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Latest Comments by Brokatt
SteamVR Beta gets an SDL fix for Fedora Linux fans
7 May 2024 at 11:06 am UTC Likes: 1

How is the VR experience on Linux? I have a Valve Index but haven't used it since I switched from Windows.

Valve graphics dev gets Gamescope working on NVK with Explicit Sync
7 May 2024 at 9:29 am UTC

Quoting: WMan22
Quoting: GuestWait. Why? Is valve...? Why are they doing this? Is something with nvidia in the works or is it steamos?
I've been strongly suspecting the reason SteamOS 3 has not seen a general release is that you can't exactly have a consistent and reliable gamescope session on Nvidia cards yet so they're playing it safe and trying to get this kind of stuff sorted first so that 3 doesn't come out, have dealbreaker problems, and have a bunch of new people who've never used linux before go "SEE? I KNEW LINUX WAS BAD!"

This could also be copium I'm huffing however and valve isn't gonna release SteamOS 3 except to hardware devs, as in people who make handheld PCs that aren't Steam Deck.

Would roll my eyes if the real reason is that they were trying to update SteamOS 3 enough that the one that releases is 4, cause, you know, valve and that number 3.
This makes perfect sense to me. Releasing a gaming focused OS without anything but stellar support for the GPU brand that 80% of gaming PC's use would be a colossal mistake. I actually think SteamOS is nowhere near ready for a general release. It needs more driver support for a lot of different devices, better support for screen sharing (with sound), recording and streaming etc. I myself switched to Linux on my gaming PC earlier this year and from my point of view I would say that the experience, the quality and the features are not there for a large gaming audience. Remember that most PC gamers are not that tech savvy. They think they are because they (some of them) download drivers from the internet, install some monitor software and actually look at the settings in the graphics panel. They have a better understanding of their computer than "the average user" but not enough to switch to Linux today without a lot of friction.

I think Valve is serious about Steam OS but have the failure of SteamOS 2.0 and Steam Machines in the back of their heads. I imagine they will want to do better this time. Wild guess; we won't see a general release of SteamOS until 4.0 which probably won't be until 2026 judging by the frequency of updates. 3.5 took 9 months and 3.6 looks to be the same if it lands in June. Which means we get 1-2 big updates per year. In 2025 we could get 3.7 in March and 3.8 in December. Hopefully by then SteamOS will be in shape for a PC's release later in 2026. I would be surprised if we don't get SteamOS for other handheld devices earlier, sometime next year.

Of course this is just speculation. I'm just trying to predict future behavior based on past behavior which is always difficult when it comes to Valve :)

Total War: WARHAMMER III gets the 5.0 update and Thrones of Decay for Linux
3 May 2024 at 6:44 am UTC

I'm having great fun with Thrones of Decay. It's one of the best DLC's CA have done in years. Very high quality through and through. The game runs very well with Proton.

Ubuntu 24.04 increases vm.max_map_count for smoother Linux gaming
26 Mar 2024 at 10:57 am UTC Likes: 6

Quoting: Linux_RocksToo bad no KDE Plasma 6 in Kubuntu though. 🐌🐢
Yes but when Kubuntu 24.10 is released Plasma will be up to version 6.2/6.3/something and most bugs will have been fixed :smile: Plasma 5.27 is so good that at least I don't mind using it for 6 more months. It's just a very stable desktop. Maybe a little boring but I take stable and boring over new and buggy every day of the week :whistle:

CoreCtrl adds AMD RX 7000 series fan curve controls, Intel CPU temperature sensors
20 Mar 2024 at 10:24 am UTC

Quoting: ElectricPrismI use this on at least 4 computers, my biggest complaints would be that fan speed doesn't adjust unless the app is open all the time, so one of the SFF computers gets really hot, then I notice it or reboot and the fan goes wild.

Another complaint would be that it doesn't always start, AFAIK I symlink the desktop launcher to `~/.config/autostart/` and most of the time it works but some of the time it doesn't.

