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A developer of the awesome itch games client has a blog post on compressing files for updates
By MayeulC, 23 January 2017 at 12:50 am UTC

Another solution would be to use APNGs for Firefox, and another one for chrome (I don't remember which). Of course, it has its downsides, and I don't like animations that much.

The interesting survival game 'Raft' has dropped Linux support
By bgh251f2, 23 January 2017 at 12:46 am UTC

I discovered this title earlier today and just downloaded it, now to discover it will no longer available. Sad.

The interesting survival game 'Raft' has dropped Linux support
By sr_ls_boy, 23 January 2017 at 12:41 am UTC Likes: 1

There are other titles to play rather than this one.

Quern, Greenwood, and Detention are available.

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By Nyamiou, 23 January 2017 at 12:36 am UTC

Quoting: etonbearsThe problem with large OEMs offering Linux pre-installs in the way you suggest is that the financials don't work that way.

It may cost you or me 100 €/$/£ for Windows and 0 €/$/£ for Linux, but for a large OEM the costs are worked out on a per-unit basis.

Then how do you explain that?:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/01/dell-precision-3520-ubuntu-laptop

The interesting survival game 'Raft' has dropped Linux support
By Shmerl, 23 January 2017 at 12:25 am UTC Likes: 3

Too bad, I was interested in this game. Developers should learn how to work with Linux. May be they should find someone who knows Linux development for their team? Leaving to "may be in the future" is prone to bite them, when they'll realize they used too much Windows only stuff along the way.

The interesting survival game 'Raft' has dropped Linux support
By Nyamiou, 23 January 2017 at 12:22 am UTC Likes: 4

Actually doing QA on three platforms when you are only three is probably really time consuming. Especially if none of those thre person know anything about OS X and Linux. Maybe when the game will be finish they could ask a porter to do the job.

The interesting survival game 'Raft' has dropped Linux support
By cyanidearsenic, 23 January 2017 at 12:15 am UTC

Oh how unfortunate, I just downloaded their alpha build too.

'Detention 返校' is an immersive psychological horror adventure with 'overwhelmingly positive' reviews, demo available
By Linas, 22 January 2017 at 11:41 pm UTC

It seems interesting. I do enjoy a good story and horror. But it maybe a bit too point-and-click-ish for my taste. The only game of the genre that I utterly enjoyed was Beneath the Steel Sky.

But please do keep the obscure games coming. I am sure there are a few left waiting to be discovered. ;)

Seriously, the developers should tell us about their Linux ports. Otherwise the only way to find these games is randomly stumbling upon them. Or use countless hours looking for them. Which I do appreciate taking your time to do it, SangreDeReptil.

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By etonbears, 22 January 2017 at 11:39 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestI was searching for "best PC games" for 2012 "13 "14 "15 "16 in google yesterday.

+- 40% or more have a native linux port :)

for example: Firewatch, Life is strange, Oxenfree, Alien Isolation, XCOM 2, Deus Ex, Pillars of Eternity, SOMA, Sunless Sea, The Talos Principle, Tomb Raider, Shadow Tactics, ..

+- 25% of the remaining "best pc games" (without linux support) have a platinum or gold rating on winehq, so they perform great on linux via the wine app :)

for example: Dishonored, The Walking Dead, Skyrim, Metro: Last Light, Path of Exile, The Sims 3, Mass Effect 3, ..


If HP, Lenovo, Acer and Asus would decide tomorrow to offer the customer two options 1) Windows 10 and Office 365 for 100 Euro or 2) GNU/Linux for 0.00 Euro

How many people would buy Windows 10 if computer devices would be sold without operating system?

There is not one good reason for Windows 10 to exist anno 2017.

Yes, we have about 1/4 of all Windows games on Steam, and 2/3 those available for MacOSX. So we are much better served than a few years ago. ( By the way, Metro:LL actually does have Linux port ).

The problem with large OEMs offering Linux pre-installs in the way you suggest is that the financials don't work that way.

It may cost you or me 100 €/$/£ for Windows and 0 €/$/£ for Linux, but for a large OEM the costs are worked out on a per-unit basis.

They actually pay very little for a copy of Windows, but assume the first-line support costs, which are amortised over a very large number of sales and so are quite low. Many also get revenue through deals to include extra software trials that you almost certainly did not want. So they basically lie if they suggest that you are paying 100 €/$/£ for Windows but force you to take an OS.

Conversely, for Linux, although the OS is free, they may actually have to pay Canonical, or some other entity for second/third line support ( i.e. to get fixes ), while their per-unit costs for first-line support will be higher than Windows due to smaller sales volumes.

