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Latest Comments by Purple Library Guy
Broforce, possibly the best action-platformer ever is still being updated
22 Jan 2019 at 8:46 pm UTC

Quoting: orochi_kyoSorry but the best action platform outthere has a name: Metal Slug.
Does it have a companion game called "Ceramic Snail"?

Steam Play versus Linux Version, a little performance comparison and more thoughts
20 Jan 2019 at 5:58 pm UTC

Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: Purple Library Guyand all the open source stuff with critical mass is maintained and improved on an ongoing basis.
those are the exceptions.

quoting Linus torvalds
" The normal size for most open source projects is three people"

even projects like gimp have something like 2 or 3 mantainers, so i dont know what you mean by critical mass.

and speaking of gimp, if you think its properly support, it isnt, they ditched support for old script-fu scripts some time ago, back then i needed to make an edit in a bunch of images, i tried to make an script to select the first pixel of a bunch of images and set it as transparent color, and failed, the documentation of ho to make script-fu for it was out dated, was no long working even if you know english you have an bad time solving those issues, imagine people who arent native speakers...
The Gimp thing is a separate issue--it has nothing to do with Linux, it's internal to the Gimp itself.

For the rest, all of that may be so . . . and yet for some reason or other, as I move to newer versions of a distro, I don't generally find that open source Linux software stops running; rather I find that the stuff gradually shifts its dependencies to newer versions of things. Which was my point, which you don't seem to have missed so much as sidestepped.
The point is that (closed, commercial) games don't really have ongoing development . . . I mean, nowadays they kind of do, for a while, some of them, but after a year or two from full release they're mostly basically done, you have this static thing which will stop working if the OS you're running it on changes. And on Windows most of the non-game software ecosystem is these little commercial applications which someone developed, sold, and moved on, even less likely to get ongoing development than games. So Windows has strong reasons to keep things pretty static--everything will break if they don't, except Office and whatever they're calling Internet Exploder these days.
Linux has less reason, because traditionally most of the stuff changed with the OS, so users really don't notice huge problems as changes are made. Oh, not zero problems, but it's more like aggravations here and there which are assumed to be temporary. Meanwhile there traditionally have been strong motivations to improve Linux, which can tend to lead to changes that break stuff.

Although despite all this talk starting from you saying "no one is held accountable to break compatibility on linux", to be fair I don't think much breakage comes from kernelspace.

Steam Play versus Linux Version, a little performance comparison and more thoughts
19 Jan 2019 at 9:13 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: KimyrielleAlso, remember when Loki's native ports stopped working on newer Linux machines because of library updates and distro changes? Native ports aren't the perfect solution either, honestly.
native ports are the solution, but with the current marketshare we will not have many.
the fact that those old games stoped working is only an sign of an bigger problem: no one is held accountable to break compatibility on linux.
Thing about Linux is, most of the software ecosystem for it is open source, and all the open source stuff with critical mass is maintained and improved on an ongoing basis. So the stuff just gets updated along with the libraries. Everyone uses the current versions or pretty close to because why would you use the old versions when your distro will cheerfully automate updating to the new for free?
Even the closed software for Linux tends to be stuff that's updated and security-fixed fairly continuously--server stuff and whatnot.

For Linux, closed games and their ephemeral nature are an outlier (and until recently much more of an outlier--there hardly were any through much of Linux's development). So this is not a problem anyone had much reason to think about. Making Linux as good as it could be by ruthlessly ripping out cruft and replacing outdated things (with certain exceptions, [cough] X [/cough]) took decisive priority over backwards compatibility because there was little backwards to need compatibility with.

Another Steam Client Beta is out, adds the ability to force Steam Play
19 Jan 2019 at 12:27 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Thetargos
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: Thetargos
Quoting: mylkawhat do you think? what would be the alternative?
WaaS*, that's what... plus soon-ish gaming will move to the cloud, so you will only rent access, and own nothing... though that could be said is true already with digital distribution and always on-line DRM (not only digital distribution), albeit without a periodic fee. So your "client" device won't matter if it's a PC, Chromebook, phone, tablet, Switch, XBOX or PSX.

*Windows as a Service. Plus, as ironic as it sounds, there are already projects and efforts to implement past MS APIs on top of modern Windows (Wine for Windows, if you will) in order to run older software... so...
thats not an alternative. if you think streaming is the future, it makes everything else unimportant and it doesnt matter if we have native or proton or anything
That's the direction the industry is going anyway. See what are doing MS with the XBox and Google and nVidia, even.
The industry can try to go wherever it wants, but unless they're willing to step up and build the internet of tomorrow, the reality of infrastructure is gonna block games-as-a-streamed-service. Lots of streamed things work fine, but note how streamed music and video take a bit of time to get started, and sometimes pause in the middle. Would this kind of thing fly for games?
The problem is there's lots of money in things that exploit a really robust internet infrastructure (many of them hostile to the interests of consumers)--but there's pretty much no money in building that infrastructure, so nobody wants to. Which would mean government would do it, except current economic orthodoxy says governments aren't supposed to do anything constructive, they're supposed to cut taxes (on the rich). So: Until there's a big time political change in the world, the infrastructure for this stuff will come slowly. Maybe faster wireless will make a difference.