I'm not sure the status of the program, but it would be really great if the App did all the actions through a Systemd service or Daemon or however that could run all the time in the background and auto-start.

They've done a great job though, and I appreciate their work, and also recently I heard of LACT -- a AMD voltage and sensor control panel -- I could almost see several projects like these combining someday into a more robust solution.
It's a really nice program. Works well with my RX 6800 even though it recognizes the card as a RX 6900 XT :whistle: Too bad the autostart + start minimized doesn't work for you. Will try it this evening. "Set and forget" would be nice with this application.

Knock knock. Who's there? More scam apps on Canonical's Snap Store!
19 Mar 2024 at 3:41 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: Guest
Quoting: BrokattPopeye is such a great guy. Even though he's left Canonical behind, he's still involved with Ubuntu and Snaps.
Popeye?
Sorry I meant popey ofc :) Alan "popey" Pope used to host the Ubuntu Podcast among a lot of things. A pretty prominent figure in the Ubuntu community and just a lovely nerd.

Knock knock. Who's there? More scam apps on Canonical's Snap Store!
19 Mar 2024 at 11:26 am UTC Likes: 6

Popeye Popey is such a great guy. Even though he's left Canonical behind, he's still involved with Ubuntu and Snaps.

Plasma 6 lands in Arch Linux, KDE neon teething issues and Plasma 6.1 heating up
15 Mar 2024 at 10:15 am UTC

Quoting: no_information_here
Quoting: Brokatt
Quoting: no_information_hereI narrowly escaped the Neon upgrade disaster by checking the forums before doing the update. The Neon maintainers really messed up pushing an unfinished and untested version of Plasma 6 through to their basic User distro. I am thinking of moving back to Kubuntu since I don't need bleeding edge anymore.
That's why they keep saying that KDE Neon is not a distro. If you are not a KDE developer, a happy tester or really need the bleeding edge Plasma features, I would pick a real distro. Whatever you fancy I'm not here to sell you anything, but this is not the first time KDE Neon has had problems with upgrades.
Yeah. I have been running linux for over two decades. I do know what I am doing. Neon has made revisions to its goals several times and the "user" edition gets less and less stable with each step. Yes, it is a distribution, regardless of what they try to say, but they have gotten to the point now where no-one should use it for anything requiring stability. Like work.

It is their right to change course, just as it is entirely correct to call them out.
Good for you. I was agreeing with you that KDE Neon is too unstable and especially their upgrade process has always been shaky. I don't think KDE Neon should be used by anyone other than KDE devs, but that is my opinion. I'm sure anyone with decades of Linux experience have no problem making it work, but personally I don't need the hassle.

Plasma 6 lands in Arch Linux, KDE neon teething issues and Plasma 6.1 heating up
12 Mar 2024 at 2:58 pm UTC

Quoting: sonic2kkHas anyone been able to get tearing to work for fullscreen games/general applications? Not having much success, even with Adaptive Sync turned off too, but even on my two other displays without Freesync I'm not seeing any tearing with the option enabled in System Settings.

As far as I understand Xwayland and KWin now fully implement the tearing protocol, and Mesa 24 should have support for the protocol as well. Tried out `MESA_VK_WSI_PRESENT_MODE=immediate` as well for some DXVK games, but not having any luck. Same story with Gamescope using `--immediate-flips`.

Videos in the Steam Overlay when fullscreen have tearing but that's regardless of this setting and always in the same spot.

I'm not really interested in having in on practically, I'm just morbidly curious to see tearing on Wayland, either in games, fullscreen YouTube videos from a browser, or anywhere. :smile: Maybe there's a step I'm missing or something isn't quite ready to be enabled at the flick of a switch yet.

