Quoting: GuestI think people who care about this should have a firewall that prevents all games from connecting to the net

Is there even an application based firewall for linux that work the way most windows firewalls work? Obviously you can block things via hosts or ip tables, but I am not aware of an app based firewall for linux.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Skullyoff topic but gpu Physx is now available for linux
http://physxinfo.com/news/12421/physx-sdk-3-3-2-arrives-adds-gpu-acceleration-support-on-linux/ [External Link]

OH HELLS YES! Hopefully it gets enabled in Borderlands 2 and TPS soon!

as for unity, it's sad to hear that these stats are being sent without more openly asking/telling us what is going on. I assume a statement will be made by them shortly pertaining to this. In the mean time, has anyone wiresharked a unity game yet to see what IP(s) it is sending to and possibly what is being sent? I would hope it's encrypted, but who knows. If nobody has by the time I get home for work ill look into myself.

I also find the linux .1% odd seeing how many of out available games are unity engine games.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Like I said above. Don't get me wrong, I am glad unity exists, it has brought us many good games. I am not speaking out of my arse though, only from experience. Unity's platform flexibility is it's Achilles heel. It's not optimized for any platform. Just using this as an example... If battlefield 4 were faithfully remade in unity. It would probably run at >20 fps on the same hardware that runs it at 60fps in its native engine (frostbite).

I said I was going to try wasteland 2, a "big time" game with more devs to throw at it than most using wine, and I did a few hours ago and it runs at 60fps through wine with CSMT patches.. I get 30ish fps when running natively. Unity on linux is NOT optimized at all. I would like to see that changed, but RIGHT NOW that is not the case. I get that wanting to run a game at my 5760x1080 res it not normal, but I am running 2 580's and they should have more than enough horsepower for what is being displayed on screen with a well optimized game engine, but they don't.

I run dead space 3 and the latest Tomb Raider at 5760x1080 through wine @ 60fps no problem. KSP and Wasteland 2 should be a walk in the park for a native game, but sadly they are not.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: GuestAs for Unity, that was likely the only real option when development on the game started. Wouldn't expect them to switch engines now. At least I'll know what to expect.

You're probably right, I can't wait til UE4 is ready for prime time on Linux. With it's "easy" cross platform ability and "cheap" subscription model I can't wait for it to start edging out some of the use of Unity in smaller dev games like Unity is used now. The Linux demos I have ran have run really well. Who knows.. maybe this one will work fantastically with unity natively on linux, I'm just not holding my breath.

Quoting: GuestLotus Esprit Turbo Challenge was a very good game :). If you haven’t played it… well the AIs were just zigzagging all the time. The difficulty was in avoiding obstacles and cars while going super fast.

Ahh, yes the good ole racing games of yore ;) I have not tried that one but just judging from the images and the video it's style reminds me of Cruis'n USA which I still play the n64 version in an emu to this day ;) Might have to check it out

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: GuestNice music.

Yeah, racing AI is not easy. But they could just* have the AIs follow a path, slow down when there is a car in front of them and in curves, and call it a day. The physics of the player’s car are much more important.

*I know even that isn’t super easy, and won’t create the best racing experience ever, but it could still be a fun game with dumb AIs.

The problem with that is that it would be far to easy to just learn the AI's paths and the game would quickly become boring I think.

I still want to check this out if it ever materializes for Linux. If all else fails if it's dx9 then it will probably run well in wine. KSP runs better in wine than it does natively.. and on that thought I'm going to try wasteland 2 in wine, I'm about 45 hours into it and just made it to LA so I have a ways to go..

View this comment - View article - View full comments

At first I thought the game was running on par with windows as far as frame rates go, I think it was just the initial "oh hell yes, Borderlands on Linux" moment. After really looking into it, it runs nearly half the FPS on Linux for me as it does in windown. At 5760x1080 on win with EVERYTHING maxed and vsync'd I run 60fps all day long. On Linux even without the advanced PhysX it runs 20-30fps at the same resolution, it's a fairly smooth 20-30 fps ill give it that.. but after playing for an hour and then switching to windows and playing, it really is night and day.

