Quoting: KithopI also seem to remember something called dgVoodoo2

Quoting: Calinou

I guess the other option alluded to is to run something like nGlide to 'pre convert' that path to OpenGL? I also seem to remember something called dgVoodoo2 [External Link] but it looks like the maintainer there has recently stopped & archived it.

dgVoodoo2 still gets updates, but its author doesn't provide tech support since a few years (no issues or even PRs). It's also proprietary (no source code available). Therefore, the author unarchives the repository, tags a new release then archives the repository again to prevent any new community activity on GitHub, although old issues can still be searched.

dgVoodoo2 also no longer works in WINE since a few years ago, so you need to use an older version (2.81.3 IIRC).

See this GoL article comment and the subsequent replies if you want further details:

D7VK brings Direct3D 7 to Linux using Vulkan based on DXVK

The developer seems to be openly hostile to Linux and to his Linux users. I grabbed a backup of his last Linux compatible version (v2.8.2) just in case Lutris acquiesces to his demands. This was before D7VK began proving to be such a viable alternative. All we need is Glide support now...

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Quoting: pb

Quoting: GoEsrI'm left wondering when governments will come for Steam accounts. My account is over 18 years old, so maybe they'll implement the same system Nexus Mods did.

I'm only 13yo in steam years. No sakura games for me. :-/

I guess that makes me about 15 years. My first Steam game was either New Vegas or Skyrim. (I didn't buy FNV at release. I think I got it just before Skyrim launched. I switched to Skyrim and I've yet to finish a FNV playthrough.)

As to Discord, this doesn't affect me. I don't use it. I don't do social media, period.

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Quoting: sanBring back memories of another Road Rash remake a while ago called Road Redemption.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/300380/Road_Redemption/ [External Link]

Wow. That's a very modernized update to Road Rash's look. Stunning visuals. It includes a Native Linux version too.

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Road Rash was probably one of my first gaming loves, playing through endless hours of it on the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis back when I was young.

I too have a lot of fond memories of Road Rash. Split-screen multiplayer. Played it on the Sega Genesis with my coworkers whenever there were no customers -- or the boss -- in the store. Product knowledge, you know...

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Got it!

I remember the first one when it released back in the day. It was so revolutionary back then. Yet, for some reason I never picked it up. Well, I have the trilogy now.

As to the newsletters, I don't mind. They send a lot of exclusive offers and occasional freebies. As to the rest of their junk mail, I just use a filter rule in my email account to deal with them (marked read and moved out of my inbox - or deleted).

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Quoting: F.UltraWell in the sense that the public at large is the government, they are by definition the only thing that allows the business to exist in the first place and therefore also have a say in how they conduct their affairs. One such say is e.g outlawing predatory and unfair pricing.

The main issue is instead (in my view) that no one so far have managed to prove that 30% is either unfair or predatory.

Corporations, certainly, exist at the government's sufferance but, at least here in Canada, the various levels of government don't say much about sole proprietorships. Some local governments require registration to do business in their district but for the most part all levels of government are somewhat indifferent to businesses of that nature. Taxes are filed via your personal income tax filing as a form of income with certain allowable deductions (whereas, corporations file as a distinct entity of their own).

Predatory pricing wouldn't apply in this case. Typically, that is a long-term strategy to create a monopoly and violates antitrust laws.

Definition: (noun) a strategy of selling a good or service at a very low price so as to drive one's competitors out of business (at which point one can raise one's prices more freely).

Unfair pricing is a little more nebulous to define. It can include practices such as price-fixing. It has to be shown to be anticompetitive, with a predatory, exclusionary, or disciplinary negative effect on a competitor. From what I can see, it tends to occur more often at the wholesale pricing level than at the retail to consumers level.

So, yes, I agree that it will likely be difficult to show that a 30% commission fee (which amounts to a 30% margin from the retailer's point of view) is predatory or unfair.

FYI - 20% to 30% margin was pretty typical for software around the time I ran my computer retail business.

Besides, as I understand it, this lawsuit is not a government action under antitrust or anticompetition laws.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI said Valve wasn't a natural monopoly,

I was thinking about that natural monopoly thing as it relates to these lawsuits. I wonder if part of the problem is that some people are actually thinking of Valve's Steam store as if it is a utility that distributes video games rather than the for-profit business it actually is? A side affect of being the best-known and pioneering player in digital game retail, perhaps?

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: CaldathrasThe fact that the library administration is getting rid of all the self-help / how-to books troubles me, however.

I wouldn't care at all about getting rid of the self-help books, but the how-to is a different story. How-to books are useful. Self-help books are for the most part a racket, and one which is actively bad for people both psychologically and politically.

