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Latest Comments by M@GOid
GRID Autosport releasing for SteamOS & Linux on December 10th
3 Dec 2015 at 4:09 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: psychodriver
Quoting: MGOidLets hope that it will not need OpenGL 4.3 as minimal requirement, like the other recent Feral ports, so people using opensourse drivers can play it from day one.

Also, didn't Feral bought a bunch of AMD cards months ago, so they can better support then? Why are they sticking with Nvidia in the requirements?
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=2015-holiday-gpus&num=1 [External Link]

Feral can't do anything to improve AMD's drivers. Hopefully "The Boss" doesn't mind me linking to another site, but those graphs say it all. The entire AMD lineup getting smoked by a 750 Ti in the majority of the tests.

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On-topic, Hell YEEAH! Been waiting on a good racing sim and CARS is pretty much vaporware at this point.
Some people (or almost everybody) believe that the bad performance of Catalyst drivers are entirely AMD's fault, but I have seen some people that are studying OpenGL and they say that AMD does have good OpenGL drivers, IF your code actually meets the OpenGL specification to the letter. The code generated this way works good in the proprietary Nvidia driver too, but if your implementations is faulty, you have a better chance they can work (bad, but work) with the Nvidia driver, since it is more tolerant with bad code. So there you have your Linux port with half the Windows one performance.

So Feral cannot "fix" the AMD driver, but they can make their ports perform better outside the Nvidia drivers. Remember that the biggest vendor of GPUs are not Nvidia or AMD, is Intel, because today people buy more laptops than desktops. If you make your driver work with the opensource Intel driver, you will expand your market. If you only limit yourself to Nvidia, you are cutting sales by half in Linux, and it's already a small market.

GRID Autosport releasing for SteamOS & Linux on December 10th
3 Dec 2015 at 12:23 pm UTC

Lets hope that it will not need OpenGL 4.3 as minimal requirement, like the other recent Feral ports, so people using opensourse drivers can play it from day one.

Also, didn't Feral bought a bunch of AMD cards months ago, so they can better support then? Why are they sticking with Nvidia in the requirements?

A very special livestream tonight, keyboard and mouse vs Steam Controller
1 Dec 2015 at 12:27 am UTC

Quoting: adolsonWhich is why Valve innovated with the Steam Controller, and now gives you WAY better control than any other gamepad. You obviously need to tweak the settings to your liking and practice, since it's different than a mouse or analog stick. Too many people think the Steam Controller is pick up and play right now, and it's not. Because it's not something you've been picking up and playing with for years or decades.

Think about any other leap and innovation in input, and how awkward they were at first. I can recall needing time to adjust from the NES and TG-16 d-pad w/ two face buttons, to the SNES with twice as many buttons and the insanity that was shoulder buttons... Then analog sticks. Then dual analog sticks... Everything needed some adjustment time. Going from the big trackball of the ICON computers, to a PC with a mouse was a big leap. When I switched to a Logitech TrackMan thumb trackball in 2003, that was a bit change too and I wasn't that good with it for a while, but now that's all I use. Point is, though the adjustment periods varied, none of those things were pick-up-and-play from day one. The more radical the departure from the standard, the more time it will take to adjust to it.

I feel it's still far too early to fairly compare Steam Controllers to virtually any familiar input device. Even though my experience has been extremely positive and I'm quite used to it now after a month and a half, I still see myself improving daily. But maybe that's just me.
Yes. People play in the Playstation with dual sticks for almost 20 years. I remember back then, when the N64 came out, the analog stick was not love in first sight. Mario 64 made us get used to the new way of control.

So yeah, Valve new gamepad will take a while to overcome that muscle memory. I remember to leave the consoles after the end of life of the N64 and come to the PC with its mouse and keyboard. Basically to play flight simulators.

When I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum and fell in love with, it became clear that a gamepad (a XB360 controller) was a necessity. Then I tried to play some FPS games like Crysis and OMG, what the hell was that. I played hundreds of hours of GoldenEye and the control scheme I prefer was the analog stick to aim and the C buttons to move. ALL other FPS games in the Playstation and Xbox uses the opposite, IE, the left move and the right aim. Man... that was a pain in the ass to overcome, but I did it, and eventually finished Crysis 1 in the Delta difficulty using a gamepad.

Since then I play some FPS games in the joypad just for the challenge (L4D2 became too easy after 1000 hrs, even on Expert...). BUT, even after more than 15 years after I unpluged my N64 from the TV, I can still put the N64 controller in a USB adapter, fire a emulator and play GoldenEye using the analog stick, with my LEFT thumb, to aim and do some nice headshots.

