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STAR WARS: Squadrons looks to be preparing anti-cheat for the Steam Deck
31 January 2022 at 12:33 am UTC Likes: 5
31 January 2022 at 12:33 am UTC Likes: 5
I played a fair bit of Squadrons via the Xbox Game Pass on my Windows disk (gasp), in VR with HOTAS, and mechanically, the game is good fun. The ships feel good, the VR support mostly works, almost on-par with Elite: Dangerous aside from a couple left/right eye-swap bugs in in-game cutscenes.
However, I can't recommend people pick this up unless they're getting it for free as part of something like Game Pass / EA Play... (review follows in spoiler tag)
Unfortunately, the backlash against EA's microtransaction policies was happening during the game's development, as I understand it, so when they said, 'Alright, fine - we're not putting MTX in', they also gave the game a very very short lifespan. A couple rounds of fixes + content patches, and then that's it. The game isn't making them money any more, so they've basically completely abandoned it save for keeping the matchmaking servers running.
There's really only two game modes - team deathmatch, and a 'push' style 'kill all their capital ships in sequence before they kill yours, but be nice and take turns being offense and defense', with no future plans for anything else. No co-op in the single player campaign. Everything is just geared around a ranked 5v5 PvP setup.
If you can find 4 friends to make a full team, you can have a decent enough time, either stomping the AI in the unranked mode, or maybe going against randoms in the ranked mode - at least until you get matched up with the level 100+ 5 person squad of hardcore players who play the heck out of the game and will wipe the floor with you. :p
If you don't have 4 friends to play with, honestly, don't even bother loading the game up. The matchmaking has been absolutely dead for so long - we've tried at least 3 separate times over a 3-6 month span to get matches with 2-4 people on our side, and you can end up sitting and waiting at the menu for it to try and look for a match for you for upwards of half an hour with no hits.
We thought it was just an off day, would try again next week - same issue. Sometimes even with an entire 5-person team ready to go. I think once we were restarting the matchmaking for an hour and a half total (granted, while we're all Alt-Tabbed out and doing other things waiting for the queue to pop) before we finally gave up and basically uninstalled the game.
It's frustrating, because I feel they actually did a great job with the art, assets, engine, etc., and I want to play the game with my friends, but EA has pretty much completely abandoned it since there's no MTX to grind our wallets with. It's like they're not even entertaining the idea of a season pass or expansion pack or sequel - I'd be down for paying $30 for an xpac or $60-90 for a proper sequel with a co-op campaign or larger scale Battlefield-style battles, but this really feels like something between a tech demo and a fully fleshed out game. It could've been so much more. :(
However, I can't recommend people pick this up unless they're getting it for free as part of something like Game Pass / EA Play... (review follows in spoiler tag)
Spoiler, click me
Unfortunately, the backlash against EA's microtransaction policies was happening during the game's development, as I understand it, so when they said, 'Alright, fine - we're not putting MTX in', they also gave the game a very very short lifespan. A couple rounds of fixes + content patches, and then that's it. The game isn't making them money any more, so they've basically completely abandoned it save for keeping the matchmaking servers running.
There's really only two game modes - team deathmatch, and a 'push' style 'kill all their capital ships in sequence before they kill yours, but be nice and take turns being offense and defense', with no future plans for anything else. No co-op in the single player campaign. Everything is just geared around a ranked 5v5 PvP setup.
If you can find 4 friends to make a full team, you can have a decent enough time, either stomping the AI in the unranked mode, or maybe going against randoms in the ranked mode - at least until you get matched up with the level 100+ 5 person squad of hardcore players who play the heck out of the game and will wipe the floor with you. :p
If you don't have 4 friends to play with, honestly, don't even bother loading the game up. The matchmaking has been absolutely dead for so long - we've tried at least 3 separate times over a 3-6 month span to get matches with 2-4 people on our side, and you can end up sitting and waiting at the menu for it to try and look for a match for you for upwards of half an hour with no hits.