This means that when companies like Dell have offered Linux pre-installs, it has been at a similar price point to Windows, which is not much of a pull factor. Sad but true.

A new radeonsi (Mesa) patch should fix issues in many games for AMD GPU owners
By TacoDeBoss, 22 January 2017 at 11:04 pm UTC

Quoting: Xicronic
Quoting: finaldestI have been keeping a close eye on this as I really wanted a RX480 but chose to go with a 1070 due to driver support. So I would like to thank all involved who are working hard to improve the drivers.

The AMD drivers have been progressing very well recently so I really am looking to put a VEGA gpu into my new ZEN build once released. I may just have a full AMD system soon if all goes well.

Don't count on it. I know there's a lot of hype and excitement around AMD, but my "upgrade" from a 660 Ti to an RX 480 is regression in half the games I want to play, and a headache in plenty of others. The situation may change now that they can focus on optimizations rather than just getting games to run at all, but for the foreseeable future NVIDIA is still a much better choice.

Er, I just moved from a GTX 1080 to an RX 460. I've had but one problem after I got the drivers compiled, a color issue with Mad Max which is apparently caused by LLVM. Everything else has worked exactly how I expect it to.

If things aren't working for you, you're probably doing something wrong.

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By etonbears, 22 January 2017 at 10:52 pm UTC

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, the big engines probably make money hand over fist. Maintaining and improving Linux support I would expect is cheaper than adding it was in the first place. And the thing about Linux is, even if there were no non-techie Linux desktops at all, Linux dominates in most other spaces and shows no sign of that diminishing. Between that and the attractiveness of the FOSS idea, Linux has a strong allegiance among programmers. Once they've jumped the hurdle of putting in support in the first place, even if keeping it isn't worth it financially it's probably worth it just for morale within the company and goodwill outside.
There's also the checklist effect. If you offer a product it's kind of hard to measure which features are making you money, which make the difference in people's choices to use your product or a competitor's. But if that kind of product has a checklist of features that most of them support, I suspect most companies would be leery of changing their product so it gets a red X beside something on the list while their competitors still have a green check mark.

So I suspect chances are pretty good Linux support in the engines will stay for a while.

I certainly hope you are right. I think we can assume a few years of speculative Linux support, but beyond that there probably has to be a commercial argument, and it is currently unclear how that will pan out. At one point the DICE team seemed quite keen to make their engine run on Linux ( enough to advertise for the expertise ), but then I think the money men overruled them.

I'm still hopeful that other AAA studios will think more about cross-platform support when they develop new engines, but they may remain risk averse without a clear financial argument.

A new radeonsi (Mesa) patch should fix issues in many games for AMD GPU owners
By F.Ultra, 22 January 2017 at 10:04 pm UTC

Perhaps to early to cry victory but I had enormous problems with Unity games before this patch where the games would simply freeze up, the music still played and the desktop worked just fine and there where never any logs to speak off. But after trying this patch for some 30 minutes now I have experienced no such freeze anymore!

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By Leopard, 22 January 2017 at 10:03 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestI got a laptop, MSI decent specs, GTX870 vidcard.
But rocket leauge really is choppy, with everything on low even.
Any tips?

Are you using Bumblebee or Prime for switchable graphics(Intel-Nvidia)and are you sure game is running with Nvidia,not Intel?

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By g000h, 22 January 2017 at 9:51 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestI got a laptop, MSI decent specs, GTX870 vidcard.
But rocket leauge really is choppy, with everything on low even.
Any tips?

Any more to go on?

Version of Linux?
RAM?
Nvidia driver version?
Processor?
Screen Resolution?
What resolution are you trying to play at? 720p? Screen res?

Noting that by GTX870 graphics, I take it you mean GTX870M (i.e. the mobile version of the graphics chipset, which would be slower than the equivalent desktop graphics.)

Graphics can be 'choppy' if the graphics card overheats, and then ramps down automatically to lower the temperature.
Do you hear fan speed going up and down?

A developer of the awesome itch games client has a blog post on compressing files for updates
By Doc Angelo, 22 January 2017 at 7:47 pm UTC Likes: 2

Thanks for your answer! :)

Well, I would welcome playing a video on hover! A website where there's movement and animation everywhere can be a strain on the eye. I would say it is not needed, and it stresses resources and the human eye.

The Humble Store winter sale is on and DiRT Showdown is free
By g000h, 22 January 2017 at 7:26 pm UTC

Hehe, some more Linux games bought by me in the Humble Winter Sale:

Guards
Detective Grimoire
Gunslugs
Gunpowder
Reigns
Dungeon Hearts

Taking advantage of my Humble Subscription 10% off discount, just before I end the subscription.

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By Purple Library Guy, 22 January 2017 at 6:54 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: oldrocker99I started in 2008, with Ubuntu 8.04, and, at the time, there was exactly one freely-available commercial game that had a Linux client available: Neverwinter Nights. I happily played it (and still occasionally fire it up, and it still works; not bad for a 15 year old port) until the Humble Bundles came up. I dual-booted from 2012 to 2014; when X-COM came out for Linux, I deep-sixed my Windows partition and haven't looked back.

I have seen gaming on Linux grow from Steam's initial offering of mostly Humble Bundle games to the wealth of titles we have now. I used to buy just about every Linux game that came out, and now I'm pretty damn picky.

We are in a Golden Age of gaming for Linux.

Let us hope it turns out to be only a Silver Age, with the Golden Age of World Domination yet to come! ;)

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By Purple Library Guy, 22 January 2017 at 6:50 pm UTC

Quoting: etonbearsFor example, a major reason for Linux game availability is the rise of high quality game engines, many of which have added Linux support. As these engines generally have many Indie developer customers, I'm guessing that as long as the Indies make enough from their Linux sales, then it will be worth the engine companies continuing to support Linux. But I don't know of any concrete figures that would indicate that continued Linux support is worth it for these companies.

Well, the big engines probably make money hand over fist. Maintaining and improving Linux support I would expect is cheaper than adding it was in the first place. And the thing about Linux is, even if there were no non-techie Linux desktops at all, Linux dominates in most other spaces and shows no sign of that diminishing. Between that and the attractiveness of the FOSS idea, Linux has a strong allegiance among programmers. Once they've jumped the hurdle of putting in support in the first place, even if keeping it isn't worth it financially it's probably worth it just for morale within the company and goodwill outside.
There's also the checklist effect. If you offer a product it's kind of hard to measure which features are making you money, which make the difference in people's choices to use your product or a competitor's. But if that kind of product has a checklist of features that most of them support, I suspect most companies would be leery of changing their product so it gets a red X beside something on the list while their competitors still have a green check mark.

So I suspect chances are pretty good Linux support in the engines will stay for a while.

A developer of the awesome itch games client has a blog post on compressing files for updates
By GustyGhost, 22 January 2017 at 6:32 pm UTC

Quoting: kit89Perhaps have the thumbnails static and animate them if the user hovers over it or goes to applications page?

I just tried the site on a landline internet w/ a big desktop machine and it still lags up. Itch really need to consider taking a minimalistic design philosophy to heart. I also spent a good five minutes lost on the landing page looking for their Linux filter option only to discover that you need to navigate to an entirely different page before that even becomes an option.

A developer of the awesome itch games client has a blog post on compressing files for updates
By kit89, 22 January 2017 at 5:17 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: fasterthanlime
Quoting: Doc AngeloI don't understand why they don't use HTML5 video. It's not a new thing by far. Shitty looking dither, ~90% waste of bandwidth... why?

We've been playing around with HTML5 video for the homepage - first results are, yep, it saves a lot of bandwidth, but it does make Chrome & FF crash under the sheer amount of videos playing simultaneously. So, more work is needed: either play videos on hover, or something scroll-based that loads them/unloads them on-demand, or something based on MPEG-DASH that would be lighter on the browsers.

This thread is full of colorful words so I'll just add this disclaimer: we're a small team building a company with no external funding. Usually the answer to the question "why in the world aren't they doing that yet" is "we were busy working on something else". Everything is always planned, there's just so many hours in a day. Thanks for your patience!

Perhaps have the thumbnails static and animate them if the user hovers over it or goes to applications page?

A developer of the awesome itch games client has a blog post on compressing files for updates
By fasterthanlime, 22 January 2017 at 3:38 pm UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: Doc AngeloI don't understand why they don't use HTML5 video. It's not a new thing by far. Shitty looking dither, ~90% waste of bandwidth... why?

We've been playing around with HTML5 video for the homepage - first results are, yep, it saves a lot of bandwidth, but it does make Chrome & FF crash under the sheer amount of videos playing simultaneously. So, more work is needed: either play videos on hover, or something scroll-based that loads them/unloads them on-demand, or something based on MPEG-DASH that would be lighter on the browsers.

This thread is full of colorful words so I'll just add this disclaimer: we're a small team building a company with no external funding. Usually the answer to the question "why in the world aren't they doing that yet" is "we were busy working on something else". Everything is always planned, there's just so many hours in a day. Thanks for your patience!

