Latest Comments

I'm voting for Undertale and... that's it. I played some great games this year, but that's the only Linux port released in 2016 that I've actually played through.

Grim Fandango, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Psychonauts, and Dreaming Sarah were all good-great titles that I got to play on Linux this year, but they were not ported in 2016. :x

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Naibsounds (and reads if drunk) too much like Syphilis

Don't get drunk then.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I haven't heard of this game until now, I'll add it to my wishlist for the Xmas Steam sale :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: tmtvlApart from Tyranny I can't think of a single outstanding Linux game being released in 2016, but that's probably only because 2015 was such a good year.

I think its been the best year ever for Linux games. There have been more games, of a higher quality released than ever before. I don't even have any urge to resurrect a Windows partition to play games any more as I have so many great games to play. My Steam library is 13 years old, yet in the last year is now over 50% Linux games. As well as quality we've had quantity this year.

Tyranny, Total War Warhammer, XCom 2, Tomb Raider, Stellaris, Stardew Valley, Starbound, Worms WMD, Deus Ex, Hearts of Iron 4, Nelly Cootalot, Candle, Company of Heroes, its been fun to play Dawn of War 2 again and I've got my fingers crossed for DOW3 on Linux, Darkest Dungeon, Life is Strange, Rocket League, ARK, Salt and Sanctuary, Black Mesa, Day of the Tentacle remastered, etc.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I like how he approaches the problem, with realistic measure of success and roadmap. His reasoning is laid out and makes sense as well.

Additional kudos if he can keep up with his plans for the next three years!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I sometimes feel like I don't belong here. Did you really, guys, play that many of this year's releases to the point you're comfortable with judging them? My backlog is like... 1998. Literally. I'll start Baldur's Gate somewhere in December.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

sounds (and reads if drunk) too much like Syphilis

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Will probably be good for porting older games to Linux or running them in Wine.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I use Tux (the most recognizable drawing, with a joystick added (GIMP, of course)) for my avatar. I think it's obvious to anyone who looks at the three logos that the penguin <3 represents Linux.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: johndoe86xCould you tell me how you extracted this info, specifically the frametimes? I was wanting to do some comparisons like this for myself with my 980 Ti. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is unplayable for me on 375.20, but Rocket League seems to work without issue.

You can use voglperf or libframetime:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/voglperf
https://github.com/clbr/libframetime

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: cprn

Quoting: LukeNukemThe Tux icon is fucking hideous though, and scales down like a lump of cow shit does to a rabbit dropping.

Quoting: AnxiousInfusion

Quoting: meggermanI have to admit the logo doesn't scale well. It also looks a bit childish, but what else can we use, a stallman avatar ?

A silhouette of an actual penguin, perhaps?

It's recognisable without a mistake, that's what matters, certainly not looks. And if Valve really wants to, they can style it to whatever extent, as long as it remains a cartoonish penguin that makes it clear it's Linux.

Tux as a logotype is wrong from a marketing standpoint but for an entirely other reason. It has a face. Windows has a cross-frame window, Apple has a bitten apple, Linux... has a face with googly eyes. It's way too complicated, not symbolic enough, reminds too strongly of the actual penguin stealing focus from what it is supposed to represent - it's a mascot, not a logotype.

So is being a face in specific considered wrong for logos, or is it the level of complexity implied more generally? If it's being a face in specific, why? If it's the level of complexity, that might be somewhat mitigated by the fact that human brains are wired to recognize faces better than, like, anything else. Babies can grok faces before they learn to interpret anything else, sight-wise; there is serious brain hard-wiring for dealing with faces. One would think tapping into that primal stuff would be a good thing.