We thought it was just an off day, would try again next week - same issue. Sometimes even with an entire 5-person team ready to go. I think once we were restarting the matchmaking for an hour and a half total (granted, while we're all Alt-Tabbed out and doing other things waiting for the queue to pop) before we finally gave up and basically uninstalled the game.
It's frustrating, because I feel they actually did a great job with the art, assets, engine, etc., and I want to play the game with my friends, but EA has pretty much completely abandoned it since there's no MTX to grind our wallets with. It's like they're not even entertaining the idea of a season pass or expansion pack or sequel - I'd be down for paying $30 for an xpac or $60-90 for a proper sequel with a co-op campaign or larger scale Battlefield-style battles, but this really feels like something between a tech demo and a fully fleshed out game. It could've been so much more. :(
7 Days to Die gets Alpha 20 out in Experimental, lots of shiny new additions
10 December 2021 at 8:53 pm UTC
Just curious - is that with Vsync on, and does turning it off fix it? I seem to remember this issue in a couple games.
I've got a FreeSync monitor working right now so I have no perceptible input lag with Vsync/adaptive sync on under Vulkan here, for comparison.
10 December 2021 at 8:53 pm UTC
Quoting: EhvisTried it with Vulkan. While it runs smoothly, it gives me a slight but noticeable increase in input lag.
Just curious - is that with Vsync on, and does turning it off fix it? I seem to remember this issue in a couple games.
I've got a FreeSync monitor working right now so I have no perceptible input lag with Vsync/adaptive sync on under Vulkan here, for comparison.
7 Days to Die gets Alpha 20 out in Experimental, lots of shiny new additions
10 December 2021 at 8:51 pm UTC
10 December 2021 at 8:51 pm UTC
From the notes, they added the Epic Online Services backend 'for future cross-platform capabilities'... ooh, do you think they're going to resurrect/update the console versions now that they've got the rights back (RIP Telltale) and apparently have money?
Started my own A20 server for friends last night, and definitely liking the changes so far. This is a huge update over A19. I've been running it on Vulkan since A17 or A18 with no major issues (AMD RX 580 on AMDGPU / Mesa, however) - I'd recommend people go ahead and try it (pick the Game Launcher when starting and you can even save it as the default there) if you haven't already.
I do have a couple minor issues where if the game crashes, it forgets half of the options you've changed (controls, video, etc.) that session; it must save on exit, and loading in at least single player works fine the first time, but if I quit out to the main menu and then try to load back in to that same save (e.g. after changing draw distance in the options), the game crashes.
Always the 2nd load in; first is always fine. So that's a new bug, but it's in the latest_experimental branch for a reason.
Started my own A20 server for friends last night, and definitely liking the changes so far. This is a huge update over A19. I've been running it on Vulkan since A17 or A18 with no major issues (AMD RX 580 on AMDGPU / Mesa, however) - I'd recommend people go ahead and try it (pick the Game Launcher when starting and you can even save it as the default there) if you haven't already.
I do have a couple minor issues where if the game crashes, it forgets half of the options you've changed (controls, video, etc.) that session; it must save on exit, and loading in at least single player works fine the first time, but if I quit out to the main menu and then try to load back in to that same save (e.g. after changing draw distance in the options), the game crashes.
Always the 2nd load in; first is always fine. So that's a new bug, but it's in the latest_experimental branch for a reason.
The Valve Steam Deck, lots of excitement and plenty to think about for Linux gaming
17 July 2021 at 1:19 am UTC Likes: 8
17 July 2021 at 1:19 am UTC Likes: 8
Got my reservation in, my partner's, and our roommate's who are all interested. 2H2022, though, here in Canada, so we'll see. It said 3Q2022 at first, then rolled back slightly.
Maybe we're hitting thresholds where Valve's all, "Oh crap, we better buy more production capacity!"
Something something Year of the Linux De..ck-top?
Maybe we're hitting thresholds where Valve's all, "Oh crap, we better buy more production capacity!"
Something something Year of the Linux De..ck-top?
