Just updated on steam.

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Quoting: wleoncioI've been avoiding 64-bit because I couldn't make CrossOver + MS Office 2010 work in it. Should have known that before spending 5 hours downloading this game. :|

Even with a multilib system? That sounds strange. Come on, Linux exists in 64bit flavour since 1992, IIRC..
Well, I still use 32-bit on some systems, but those can't even dream of playing XCOM :)

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Yeah, this game is great!
While not a big fan of platformers (I have yet to finish FEZ and SMB, for instance), I have finished this one, and occasionally return to it. The game mechanic is very original, the music is great, and the levels are well designed. Moreover, it's "open world" :P

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@wolfyrion : Thank you for the information. Better wait a steam sale, then.

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@wolfyrion : may I know where did you get that discount? :)
Sounds like a great offer, while XCOM complete is sold for 29,99€ on steam (for me, at least)

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Keep in mind that there will be The Binding of Isaac : Rebirth out later this year ;-)

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I've never played XCOM, but the trailer was really good.
I'll probably wait for a summer sale, though, otherwise my student wallet may not apreciate all those games I've been getting recently.

Does someone know how it plays on Radeon?

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LIMBO still hasn't updated itself in my steam library. On the other hand, it has been updated on the humble store.

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Yes, I think OpenGL 5 should drop some compatibility if they want their implementation to be less varying from one vendor to an other. Of course, the drivers could still allow earlier versions to be executed, or even calling OGL5 functions while using earlier sets.

Quoting: GuestBut code that is no longer in the driver will now be in the applications. So instead of well tested code written by people who know what they are doing, it will be written many times differently by many users, be less tested, and probably less efficient. Seems like a waste to me.

Of course, code duplication is a problem. But almost every game out there is using its very own code to handle, let's say, data compression.
This can of course be abstracted with libraries, while still allowing to do certain optimizations which are impossible to do nowadays. These libraries will probably be written by competent people. The code will just be as tested as the game is, and frankly, I do not want to play a game that has not been tested enough (TW2, anyone? :P).

Being lower level is sometimes a good thing : the advantage is that you can build yourself (eventually with existing tools) as many abstraction layers as you wish, while being able to do some very specific optimization at some times.
As an example, just take the cache hit problem in processors : variables that have been used are cached in L1/L2/L3 caches, to avoid latency from pulling these from RAM. Many algorithms exists (check wikipedia [External Link] to replace the right variable (one that will not be accessed again, in the best case). But, as a programmer, you have no way (AFAIK) to tell usage frequency of those variables. You are not close enough to the hardware to do so, but it would certainly speed things up a lot if it were possible, especially with certain algorithms. This is an example of a situation where being lower level would be profitable in term of performance.
That said, I am not really into computer graphics (I may dive into the day I find a suitable API ;) ), so I can't tell if advantages of Mantle outweigh its drawbacks, but from an objective perspective, it seems reasonable.

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Typo on the second line. Mantle is spelled incorrectly.

Yes, I really want an open API, but AMD has not (AFAIK) released any documentation (yet).
Having an open-source implementation would be the best. Whatever they choose to do, I'm done with catalyst anyway.

Quoting: Guestit does not solve the problem of their sh**ty OpenGL drivers

While I agree with you on your first point, Mantle should bring some improvements to the drivers side : the whole point is talking more directly to the hardware, therefore eliminating driver bugs due to an incorrect implementation, or a not well-tested function. Reducing the complexity of the driver is a good thing on this side. The bad thing is, of course, that we're going lower-level, and we become more hardware dependent. Hence the GCN-only implementation : future cards can be mantle-compatible, but they should be designed for it. They said this about multi-vendor compatibility.
I can only imagine Mantle requires a specific set of instruction, and maybe some function pipeline that can't be implemented (or this is not trivial) on earlier cards.

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