Secondarily, one doesn't find things out if one isn't willing to ask (and googling gave one possible answer but not an authoritative one, and one that didn't seem to quite work with your statement)--what's a logotype?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Cheeseness

To protect your privacy, external media requires approval to load. Source: twolofbees.com
View cookie preferences.
Accept & Show Accept All & Don't show this again   Direct Link

It's a cool design and all, but sitting on that sharp wedge can not be comfortable. Seriously, seeing this logo at larger sizes always makes me clench involuntarily. Why do you make me worry about Tux's butt?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Game doesn't respect my dual-monitor setup, tries to use both as one big display. Not finding any real options to change it to windowed mode either.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: LightkeyOr at least try to keep the titles correct, I don't care if there are any in the text. :-P

Everyone makes mistakes, i just don't want what is supposed to be discussions full of minor typo and grammar pointers. It detracts from the topic.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

[quote=Beamboom]

Quoting: tmtvlAnd I could keep going, too. The Warhammer titles for example. Or Stellaris. Major releases, high quality productions. When I think about it, 2015 wasn't that much better. So to be unable to list any other titles than Tyranny as candidates for a GOTY this year... Well, yeah. That is kinda odd.

I'm with Beamboom. It was a better year than 2015, if only by a bit, and a great year for Linux gaming regardless. Gradual improvement is still improvement my friends. I too think it's odd that anyone would say that Tyranny, a game that has only been out for like two weeks, though certainly a great game, is the only good Linux title released this year. What an insult to the studios who worked hard to port their titles to or include a Linux build of their games for the Linux gaming community to enjoy.

This is not the way to encourage other developers to include Linux as a platform for their games. They see such cherry-picking, such vitriol thrown at already existing Linux titles by ungrateful/entitled gamers on a platform that barely holds on to 2% of the desktop market and I am sure some of them say "Screw that, I'm not even going there" and release on Win/Mac only, ignore the Linux build request threads on steam and call it a day.

We should try to be a bit more optimistic imo, look how far we've come. If you'd have told me I'd be playing AAA games in the near future with Steam on my Linux box 5-6 years ago, I would have paused the PS3 game I was playing, called the authorities, and I would have had you committed.

Things will only get better from here. Here's to the future.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

@tmtvl

Your gaming standards bro. They are quite quite lofty indeed. Sheesh. :p

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: tmtvlExactly my point. Granted, 2016 isn't over yet, but so far it's not really living up to its predecessor.

No that was not exactly what I perceived as your point at all. And even when you have some subjective objections on the listed titles and thus will not rate them "outstanding" in your book, they are all major releases and of high quality and importance. They have all collected rock solid reviews, are widely known with a huge fanbase. Just like some of the titles of 2015. Important to the platform, and obvious in a GOTY context.

And I could keep going, too. The Warhammer titles for example. Or Stellaris. Major releases, high quality productions. When I think about it, 2015 wasn't that much better. So to be unable to list any other titles than Tyranny as candidates for a GOTY this year... Well, yeah. That is kinda odd.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This could help port older Dx9 games over to Linux. And possibly with better performance than before.
Also im happy to see the project coming along nicely, we need something other than directx12... Long Live Vulkan!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: lucinosIf anyone has to buy again games to play them on linux he will just not do it and that would completely destroy linux as a gaming platform. Now I can tell my friend at least to try linux. This would not be possible if linux games are tied to another platform.

I never told about buying the full game again, I told about selling binaries as a "low price DLC". But I agree with you second point.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Is that under a MIT or BSD styled license? I'm confused as to why they wouldn't use a FSF approved one. If so, they should be more clear as it would otherwise be dead on arrival and confuse people.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Just saw this fine tux image on betanews (via slashdot, I didn't know the site before -- just crediting):



Microsoft artists have talent, I have to admit it :)
Or was the logo taken from elsewhere?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: MikeI wouldn't be so categorical, the vast majority of people still do not know what Linux is. Tux is known among Linux users and some computer enthusiasts, but it is striking to see how many people do not know what Tux represents.

When I was at university (which was last year, so not a long time ago), I had a communication class where our teacher had chosen to compare OS market shares, and we were only 2 out of 34 to understand what this little penguin was about. Someone finally asked what it was, and the answer made me laugh and mad at the same time.

Our teacher basically said: "Oh this? This is Linux, some obscure system made for geeks back in the 90's that never took off and never will as it is stuck in its era. It still uses terminal prompts as of today, you know, those green text commands on a black screen... No wonder no one uses it!"

Sorry about the novel, but I had to share that.