GamingOnLinux moves on from Freenode to Libera.Chat for IRC
26 May 2021 at 8:12 pm UTC Likes: 5
26 May 2021 at 8:12 pm UTC Likes: 5
Thankfully, IRC (and Matrix and Mastodon listed in the article) are open enough that you can just cut ties and say 'screw it, we're doing our own!', like the Libera.Chat team is doing.
Any mention of them on Freenode gets you booted, and yeah:
It's happening (Matrix)
to lots
of people
Also, for anyone using the 'main' matrix.org homeserver, they're working on proper IRC bridging:
Bridge libera.chat #1324
Any mention of them on Freenode gets you booted, and yeah:
It's happening (Matrix)
to lots
of people
Also, for anyone using the 'main' matrix.org homeserver, they're working on proper IRC bridging:
Bridge libera.chat #1324
Hints appear of Valve making a handheld Steam "SteamPal" Neptune console
25 May 2021 at 8:11 pm UTC Likes: 1
25 May 2021 at 8:11 pm UTC Likes: 1
If it's a decent AMD GPU/SoC running Linux with maybe the right thumbstick replaced by a Steam Controller style thumb touchpad (which is actually *really* decent for FPSes, I find!), potentially with the same kind of basic rotational motion control for 'fine tuning' your aim, and it runs your Steam library?
I... I might be sold on this.
I... I might be sold on this.
SCS put up an open Beta for multiplayer in Euro Truck Sim 2 and American Truck Sim
24 May 2021 at 6:50 pm UTC
24 May 2021 at 6:50 pm UTC
I know there's been a multiplayer mod for ETS2 & ATS for a while now, that I haven't really tried myself, but have seen others play around with. Still, official support sounds great! I've used a Logitech wheel+pedals+H-shifter set just fine with these games on Linux before, and tested VR support with my old Oculus DK2 under Windows (not sure if VR works on Linux if you have a supported headset?); it's such a weirdly compelling sim just because of how polished the environments are.
Sure, distances and times are heavily compressed, scale-wise, but they do their best to include and model landmarks, natural features, etc. so if you know the area for real, you can drive it in the sim and be able to recognize where you are. Definitely not 1:1 like, say, the way the GTA series tries to model NY and LA, but bridges, mountain passes, rest stops, etc. are amazing.
Very much a game to play when you want something chill (time pressures and wild AI drivers aside). Kind of like a good flight simulator in the same sightseeing way.
Sure, distances and times are heavily compressed, scale-wise, but they do their best to include and model landmarks, natural features, etc. so if you know the area for real, you can drive it in the sim and be able to recognize where you are. Definitely not 1:1 like, say, the way the GTA series tries to model NY and LA, but bridges, mountain passes, rest stops, etc. are amazing.
Very much a game to play when you want something chill (time pressures and wild AI drivers aside). Kind of like a good flight simulator in the same sightseeing way.
Humble Bundle plan to put the much loved sliders back on bundle pages
5 May 2021 at 6:39 pm UTC Likes: 6
5 May 2021 at 6:39 pm UTC Likes: 6
It's mostly about preserving their cut, right? Why not just take the existing slider setup, adjust it to say something like the Humble slider can't ever be lower than X%, whatever X may be, as their overhead, and then leave the rest up to us to adjust like we have been?
Or, if developers similarly want to opt for a minimum percentage, just make that obvious in that title's sliders at checkout (not all will; some will be fine if people want to put a huge chunk to charities instead - give them the choice).
Even charities have overhead, so I can understand if they need to make that sort of change as a for-profit business.
So a certain game could be like:
Humble: (Min 15%)
Dev: (Min 10%)
Charity: (Max 75% because math)
And then let you drag the sliders around within those bounds, pick the charities and their distribution, etc.?
Keep their new/rolled back presets as just... 'reset to X' buttons that move the sliders back to those numbers.
Or, if developers similarly want to opt for a minimum percentage, just make that obvious in that title's sliders at checkout (not all will; some will be fine if people want to put a huge chunk to charities instead - give them the choice).
