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Latest Comments by Linas
The upcoming Left 4 Dead 2 free update 'The Last Stand' has a new teaser
10 Sep 2020 at 11:31 am UTC

Quoting: GuestI wanna play this so bad.
And I need to know how Bill is still alive... I'm far to excited over a game that is 11 years old!!!!
Me thinks GOL co-op stream... maybe? :wink:

Bringing together audio and video, PipeWire for Linux is really coming along
7 Sep 2020 at 9:41 pm UTC Likes: 8

Quoting: EhvisNot sure what "olden days" you're referring to, but it seems to me that the situation for default audio chipsets now is much worse than it was in soundcard days.
Somewhere after dedicated soundcards started losing popularity, and before proper software mixing.

My audio journey on Linux went something like this:
  • No sound at all.
  • Single stream, reload the driver when playing different bitrates, otherwise crackling sound.
  • No more crackling sound.
  • Software mixing in ESD, crackling sound is back.
  • Proper software mixing with dmix, as long as your asound.conf is configured properly.
  • Software mixing by default, no more asound.conf.
  • PulseAudio brings per-application volume settings, crashes a lot.
  • Most applications do not support PulseAudio. Need to configure ALSA over Pulse or Pulse over ALSA, or maybe both.
  • Time goes by.
  • PulseAudio works, no configuration needed.

I do realize that PulseAudio is not perfect. But holy crap have we come a long way.

Brutal Fate is an upcoming FPS from the creator of Brutal Doom (updated)
7 Sep 2020 at 8:58 pm UTC Likes: 9

I'd rather judge a man by his work, than some inconsiderate thing he may have said years ago. Cancel culture ruins lives.

Bringing together audio and video, PipeWire for Linux is really coming along
7 Sep 2020 at 6:38 pm UTC Likes: 18

PipeWire is like PulseAudio with video.

In the olden days you could only play one audio stream at the time on Linux, because most sound cards only have a single hardware channel. Then ALSA added software mixing with dmix to allow for multiple audio streams. Then there was EsounD and aRts sound servers. Then eventually came PulseAudio.

Whereas nothing much really happened for video. You still can only access your webcam via a single application at the same time.

PipeWire allows things like sharing video sources like webcams, so you can have a video stream going to a conference call while saving it to a file and broadcasting to YouTube at the same time. Maybe apply some fancy effect somewhere in between, because why not?

It also greatly simplifies screen capture, because your window manager can take care of the capture part, because it knows where and what is being rendered, and you just get the video stream as input. No more messing around with X libs, finding the right window, cropping it, etc.

I honestly think that PipeWire is one of the most innovative projects for the Linux desktop at the moment, and definitely deserves attention.

GOG have a huge 'Harvest Sale' with Serious Sam: TFE free for 48 hours
24 Aug 2020 at 2:52 pm UTC Likes: 2

Ah, Serious Sam, the memories, the carnage. :grin:

The Steam Play Proton compatibility layer turns two years old
21 Aug 2020 at 8:05 am UTC Likes: 2

Proton made Wine fun again.

Libretro / RetroArch were hacked, wiping some repositories
17 Aug 2020 at 12:37 pm UTC Likes: 8

Quoting: ArehandoroDo they already know it was a he?
No, and they never will. They probably just didn't want to write "the asshole" and went with "he" instead.

Racing game 'DRAG' with impressive visuals enters Early Access on August 11
7 Aug 2020 at 7:48 am UTC

Quoting: jordicomaWhat? A ghost car? Where are the drivers?
A drone, I would guess.

I read somewhere that Formula 1 has a lot of rules and limitations on how fast a car is allowed to go, because of safety issues. Imagine if you didn't have to worry about the squishy drivers, they could go much faster, and drive more aggressively. Flying drone racing is already a thing, so why not car drone racing? I'd be into that. :happy: