Wonder if they'll be able to be ready by November. Also I'm curious whether the two new APIs will remove the need for Crossfire/SLI profiles - a huge problem in Linux. At the moment anybody with more than one GPU basically has an expensive dust collector in their case.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I was wondering whether to buy that one but A) I realized I have a ton of games (RPGs including) to play as it is and B) I read some feedback in GOG that made me reluctant. Your review just hardens my resolve not to buy it. I'm looking forward to Cosmic Star Heroine which hopefully will be a proper JRPG a-la Chrono Trigger and the old Final Fantasy games. For now -The Witcher 3 it is :))).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The sad part is that in Linux that 760 would probably outperform my 290x crossfire...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Vulcan will not be a panacea for sloppy code or bad drivers. An API does not fix the bad performance of an engine, the low performance drivers or the lack of optimization.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: BTRENice work, I'm glad I'm not the only AMD user anymore. You should try benchmarking Talos. I'm not 100% about the rebranding/naming scheme but you should have more or less the same card as me (7870) with more vram, right? I'd be interested to see how much of a difference that makes since I also run the RadeonSI drivers.

The GPU is exactly the same, it's just made with possibly better parts and has been optimized. They did a test with a 390x and downclocked the GPU and VRAM to 290x levels and they performed exactly the same. Not to say it's so bad really - if a 390x can perform close to a 980 for about a 100 dollars less I'd say it's a good buy. It's just that people who have the previous generation equivalents don't really have an incentive to buy a new card. Instead I grabbed a second 290x (had to downclock the a bit though).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

OMG a kickstarted game did not deliver on all its promises. SHOCKING... not...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: vulture

Quoting: maodzedunSo none of the big engine developers have made commitments to Vulkan so far - no CryEngine, Unreal or Unity 5. Worrisome. At the same time DX12 games will begin coming out this month (well there was technically one last month... sort off). At the same time Vulkan is not released yet. The more they take their sweet time, the more developers will get comfy with DirectX12. I wonder when do we reach the point of no return. Valve will really have to pull an ace from their sleeve or the Steam Machine premiere will be quite anticlimactic.

according to Tim Sweeney, Vulkan on UE4 is already in full swing of development

update: also, it would make no sense at all to go with DX12 and Vulkan at once being that they are similar. just looking at their slides you can see how deep they are in DX9 and old principles. the slide, DX12 running in 1 thread says everything. multithreading is same important to Vulkan too and without it... neither DX12 nor Vulkan can work efficiently

My concerns are not so much the "if" but the "when". It's the middle of August already. Honestly - look at all of the basic Windows gaming features that Linux still misses. I don't know about Nvidia users, but the Catalyst in Linux is a joke compared to Windows. There is no RadeonPro, no MSI Afterburner, no Nexus Mod Manager, no SweetFX/ReShade/ENB. The OS lacks an easy way to control the hardware through GUI. Also no SLI or Crossfire (not really). And finally, the performance is sub par. Even on Nvidia - check a Shadow of Mordor comparison. I'm not even going to talk about AMD - I have a 290x Crossfire setup so you can imagine my opinion includes a lot of bad words :).
So you have this this giant coagulated mass (and more) of problems and the Vulakn API is delayed. And there are three months for them to fix it before the Steam Machines roll out on November 10th. Obviously not going to happen. What will be Valve's pitch - "Get a sub par performance and less games and features now and we'll try to fix it later"? It's a train wreck in the making.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

So none of the big engine developers have made commitments to Vulkan so far - no CryEngine, Unreal or Unity 5. Worrisome. At the same time DX12 games will begin coming out this month (well there was technically one last month... sort off). At the same time Vulkan is not released yet. The more they take their sweet time, the more developers will get comfy with DirectX12. I wonder when do we reach the point of no return. Valve will really have to pull an ace from their sleeve or the Steam Machine premiere will be quite anticlimactic.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Linux needs the GOG Galaxy badly. I truly love it. Obviously lacks a lot of the features of Steam, but it's a no-bullsh*t gaming client - very clean and simplistic. And GOG needs more AAA games. I got the Witcher 3 from them and surprisingly even for myself I don't really miss Steam while playing. Still, I can't wait for them to add achievements.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I'm really excited about this one. I've been waiting for the Director's Cut to sit down and play it. Still - with ongoing playthroughs of Dark Souls, Pillars of Eternity and since last night - Witcher 3, I'm not exactly sure where I'll fit this one on the calendar. Especially, considering we all know what comes out a month later :).

View this comment - View article - View full comments