The people i have talked about here usually know the tux icon. Even if they never used it.
people have been in the internet and tux icon has been there for long long time to represent linux.
Ofc there are people who don't know what it means. but SteamOS logo is the same log as Steam logo.

this confuses the shit out of many people still. They have Category Linux+SteamOS why not have both icons then on store also if they really want their Steam icon there. or Change the SteamOS icon to something else so people can make a difference between steam and steam OS logo

edit: not to mention many games have system requirements Ubuntu 12.04 or 14.04 without SteamOS support, but the store still shows that logo. And some games requirements show as Any modern distro. so Tux logo would be logical there.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

For me the driver works perfect with good performance in some games except Deus Ex Mankind Divided that has bad performance now.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: dubigrasuFortunately I have no issues with this driver, and actually is a keeper. It gives a slight increase in performance in some benchmarks, for example in the Unreal Infiltrator demo (compared here with the previous stable driver):

367.57:
Min/avg/max frametimes (ms): 8.35 / 27.8543 / 304.27
Min/avg/max FPS: 3.28655 / 35.9011 / 119.76
50/90/95/99 percentiles (ms): 29.04 / 35.06 / 36.65 / 42.29

375.20:
Min/avg/max frametimes (ms): 10.48 / 26.298 / 308.28
Min/avg/max FPS: 3.2438 / 38.0256 / 95.4198
50/90/95/99 percentiles (ms): 26.29 / 31.78 / 33.90 / 37.38

Frametimes (375.20 in red):

To protect your privacy, external media requires approval to load. Source: s12.postimg.org
View cookie preferences.
Accept & Show Accept All & Don't show this again   Direct Link

Could you tell me how you extracted this info, specifically the frametimes? I was wanting to do some comparisons like this for myself with my 980 Ti. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is unplayable for me on 375.20, but Rocket League seems to work without issue.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

No issues so far. Xubuntu 16.10. GTX 970.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: STiATHmh, I don't really get the point in the project except if it is for academic purpose (which is perfectly fine, don't get me wrong there!). Providing a d3d9->vulkan mapping for systems which ship with d3d9? In the end, 2020 we'll rather see Vulkan/DX12 things popping out than having D3D9 or even 11 being used, since most engines will be there by then.

But yet, for Wine which already does all this (basically, providing a WINAPI, HRESULT, IDirect3D9* stuff and windows event handler / STDMETHODCALLTYPE etc.), it may be a good starting point if they wanted to do a d3d9 to vulkan mapping.

Let me disagree with your last point. To concentrate on this translation layer, I believe it is just easier to work on... Windows, which already supports both APIs, and as such, is just one DLL remplacement away, not involving wine.

That's interesting, but I wonder if there isn't reusable things in gallium nine, which does the same, albeit a bit higher level.
It also has its use cases where G9 isn't available, too.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Also, this!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: BeamboomDeus Ex?

Both the original and HR were better than MD. And HR wasn't exactly an impressive game either.

Quoting: BeamboomX-com 2?

Okay, that so 2 good games, although the randomness of everything doesn't do it any favours.

Quoting: BeamboomRocket League?

Combining the worst aspects of driving games and football games doesn't make for a game that's interesting, appealing, or fun.

Quoting: BeamboomLife Is Strange?

Rocks fall, everyone dies: the game? I can't imagine anyone being much of a fan of any game that just invalidates all your choices like that (even The Walking Dead didn't go that far).

Quoting: BeamboomGranted 2015 were great, but come on man...!

Exactly my point. Granted, 2016 isn't over yet, but so far it's not really living up to its predecessor.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: STiATHmh, I don't really get the point in the project except if it is for academic purpose (which is perfectly fine, don't get me wrong there!). Providing a d3d9->vulkan mapping for systems which ship with d3d9? In the end, 2020 we'll rather see Vulkan/DX12 things popping out than having D3D9 or even 11 being used, since most engines will be there by then.

But yet, for Wine which already does all this (basically, providing a WINAPI, HRESULT, IDirect3D9* stuff and windows event handler / STDMETHODCALLTYPE etc.), it may be a good starting point if they wanted to do a d3d9 to vulkan mapping.

If this matures, it means that GPU vendors can stop worrying about D3D9 support in their future drivers, putting all their focus on Vulkan support, which is good news for us.
As others have stated, it would also help Wine eventually.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Fixed the tiny typo, I need a corrections link to not have comments fill up pointing out stuff like that.

View this comment - View article - View full comments