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Latest Comments by ElectricPrism
Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth Expansion Rising Tide New Trailer, Still A Day-1 Linux Release
16 Aug 2015 at 4:20 am UTC

I'm not a Civ player like my girl is, so my girl tried CivBE Linux earlier today and she said she can tell why people don't like it.

It sounded like they reversed the HUD, over simplified some Civ5 mechanics and added in confusing resources. Also other things were annoying like how every couple turns it would show you a new nation single tile off in some random black distance of the map - she said that she liked being able to ignore the other CPU players in 5 better.

I really felt a StarCraft-esk feel from the game having little Civ background. That mechanic sounded dumb in the same way that in StarCraft 2 when a enemy doesn't have a main base the game will show your enemies all your buildings - In SC1 you could run and build a pylon somewhere in the dark to prolong death or give yourself a chance at rebooting your base quickly.

Also, she expressed extreme disappointment over having to play as Humans - playing as Aliens would be so much more fun.

Testing The Latest Unreal Tournament On Linux
16 Aug 2015 at 1:24 am UTC

Quoting: GuestHello,
I just wanted to share my experiences.

First some people complain about the bad graphics. The graphics option that lead to bad visuals for me was the "Screen Percentage" which computes low-res images and scales up afterwards. Setting this to 100% was a big improvement for me.

Second, somebody asked about the ATI performance. I use a R9 280X with proprietary drivers (Ubuntu 15.04) and the game runs just fine. No crashes.
Additionally, setting to OpenGL3 can improve performance for many as seen in the exec line of my Launcher.

There are many other parameters that can be fed to UE4 engine games.

Testing The Latest Unreal Tournament On Linux
15 Aug 2015 at 7:31 pm UTC

Here's my launcher incase anyone wants to make it easier to launch the game.

~/.local/share/applications/UE4.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Unreal Tournament 4
Comment=Unreal 4 Alpha
GenericName=FPS
Exec="/home/electricprism/Apps/Unreal Engine 4 2532759/LinuxNoEditor/Engine/Binaries/Linux/UE4Game" UnrealTournament -resx=1920 -resy=1080 -vsync -opengl3
Icon=applications-games-symbolic
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=GNOME;Games;
MimeType=text/plain;


The version number 2532759 will need to be updated to reflect the current version.

Introducing the Latest Addition To GOL Cast Hardware: Radeon R7 370 [Updated]
14 Aug 2015 at 12:49 am UTC

Quoting: GuestI know I'm wasting words, but for those saying they think AMD should fix it - no, at least not entirely. A driver team pumping man-hours into workarounds and such is trying to cure the symptom, not the cause: shitty code in the first place.
There are reasons that games suddenly get patched and work just fine on AMD cards, without driver updates. The bulk of the effort is actually in getting developers writing the games properly in the first place - that's where the most gains will be seen.
I think this comment relates to a recent benchmark on Phoronix about OpenGL Benchmarks [External Link].

I specifically wanted to hilight Xonotic performance on Ubuntu as doing terrible.
![](http://openbenchmarking.org/embed.php?i=1508053-BE-WINDOWS1075&sha=56b7640&p=2)

The reason this is interesting is because the "writing proper code" issues certainly plague both proprietary and open source as seen in that result.

In a open source world a developer could either fix the app or the driver, but in a closed as it's put "workarounds" become common place even breaking spec.

Introducing the Latest Addition To GOL Cast Hardware: Radeon R7 370 [Updated]
13 Aug 2015 at 8:40 pm UTC

Not bad for $180 Card [External Link]

I'm glad GOL is getting into Linux GPU Benchmarks and I find this information extremely illuminating as this is the kind of info I've been keeping a eye out for.

We all love to support the underdog, Linux itself has always been the underdog in the gaming market until Steam showed up. I really hope AMD gives us reasons to love them with our wallets, and I hope they love us back with improving the Linux AMD Drivers.

This Friday will be illuminating aswell.

HTC Vive Plans Linux/SteamOS Support For Day 1
12 Aug 2015 at 9:20 pm UTC

How much can we expect it to cost? I'm unsure if this kind of device is pure luxary or really complimentary to Linux Gaming.

Also, I wonder if it has negative health effects on the eyes.

BOMB: Who let the dogfight? Exits Early Access & Released For Linux, It’s Terrible
12 Aug 2015 at 9:17 pm UTC

Looks interesting, I would love to also hear about "what it feels like to play" and "what it's like" - my first question is "is it like StarFox 64 Multiplayer?"

I'm on the fence about this - too bad it's unplayable like you said @Liam :\

The Ubuntu Guys Have Already Worked Out A More Official PPA For Nvidia Driver Updates
12 Aug 2015 at 9:16 pm UTC

I dont really see this move as "deserving praise" as I feel that since Ubuntu is one of 2 supported Steam distros. I feel that having proper nVidia drivers is their duty to their users. Still it's good news, but it's like praising an employee for doing the job they were hired to do.

Planetary Annihilation Massive Update Released, Please Welcome Asteroids
12 Aug 2015 at 9:13 pm UTC

I was hoping PA would be more like StarCraft 1 Brood War. Unfortunately it was not and the camera was hanky - you would spin it and it would stick in a unnatural way.

After seeing so many PA updates on GOL I hope they improve because I would like to try again someday.

Looks Like RollerCoaster Tycoon World Will Support Linux At Launch
12 Aug 2015 at 9:11 pm UTC

RTC 2 was fantastic - if this is like that money will surely fly out my wallet and fun will be at hand!