Although for what it's worth, I did try the "Enable Tearing" option on my Steam Deck with the same games to see if I could introduce some tearing, and still couldn't see it. Maybe my eyes just aren't too sharp :unsure:
I can't imagine it's easy to indues tearing on such weak hardware as the Steam Deck. It really depends on the game, the hardware and the player. Some people a sensitive others are not. For me it's like looking at one of those 3D illusion images. Once I see it I cannot un-see it :)

Again it depends on the game but if it's a multiplayer game I think the vast majority would take screen tearing over input lag. But if you are playing a turn-based single player game than you probably wont care :) But allowing screen tearing is a very important feature for a very large portion of gamers. At least for those of us coming from Windows were this has been an option for ages. Many would even call it basic. I do see there is some drama surrounding screen tearing in the Linux community, which I don't understand at all. Giving users options apparently does not include screen tearing :)

Quoting: no_information_hereI narrowly escaped the Neon upgrade disaster by checking the forums before doing the update. The Neon maintainers really messed up pushing an unfinished and untested version of Plasma 6 through to their basic User distro. I am thinking of moving back to Kubuntu since I don't need bleeding edge anymore.
That's why they keep saying that KDE Neon is not a distro. If you are not a KDE developer, a happy tester or really need the bleeding edge Plasma features, I would pick a real distro. Whatever you fancy I'm not here to sell you anything, but this is not the first time KDE Neon has had problems with upgrades.

Quoting: tmtvl
Quoting: 14This is sarcastic, right? You don't get anything from a donation. It's not a trade.
Yes, it was a joke. I'm not actually gonna ask a refund on my donations just because Plasma 6 is the worst 'upgrade' since GNOME 3. And hey, I get it: they want new users so if they feel like they have to tell the old users to go fuck themselves so be it. It's fine, I just get irked when that happens.
Hey if that's how you feel then that's how you feel. I'm a long time user of Plasma 5 and I'm, so far at least, pretty happy with most of the changes in Plasma 6. I don't have it on my main PC yet but I threw KDE Neon on my laptop and I got very few issues. I don't do a lot of customization though, only move the panel to the left side and some small things. Single-click or double-click as default don't matter to me as long as I can set double-click - like it should be *wink wink*. All in all I think Plasma 6.3, or whatever it will be, will be very solid by the time Kubuntu 24.10 is released.

Yuzu agrees to pay Nintendo $2.4 million and will entirely shut down (Citra for 3DS too)
5 Mar 2024 at 8:04 am UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: redneckdrowThe thing is, I don't think Nintendo was going after it as an emulator. Sony v. Bleem (a PSX emulator) set a precedent ~24 years ago. Emulation of older systems is not only permissible, it's vital. Even the IRS uses emulators of 60's-era computers, such as the Martinsburg Monster, that still accept their wildly out-of-date programs written mostly in COBOL.

The way they went after Yuzu was by arguing that it is not just an emulator, that it is a tool used primarily for piracy. Because they're still selling the Switch. Cracking encryption on proprietary hardware that is still on the market is legally dubious at best. I believe Nintendo to be incorrect in assuming that the majority pirated games, but the burden of proof against that would be too great, even in civil court.

Just look at what happened to the guy that cracked the Switch firmware in the first place. Modern Vintage Gamer did a whole video series about why he gives the emulation community a bad name.

Things like this are why I only use emulators for discontinued platforms. In that case, it's much harder for a company to say that it affects their bottom line.

Ripping my own cartridges requires a lot of pain on my part (there are a few different pi-based solutions that lessen that pain today), but it's better than risking a $500,000 dollar fine or five years in prison. Ripping floppies or discs is considerably easier in most cases. I tend to use cdrdao or ddrescue.

Outright piracy of a game still commercially available is theft, no matter how you slice it. Backing up your existing games for a discontinued platform isn't.

I have a couple of 90's-00s games that would be expensive as heck to replace, so I keep the physical copies locked up in a fire-resistant safe and play them via emulation.

If you're interested in Sony v. Bleem, Gaming Historian did a video on the whole debacle [External Link]. Bleem may have run like a piece of garbage, but every emulation project today owes it a debt.
Manufacturing of Nintendo 3DS stopped over 4 years ago. After last year the Nintendo eShop is completely shut down so even customers who have original hardware cannot purchase digital games. So Nintendo makes no money from neither hardware nor software but they still went after Citra. This is a serious blow to game preservation.