A very special livestream tonight, keyboard and mouse vs Steam Controller
30 Nov 2015 at 4:10 pm UTC

Quoting: slaapliedjeHa! I could hear his two cubicles away. Was driving me nuts. But then again, there is another guy around the same area (fortunately he works from home a lot) that insists on using a Model M keyboard... I was nicer to my co-workers and bought a Matias Quiet Pro for there.
Model Ms are really good for typing, but only make happiness to his owner, because everybody else only get the sounds. Is like hearing others doing sex in other apartment. They got all the fun and you all the noise...

Can you imagine what it was to work in a office full of IBM PCs in the 1980's?

A very special livestream tonight, keyboard and mouse vs Steam Controller
30 Nov 2015 at 4:04 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestI only caught a small part of the livestream, but I was very curious about seeing the steam controller in action. Have to admit, looked to handle better than I would have thought.
I remember being quite proficient back in the day with Golden Eye, but I'm no good with fps shooters & gamepads these days.
GoldenEye, still one of my favorite FPS game of all times. The game that defined what a FPS game should be, launched in a console and made Valve postpone (I think) Half Life for a year for improvements.

Some FPS games are made for gamepads, so you can really sense that when you play then with a mouse/keyboard. For example, Borderlands or Metro games plays really nice on a gamepad, but Valve games like Counter Strike and Left 4 Dead make you really suffer to choose a gamepad over a M/K combo.

You can aways sense that a FPS game was made for gamepads when they aways try to place the opponents in front of you, to avoid much lateral movements and facilitate aim. Valve games have the enemies coming from everywhere, making you do large lateral movements that are difficult to do precisely with a gamepad.

A very special livestream tonight, keyboard and mouse vs Steam Controller
30 Nov 2015 at 3:50 pm UTC

Quoting: slaapliedjeSo the second MX went to a guy that I work with because I couldn't handle listening to his crappy mouse wheel scrolling through tons of code making that grinding noise.

For those who haven't used the MX Performance mouse, there is a button for quick scrolling that makes it silent :D
I know what you mean. A friend of mine have a wireless Logitech mouse/keyboard combo and OMG, that is a loud scroll-wheel!!! I hate it, and aways make me nervous when I go to his house and have to hear that thing make noise.

Mini-review of physics puzzler Unmechanical: Extended, released for Linux on GOG and Steam
27 Nov 2015 at 1:20 pm UTC

Well, the game is good, no doubt, but it have issues:

- I am experiencing stuttering, in a high end system (R9 290) that can keep 60fps most of the time, using opensource driver;
- I can see a switch to fullscreen, but the game only play at 1080p. If you choose another resolution in the game menu or via config file, it resets to 1080p, very annoying; In my low end system (a A8 APU) it can barely maintain 30fps. So the developers need to fix the configs inside the game ASAP;
- Only directly recognize the Xbox 360 controller, the XBone only works if you physically plug it in Steam Big Picture mode, before starting the game.

A Four Way Comparison For Alien: Isolation Shows Off The Performance Difference
18 Nov 2015 at 2:02 pm UTC Likes: 3

If you play on a PC long enough, you now that PC games in general are bad programmed in first place. Companies will only do bug hunting and optimizations only when is lucrative enough to then.

Feral, Aspir, VP, etc do not have deep pockets or much man power to do their jobs. They will do a job and need to make a profit. If go after that last 30% loss means loose money, they will not do it. Simple as that.

Games in general do not complies wit OpenGL or DirectX to the letter, so they put the blame to the driver developer. If a game is famous enough, they will got a driver patch to correct the errors made by developers. You see this all the time in Windows. But if you are a indie, or you learn your job really well, or your games will never see high performance.

The Nvidia driver is more tolerant to programming errors, that is their advantage. The AMD driver needs more compliant code to work well, but that almost never happens because people thinks NvidiaGL means OpenGL...

The hope with Vulcan is that there will be official compliant tests, so game developers will not have the excuse to blame the video driver to their game bad performance.

How-to: Minecraft with the Steam Controller on Linux desktop and SteamOS
13 Nov 2015 at 11:24 am UTC

Well, if you want a less painfull way to play Minecraft, may I suggest you try this:

View video on youtube.com

http://www.minetest.net/ [External Link]

Grow Home From Ubisoft Now On SteamOS & Linux
10 Nov 2015 at 4:25 pm UTC

Well, it works reasonably with the radeonsi driver in my A8 APU. It starts with all in the maximum settings, lowering to 1080p and low settings give me about 25/30fps, so it is in the heavy side, considering the graphics. I can play Borderlands 2 at 1080p with better graphics and higher fps in this APU.

Only played for 5 min, and the joypad use advise in the start of the game came with a irony, since it did not recognize my controller, even using the trick to start the game via Big Picture mode. Some buttons work, but the analog sticks didn't. Oh Unity, you did it again...

In the end, just another "need fixes" Unity port. Let's rope that the developers are quick to at last fix the joypad problem.