Even charities have overhead, so I can understand if they need to make that sort of change as a for-profit business.
So a certain game could be like:
Humble: (Min 15%)
Dev: (Min 10%)
Charity: (Max 75% because math)
And then let you drag the sliders around within those bounds, pick the charities and their distribution, etc.?
Keep their new/rolled back presets as just... 'reset to X' buttons that move the sliders back to those numbers.
Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation speak up on Stallman's return
12 April 2021 at 5:04 pm UTC Likes: 11
Pretty much the entire rest of the industry has stopped trusting them, too. At best, we'll see another org fork in the vein of OpenOffice/LibreOffice, ffmpeg/libav, etc.
12 April 2021 at 5:04 pm UTC Likes: 11
Quoting: scaineI'm not outraged, but Stallman, and hence the FSF, can definitely get in the bin. The fact that they took weeks to address something as simple as voting back in a confirmed abuser to their board shows me all I need to know about this organisation.
Pretty incredible really. I don't trust them to represent my interests in free software at this point.
Pretty much the entire rest of the industry has stopped trusting them, too. At best, we'll see another org fork in the vein of OpenOffice/LibreOffice, ffmpeg/libav, etc.
Time to get testing Ubuntu 21.04 ahead of release, plus Canonical loses another face
8 April 2021 at 5:38 pm UTC Likes: 1
I actually switched my KDE Plasma desktop over to Wayland about a month ago (well, I have it set so I can pick and choose between both Wayland and Xorg from login) - caveat, with an AMD GPU of course - and I'm assuming prety much every game uses XWayland anyway. Once I cleaned up some bugs related to really ancient configs I had being loaded, honestly for me at least it seems no different for gaming. No performance difference, MangoHud still works. Proton works if needed, too.
The main catch is if you're trying to capture a window or gameplay with something like OBS - there's a plugin for Vulkan renderer captures, and now in OBS 27 there's Pipewire support (that I haven't quite got working yet, but I run Gentoo so I fully expect I need to configure it yet).
I also have non-gaming related issues around copy & paste, particularly between Firefox (running Wayland native) and Discord (via XWayland), but pasting and re-copying from a Konsole window in between usually works. Apparently clipboard issues are common still, sadly.
I can't speak for GNOME, as I don't use it, but I have heard their Wayland support is a lot further ahead than KDE Plasma's.
8 April 2021 at 5:38 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: iiariAgreed. I've been using Manjaro Gnome Wayland for the better part of a year now on my work laptop and it's terrific. I have no idea how gaming is on Wayland, though, as I game on my Manjaro KDE xorg desktop.
How is Wayland for gaming right now?
I actually switched my KDE Plasma desktop over to Wayland about a month ago (well, I have it set so I can pick and choose between both Wayland and Xorg from login) - caveat, with an AMD GPU of course - and I'm assuming prety much every game uses XWayland anyway. Once I cleaned up some bugs related to really ancient configs I had being loaded, honestly for me at least it seems no different for gaming. No performance difference, MangoHud still works. Proton works if needed, too.
The main catch is if you're trying to capture a window or gameplay with something like OBS - there's a plugin for Vulkan renderer captures, and now in OBS 27 there's Pipewire support (that I haven't quite got working yet, but I run Gentoo so I fully expect I need to configure it yet).
I also have non-gaming related issues around copy & paste, particularly between Firefox (running Wayland native) and Discord (via XWayland), but pasting and re-copying from a Konsole window in between usually works. Apparently clipboard issues are common still, sadly.
I can't speak for GNOME, as I don't use it, but I have heard their Wayland support is a lot further ahead than KDE Plasma's.
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- SteamOS 3.5.18 Preview released for Steam Deck
- Team Fortress 2 64bit support released, plus Vulkan for Linux via DXVK
- Free Stars: Children of Infinity coming to Linux after smashing Kickstarter goals
- Pick up some classics in the Good Old Games sale at GOG
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