Yea, I was thinking more of the "how-to" and "do-it-yourself" categories and somehow "self-help" fell in there. Definitely meant how-to and DIY. Thanks for catching that.

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Quoting: wytrabbitAt least 90% of the games on my Steam wishlist and in my library are recommendations from GOL 😀

My backlog is rather daunting though.. 😅

I was going to say the same thing. I ignore social media and advertising.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, can't resist getting my final points in, sorry.

Sure, taxation is distinct from profit . . . taxation is much more legit, because it gets used for the public good. But you and I both know the sense in which people describe the such-and-such-company "tax", e.g. the "Microsoft tax" on (nearly) every PC, so there's no point in a semantic argument that ignores what's being said.

I said Valve wasn't a natural monopoly, like a power utility. You're a good guy so I don't think you were intending to twist words there. Valve certainly has sufficient market dominance to be able to have a significant ability to set prices and create barriers to entry. Antitrust law, when it was a real thing, never required 100% of the market to deem something a monopoly. There was certainly a time in the US when Valve would have been long since broken up . . . also Microsoft, Oracle, Alphabet, Meta and plenty of others. I happen to like a lot of things about Valve, certainly compared to many other dominant companies, they have quite strongly resisted the process of "enshittification" that most dominant platforms embrace, but that doesn't make them not a dominant firm with a huge percentage of their market.

As to the right to decide profit levels . . . yeah, governments get elected, businesspeople don't. I might be willing to say Mohamed bin Salman shouldn't have that right . . .
Businesses operate in and depend on the legal and physical infrastructure created and defined by the countries they exist in, most need the educated workforce governments educate, and so on and so forth. This goes right down to the level of defining what businesses are--limited liability corporations in specific were created and defined by the state and cannot exist without state charter, but the same thing is largely true, if less dramatically, for other forms of business. Business as we know it cannot exist without government. Where government disappears, businesses don't make profit, paramilitaries just take their stuff. And abusive levels of profit are bad for countries and the people in them. It is totally a good idea to regulate them and it has been quite normal in many countries a good deal of the time. The current political climate in which business can do no wrong is a historical anomaly . . and one that we can see in real time generating more and more instability.

No problem. I just didn't want to get into a lecture about business bookkeeping details and the math involved.

Taxation: I suppose, when you think of it informally, like the "Microsoft tax" euphemism, I can see where you're coming from. Of course, that was a contractually enforced fee on sales of hardware, regardless of whether it actually shipped with M$ software (if I recall the controversy correctly). As opposed to a commission fee on every legitimate sale of the game on Valve's platform. A bit more honest if you ask me and less "tax-like".

Monopoly: Thank you. Now that you mention it, I can't recall the last time a business faced an antitrust investigation in the US. Has Canada ever pursued it up here? The last I remember was IBM wiggling it's way out of being broken up by restructuring. I think I recall some talk about going after Google at one point.

Profit Levels: Well, you're thinking of corporations (which probably shouldn't be allowed to exist) while I'm thinking of single proprietorships or partnerships. Very different business structure. Really, though, the government has little incentive to limit the profit level of a business. They tax the net profit of a business. The more net profit a business has, the more taxes the government collects.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI do care that you're in business; it puts a certain perspective on what you say. It means you have a certain point of view, one belonging to a particular self-interested community, and after 35 years, one that it will inevitably be hard for you to see. I've worked in a library for 35 years; at libraries, our bias is towards public service and finding out the truth.

Ooh, that could be taken as somewhat harsh, but I don't think you meant it that way. It might surprise you to know that I am actually quite jaded about the business conduct we see these days, particularly with corporations. My entire working life, I have made a point of working for small, locally-owned businesses when I wasn't a business owner myself. The three times I have tried working for a large corporation, the experiences were absolute disasters.

This "growth at all costs" business mentality that kicked in in the eighties has always troubled me. I think a business can and should be content with breaking even, or maybe just a little extra profit above that to reward the owner for their efforts (and, believe me, we sacrifice a lot of ourselves for our businesses). I'm a big fan of the idea of employee-owned businesses. I am a firm believer that there is such a thing as "big enough", after that a small business should encourage sharing the market with other small businesses in the same field. Cooperation rather than competition.

"Finding out the truth," eh? Sounds noble. Of course, the truth is always relative. 😉 I have a great deal of respect for our local librarians. The fact that the library administration is getting rid of all the do-it-yourself / how-to books troubles me, however.

Edit: Corrected use of the wrong word - wrote "self-help", meant "do-it-yourself". Thanks @Purple Library Guy

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