Another Steam Client Beta is out, adds the ability to force Steam Play
18 Jan 2019 at 9:36 pm UTC

Quoting: Eike
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: EikeDoesn't that have a heavy connotation of booze? :)
And your point is? :wink:
Despite the wink: "Feierabend" doesn't. :)
Heh. Well, I don't even drink so you'd notice, the joke just seemed to want to be made.

Steam Play versus Linux Version, a little performance comparison and more thoughts
18 Jan 2019 at 9:34 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: KimyrielleAlso, remember when Loki's native ports stopped working on newer Linux machines because of library updates and distro changes? Native ports aren't the perfect solution either, honestly.
Oh, I remember. My old Loki version of Alpha Centauri is the only game I have ever actually bothered to scour the internet to figure out how to get it working. Last time I tried you could still do it, although I wasn't getting sound to work. Took a bit of fiddling though. But it's Alpha Centauri--totally worth it. The interface is a little clunky by modern standards but otherwise it's still head and shoulders the best game of its kind.

Another Steam Client Beta is out, adds the ability to force Steam Play
18 Jan 2019 at 6:04 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: GuestIf Valve refund for a whitelisted game not working, or what they do if a game stops working, remains to be seen - especially if there's a native version that's not playable, or only barely functional by comparison. Too early to tell. But, indeed, something to consider beyond just technically running a game via wine.
Interesting point. The most basic case (you buy the Windows version of a whitelisted game to play on Proton and it fails to work) should be fairly straightforward: Since you have no or virtually no time played, you get a refund without explanation just like you would for a game that worked but you found the colour scheme stabbed your eyeballs. You could do it with a game you bought to play in Wine, too.

Things that stop working after you've had them a while would be trickier, though (as indeed they already are even without Proton). And there'd be wrangling over whether your setup matches specifications; it could get gnarly. Hopefully it won't come up too often.

Another Steam Client Beta is out, adds the ability to force Steam Play
18 Jan 2019 at 5:52 pm UTC

Quoting: Eike
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Eike(*) It's a shame that the English language doesn't have a decent word for the German "Feierabend". "Feierabend" ("Feier" being celebration/party and "Abend" the evening time) has a connotation of finally, work is done and we can do what we want. (Probably the opposite of what we Germans are know for. :D )
Happy Hour?
Doesn't that have a heavy connotation of booze? :)
And your point is? :wink:

Another Steam Client Beta is out, adds the ability to force Steam Play
18 Jan 2019 at 5:50 pm UTC

Quoting: Guest
Quoting: jardon
Quoting: GuestThat mirv guy was told to get his eyes checked for not agreeing. I didn't see it as a joke and asked it to be dropped. It was not.

No, I'm being told my opinion is wrong, without being told why. I suspected a case of "because Valve", and planted a few words to check....and it seems that way in some cases.
But not others. There have been a couple replies of normality, some reasons I hadn't considered. Might I highlight them?
Do you not see the hypocrisy in that? I'm not going to say that others havent reacted poorly. I'm not gonna argue that others arent in the wrong too. But let me just play out the scenario for you.

mirv: why not use wine?
others: **reasons**
mir: why not use wine?
others: **reasons**
mir: why not use wine?
others: why are you being like this?? (plus some less than favorable responses)
mir: why are you saying im wrong?

Arent you pretty much saying that others opinions are wrong by ignoring their points? People have said plenty of times that it being built in to steam is easier for them and for many many people. I, like many others, hate touching wine. Good for you in that you mastered it. Your responses (or lack thereof) clearly aren't encouraging civil discussions.

Everyone (including myself), lets take a step back and try to learn and become better members of the community to try to mitigate further encounters like this.
Sorry, but I didn't see many giving actual reasons. Some gave "reasons" of something that was already possible, in my experience, which was why I asked: why be excited when it could already be done? TheDaftRick pointed out much I hadn't thought of, and liamdawe had a couple things too.
I've not mastered wine. Vanilla, latest release, and sometimes I try git. I would like to know why I'm ok with it (technically speaking), while others might not be - or maybe they're getting something extra from "Proton" that I'm not seeing. Which are the main reasons why I ask.
My suspicion is that people are simply playing different games. I haven't tried Wine very often because back when I did, I never seemed to get a game to just happen (except original Starcraft, which used to work fine), which meant I'd have to do configuration, and I'd look at the configuration options and think "I have no idea which of these are likely to be useful", try a few half at random, and give up. No doubt I could have figured something out with a bit of research, but I didn't have enough time or motivation to do so. But if you were trying a game that Just Worked, you'd never notice that sort of problem. If all my games had worked like Starcraft it would never have occurred to me that Wine had any hiccups.

At the same time, I haven't used Proton at all and I haven't used recent Wine at all (because I don't have enough time to play most of my Linux native titles) so I don't know whether either of them would Just Work for what I might want to do. Maybe now they'd both be equally great (or equally borked).

I do like the idea of my purchase being seen as a Linux one.

Another Steam Client Beta is out, adds the ability to force Steam Play
18 Jan 2019 at 5:34 pm UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: sbolokanovBy the way I don't want to be that guy, but you do realize that there is a fix for all gaming problems right? ... Windows!

All gaming problems solved in an instant, on top of that you get basicly all games out there (if we don't count console exclusives ofcourse).
Heh. Unfortunately it's also a cause for all non-gaming problems . . .