Wine 2.0-rc6 released, should be the last one before a stable release
By oldrocker99, 22 January 2017 at 3:37 pm UTC Likes: 1

I noticed that the wine PPA pushed out rc6 the day after this article appeared!

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By oldrocker99, 22 January 2017 at 3:36 pm UTC Likes: 2

I started in 2008, with Ubuntu 8.04, and, at the time, there was exactly one freely-available commercial game that had a Linux client available: Neverwinter Nights. I happily played it (and still occasionally fire it up, and it still works; not bad for a 15 year old port) until the Humble Bundles came up. I dual-booted from 2012 to 2014; when X-COM came out for Linux, I deep-sixed my Windows partition and haven't looked back.

I have seen gaming on Linux grow from Steam's initial offering of mostly Humble Bundle games to the wealth of titles we have now. I used to buy just about every Linux game that came out, and now I'm pretty damn picky.

We are in a Golden Age of gaming for Linux.

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By Faalagorn, 22 January 2017 at 2:46 pm UTC

QuoteEssentially, too many big games right would would
double would ;) Other than that, a bit short short, but also a bit interesting article.

A developer of the awesome itch games client has a blog post on compressing files for updates
By Doc Angelo, 22 January 2017 at 2:28 pm UTC

Quoting: barottoThe itch.io home page is ridiculous though. It's so chock-full of gifs that it saturates my bandwidth taking almost a minute to fully load. And after it's loaded it uses 100% of a CPU core doing nothing. This is piss poor web design. In comparison steampowered.com takes 3 secs to load and 0% CPU.

I don't understand why they don't use HTML5 video. It's not a new thing by far. Shitty looking dither, ~90% waste of bandwidth... why?

Appreciating how far Linux gaming has actually come in the past few years
By g000h, 22 January 2017 at 1:41 pm UTC

Although I've been using Linux for a long time (e.g. 15+ years) I moved to making it my primary desktop only 'fairly' recently, e.g. 5 years ago.

During my earlier years of Linux desktop, I was very into playing free "Nexuiz" FPS game. There was a decent community of Windows and Linux players, and we'd have fantastic high-speed deathmatch competitions (DOOM, Quake, Unreal Tournament style play). Unfortunately the intellectual property got tied up with one of the developers, which annoyed the community who'd contributed to it, and there is a different paid-for Nexuiz game (similar, but not identical) available to purchase.

The Nexuiz community moved on to build free "Xonotic" game, which is still active (but the servers are not especially populated with players :( ). The old community edition of free Nexuiz is still around, and online servers running, but very empty nowadays. Although it's good, something about "Xonotic" isn't quite right for me, whereas "Nexuiz" just felt fantastic.

I was also playing the other various free games around on Linux, e.g. The Battle For Wesnoth, Armagetron, OpenArena, free Flash browser games such as Gemcraft, Kingdom Rush, Monster's Den.

One of the earliest paid-for Linux titles I bought was "Legend of Grimrock" (DRM-free version on GOG). Previously, I'd enjoyed "Dungeon Master" early 90s game, and Grimrock was a fantastic modern version of the same style. Then I was playing and loving "Ziggurat" FPS shooter PvE game (also bought on GOG).

And in the past year, I have been buying up loads of Linux games on Steam and GOG.

A developer of the awesome itch games client has a blog post on compressing files for updates
By scaine, 22 January 2017 at 12:57 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: M@yeulC
Quoting: Leeo97oneOn Steam, we can already choose what platforms we want to show:
https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences/ (at the bottom)

To be fair, it's supposed to work, but the steam client doesn't always respect this setting, especially in big picture mode. Plus, some client updates randomly break it quite often, in my experience (though it seems to be OK right now).

Yeah, sadly this setting only appears to work (mostly) on your primary queue - the one that shows at the top of the page. All the others show Windows games. It's still infuriating enough that I rarely visit steampowered these days. My purchase decisions come from articles on here, or reddit.

If I decide to visit steampowered directly, it's usually through this bookmark:
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released_DESC&category1=998&os=linux

If only I could get that (and the rest of Steam) to filter out Early Access titles...

Some thoughts on switching from Ubuntu to Antergos for Linux gaming
By crazyg4merz, 22 January 2017 at 12:40 pm UTC Likes: 3

Once you lay your hands on Pacman and AUR, you'll never look back :D

Alien: Isolation - The Collection is 70% off on the Feral Interactive store
By Liam Dawe, 22 January 2017 at 11:56 am UTC

Quoting: Creak
Quoting: DelaylineGreat offer, this is great game if support Linux natively.
It does... doesn't it?
Yes this game is native. All Feral games are.