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Latest Comments by Mountain Man
Total War: WARHAMMER release date announced for Linux, Tuesday 22nd of November
15 Nov 2016 at 2:37 pm UTC Likes: 1

Hopefully this will be a "Game of the Year" type of bundle since looking at the Total Warhammer store page on Steam, it looks like the developer carved out a lot of key features to sell as DLC (seriously, there is a DLC to add blood and gore effects back into the game! Can you believe that?).

Otherwise, this is one to add to my wishlist and then wait for a good price on the "complete" edition.

Alienware manager on Steam Machines lull: Windows 10 changed things
15 Nov 2016 at 2:20 pm UTC

Quoting: Pompesdesky
Quoting: Mountain ManWhat? I've never had to "fiddle around" to get games working in Linux. Sure, I have to tune some of the in-game settings to get optimum performance, but you have to do that in Windows, too. Linux "just works" in my experience. If I want to play a game, I click "Install" in Steam. It installs. I click "Play". It plays. You shouldn't have do any "fiddling" beyond that unless there's something wrong on your end.
Seems not everyone is having the same experience. I've ditched Windows about a year ago and probably won't return, however I've never had to put such amount of research on the Web and fiddling to get things going on Windows.

First anytime I install Steam on a fresh Linux install it will not start, there are some libraries to wipe or some driver to switch so that it accepts to launch. Then some games won't launch either, you have to take a file from another working title and paste it in the folder of the said game. Then when the game finally launches Feral says your GPU is not supported, it will work but not flawlessly. All in all it quite runs on my Mint 17 rig but on the kids rig with Mint 18 only a few games are working correctly (like Dirt Showdown), the others won't launch lately (Euro Truck Simulator for example), when launched the desktop display changes to 640x480 and nothing else happens, I'll have to take another 2 or 3 hours to find a solution on the Internet to solve this.

Then I decided to give a try with a DRM free game to see how this would work. I bought Oddworld New'n Tasty from GOG, installed it on the kids rig (by the way there's not such thing as a double click to install the game as in Windows, you have to open a Terminal, navigate to the folder where you downloaded the game and run a .sh command, that's not something my mom can do for example) and.... no luck, it wouldn't launch. Then installed it on my PC, there it launches but so far I've been unable to configure my Xbox One controller to play the game so I've just given up and cross my fingers thinking that maybe the future Mint 18.2 will magically solve things.

All in all I'm still happy with Linux but I must go with compromises, not only on the number of games available but also on the difficulty of getting everything running. And I don't think most of my gaming friends would accept to make such compromises just for the sake of not being spied and locked in the Microsoft environment.
Maybe because I'm using Ubuntu MATE? That's the current target platform for most games.

Alienware manager on Steam Machines lull: Windows 10 changed things
15 Nov 2016 at 1:09 am UTC

Quoting: CorbenBut then there are coming big titles to Linux, thanks to all the hard work of all the porters and porting companies, so I cheer again. Just to realize, how much you have to fiddle around with those games, to make them work. There is always something you have to fiddle around on Linux, and it feels like it's a lot more than on Windows.
What? I've never had to "fiddle around" to get games working in Linux. Sure, I have to tune some of the in-game settings to get optimum performance, but you have to do that in Windows, too. Linux "just works" in my experience. If I want to play a game, I click "Install" in Steam. It installs. I click "Play". It plays. You shouldn't have to do any "fiddling" beyond that unless there's something wrong on your end.

The Dwarves, the new fantasy RPG with real-time battles has a new trailer, looks fantastic
13 Nov 2016 at 2:18 pm UTC

Is this a real RPG with actual choices and consequences, or is it an action game with stats?

Feral Interactive will be livestreaming Total War: WARHAMMER for Linux on the 16th of November
12 Nov 2016 at 12:30 pm UTC

Quoting: cRaZy-bisCuiT
Quoting: leillo1975.....still waiting for Rome II
Isn't this almost the same? I always felt like all those Total Wars are essentially the same.
All of the historical Total War games are essentially the same, but Total Warhammer features a lot of unique fantasy elements that set it apart.

Aspyr Media seem positive about Civilization VI for Linux according to their recent tweet
9 Nov 2016 at 2:40 am UTC Likes: 1

I think Civ V plus expansions will keep me happy for a long time yet. Besides, the Civ series just seems a bit shallow to me now that I've gotten hooked on Paradox's grand strategy games. I think if you deleted my entire Steam library except for Crusader Kings II, Europa Universalis IV, Hearts of Iron IV, and Stellaris, I'd still be happy.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided released for Linux, port report and review
3 Nov 2016 at 6:44 pm UTC

Quoting: edddeduckferal
Quoting: Mountain Man
Quoting: Comandante oardoAbout performance, I found a very good benchmark on Techspot [External Link]...
Thanks for that. I could maybe get away with my GTX760 in Windows (around 30-frames per second on average with medium settings), but it would probably be futile to attempt to play this in Linux with the DirectX-to-OpenGL performance hit. Well, maybe on low settings, but then would the game be too ugly to be enjoyable?
If you use the special anti aliasing settings the game looks pretty great even on the lower settings / 720p. I've played a few hours on a system similar to yours but I know people's personal preferences will vary all I can say was as a DX fan playing the RC build at home on Linux I had fun :)
You're trying to convince me to buy the game, aren't you? :D

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided released for Linux, port report and review
3 Nov 2016 at 6:33 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Mountain Man
Quoting: Comandante oardoAbout performance, I found a very good benchmark on Techspot [External Link]...
Thanks for that. I could maybe get away with my GTX760 in Windows (around 30-frames per second on average with medium settings), but it would probably be futile to attempt to play this in Linux with the DirectX-to-OpenGL performance hit. Well, maybe on low settings, but then would the game be too ugly to be enjoyable?
Yeah, responding to myself... found this video that does a low/medium/high/ultra comparison:

View video on youtube.com

Basically, the low setting looks like a "last generation" game. It doesn't look bad, it just doesn't have all the fancy lighting and shadows. I wonder what performance would be like in Linux on a GTX760? I may have to buy the game and find out.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided released for Linux, port report and review
3 Nov 2016 at 6:21 pm UTC

Quoting: Comandante oardoAbout performance, I found a very good benchmark on Techspot [External Link]...
Thanks for that. I could maybe get away with my GTX760 in Windows (around 30-frames per second on average with medium settings), but it would probably be futile to attempt to play this in Linux with the DirectX-to-OpenGL performance hit. Well, maybe on low settings, but then would the game be too ugly to be enjoyable?

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided released for Linux, port report and review
3 Nov 2016 at 5:52 pm UTC

Quoting: MaCroX95
Quoting: Mountain Man
I’ve seen gameplay performance go much higher than the Max FPS the benchmark gave me.
That's typical. Benchmarks are supposed to present a "worst case scenario" in terms of performance, at least if they're designed correctly. Ideally, if your system performs well in a benchmark then it should, in theory, have zero problems with the actual game.
That's quite strange, on Shadow of mordor for me it has 40 min fps and it's actually quite worse in game, on some moments it clearly falls in the 20s, benchmarks are not always to be trusted completely but they do give you brief overview if it is even worth trying to run the game.
That's why I said "ideally", and "if the benchmark is designed correctly", because too often they're eye-candy shows intended for bragging rights rather than a realistic indication of a game's performance.