike will have Linux support
By rustybroomhandle, 6 March 2017 at 3:45 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: artvandelay440Interesting, for sure, but I urge everyone- the list of kickstarter funded games promising Linux support only to back out after we fund it, is a long one. No Tux, no bux.

I have backed many projects and have never had this happen on any of them. I know there are some, but I find it hard to believe that it's a particularly long list.
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