As for the PhysX thing, there really is a huge difference if you are accustomed to playing with PhysX turned all the way up with an Nvidia gpu on windows and it being set to low for Linux since we don't have GPU PhysX yet.

Below is a comparison video showing "without GTX PhysX" and "with GTX PhysX" which is basically the low we are stuck to in Linux and high/advanced that is available with an Nvidia GPU in windows. It may not make a huge difference in some games.. Borderlands is NOT one of those. The added effects are simply amazing with advanced PhysX.

View video on youtube.com

Sadly, I assume Borderland:TPS will have the same half performance in Linux compared to windows as the BL2 port has, coupled with the lack of advanced PhysX is why that after my first 10-15 hours of playing on Linux so that my purchase is counted as a Linux sale Ill be switching to windows to play it :(

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Those environments look nice and the car models look really nice. I hadn't heard of this one but as soon as I saw the Kick starter page and they basically list every platform under the sun I knew it was going to be Unity engine game...

Don't get me wrong, I am glad Unity exists, but it is the most unoptimized game engine around and it is simply a poor performer for anything on a large scale. It's OGL renderer is the worst offender, it's better with dx9/10/11 in win but still not what it should be. It's the biggest reason many of Kerbal Space Programs fans have asked for an engine change many many times. So I really question how well suited it is for a game like this.

Large "worlds", presumably a lot of physics calculations (like KSP) and it REALLY needs to run at 60fps to be a ton of fun and this is a PERFECT game for 3 monitor gaming. KSP runs 60fps on all 3 monitors for me in windows.. it's 25-30 on kerbin (planet) in linux, in the dark of space it's better since black is easy to render ;). For all intents and purposes this is FAR more graphically demanding and possibly just as demanding in physics calculations as KSP. The performance difference between Wasteland 2 in win/linux is about the same as I described for KSP. Being that neither of those game move real fast 30ish FPS is acceptable and I only play those in linux now. For a racing game... nope.

TL;DR Looks nice but I really question the use of the unity game engine in a game like this.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library GuySo, what's the whole "vibration" thing about? And, how much does it matter? And if it's a significant missing feature, anyone know what the chances are of Linux accessing it at some point?

It just means the rumble feature doesn't work, though it sounds like everything else does. I think someone else already mentioned this but MS has no reason to put up documentation for the controller, so long as it works on the XBone and with their windows driver which they make that's all they care about. So any work towards getting the controller working at all has likely been through reverse engineering. I suspect that some day it may work... though I'm honestly not sure if even the 360's controller rumble works with any consistency. Only time will tell I suppose.

The wired part is what makes it a no-go for me. I have the wireless receiver for my 360 controllers and it works with all 4 no problem with emulators on my htpc anyways. I use my DS3 via BT on my main rig for the random game I want to use it over KB/M.. which isn't many, basically flight and racing games.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: neffoI wonder if its popularity has played a part in the recent rebirth of the space sim (Elite Dangerous and that other one).

I would definitely say it's played a role, that and the "dominant" genre (FPS) has really gone down hill in recent years. Sure the games coming out have awesome visuals and are pushing boundaries but the stories are an after though to the visuals it seems, and it's getting on peoples nerves. Doesn't matter how good a game looks if I can't stay interested more than a couple of hours. I'm looking forward to Star Citizen, especially if it really comes to Linux as they say it will.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Segata SanshiroI'm interested in knowing the difference between a 360 controller and an Xbox One controller, apart from it looking more like Batman.

Me too, I've not even taken the time to play an XBone or PS4 at walmart or bestbuy.. Is there any advantage to the new controller over the old(360)? I have 4 360 controllers for playing n64 games using mupen64plus on my HTPC in the living room. Drunken MarioKart64 and Goldeneye with friends = good times. ;)

View this comment - View article - View full comments