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Latest Comments by F.Ultra
Linux Mint 21.3 released with Cinnamon 6.0 and experimental Wayland support
15 Jan 2024 at 12:14 pm UTC

Quoting: EikeWhen the world moves on to Wayland (in the next decade ;) ), will this be the death of all those little DEs that won't implement a Wayland compositor?
You can run a complete Xorg environment on XWayland so technically you could run those X11-only DE:s on say Gamescope.

The first stable Steam and Steam Deck update of 2024 is here
13 Jan 2024 at 1:42 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Linux_Rocks
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Linux_RocksToo bad the Linux (and Mac) client is still shit though. You can't disable Steam Play (the button does literally nothing when clicked), the filtering for native Linux games is still incredibly broken (it's been that way for over a year now at least), and now there's issues with it even getting passed the logging in screen for some users in Linux. It's a damn joke, and honestly outright pathetic. They're gonna start pissing away goodwill from some users at this rate, and they don't even acknowledge anything on GitHub either... -_-

I don't know what kinda bullshit operation that they've got going now. But if they're gonna redo the client, at least make sure it works *completely* before forcing it on us. Cause two of the three issues that I mentioned are related to said new client. I've spent thousands of hard earned dollars on Steam. If I had known that the client would've become like this, then I might not have.
I don't think the button is for Linux native, it says "games that works on Linux" so my take is that as long as Steam Play is active for "other titles" it will show all games since all games "works" on Linux using Proton.
I worded it wrong, my bad. (It's fixed now. lol) The problem is that when you turn Steam Play on for all other titles then disable it. Those other titles don't disappear on your library list if you've got regular Steam Play on still. Even though they should.

But not being able to disable Steam Play period pisses me off far more. Cause at least then I could still actually organize my native titles like I wanna do.
Understand, on the other hand I also quite understand that fixing that is probably way down on their TODO list since I'm quite sure that changing it to default on (and removing the setting) is one of their future plans.

The first stable Steam and Steam Deck update of 2024 is here
12 Jan 2024 at 9:31 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: Linux_RocksToo bad the Linux (and Mac) client is still shit though. You can't disable Steam Play (the button does literally nothing when clicked), the filtering for native Linux games is still incredibly broken (it's been that way for over a year now at least), and now there's issues with it even getting passed the logging in screen for some users in Linux. It's a damn joke, and honestly outright pathetic. They're gonna start pissing away goodwill from some users at this rate, and they don't even acknowledge anything on GitHub either... -_-

I don't know what kinda bullshit operation that they've got going now. But if they're gonna redo the client, at least make sure it works *completely* before forcing it on us. Cause two of the three issues that I mentioned are related to said new client. I've spent thousands of hard earned dollars on Steam. If I had known that the client would've become like this, then I might not have.
I don't think the button is for Linux native, it says "games that works on Linux" so my take is that as long as Steam Play is active for "other titles" it will show all games since all games "works" on Linux using Proton.

OpenAI say it would be 'impossible' to train AI without pinching copyrighted works
9 Jan 2024 at 2:40 pm UTC Likes: 6

I think that in general the main issue is the use of AI in creative markets (aka content creation) because that is the field where it have to steal from others in every thing it creates (since it isn't a real AI, it is just a mathematical model that predicts outcome based on the input). And while this might be where all the brouhaha in the public is at the moment it should really be outlawed as the copyright infringement as it truly is.

No this type of AI should be much better suited to parse through boring data (like say every single medical study every done) and work as expert systems (like a glorified google for doctors to try their patients symptoms against all known knowledge) and things like this.

The Caribbean Sail adds Steamboat Willie as a playable character
5 Jan 2024 at 5:38 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: Purple Library GuyIn your face, Three-Circle Empire!

(That said, these days I think they use the mouse almost entirely as a trademark, which is still totally intact. But still)
From what I've heard they have now bought up so many companies and franchises that their cartoon side is now a fraction of their income and that is why they didn't fought to extent copyright this time, basically Micky is worthless to them. As a fun side note Mickey was never big over here and instead Donald was the big Disney character (and we have a Donald special on Christmas Eve every year).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from GamingOnLinux
26 Dec 2023 at 2:17 pm UTC Likes: 9

Happy Yule to you all.

!Yule Goat 2016 [External Link]

Vulkan API update brings Video Extensions for Accelerated H.264 and H.265 Encode
24 Dec 2023 at 7:19 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual
Quoting: F.UltraThey are however most likely licensed to cover only "personal and non-commercial use" since they really want to extort a license from commercial content creators as well (that is where the big license money is).

But that is no different from any other software, aka it doesn't matter if you use macOS, Windows, Adobe or whatever. If you are a content studio compressing H.264 content then you need a license regardless of what hw or sw you use.
I seem to remember MPEG-LA allowing all web content (even commercial?) to use H.264 without a license. From that time Wikipedia voted on whether to use H.264 [External Link]:

Commercial use of MP4 videos contributed to Wikimedia sites with a CC-BY-SA Creative Commons license appears to be authorized under the terms of MPEG-LA’s royalty-free Internet Broadcast sublicense, as outlined below. Since using a proprietary format would be a departure from our current practice of only using open formats on our sites, WMF has opened this Request for Comments to seek community guidance.
So it's something that is already implicitly granted by the H.264 patent pool, so NVIDIA/AMD/Intel wouldn't even need to provide a license. The link to this sublicense is dead now. I wonder what exactly the terms were. Wikimedia was also apparently offered a special deal:

Why is this happening? WMF was offered an MP4 license so attractive WMF had to consider it. The deal was so unprecedented, part of it included non-disclosure of the exceptionally beneficial WMF terms so as not to alienate its other customers (who pay through the nose for their own MP4 licenses). Commercial enterprises don't give anything away for free because they are nice, they do so only when it will lead to increased profits in the end.
To add to this, Google Chrome and recently Firefox added support for hardware decoders for H.265. Firefox in particular should not have been able to do this unless making use of hardware decoders does not require them to have a license.

I love talking about video codec patents. I always end up more confused than when I started.
Ok, but that talks specifically about non-comercial use so I guess that commercial use which I wrote about still requires a license? And I don't think that none of this means that there is no need for a patent license for the hardware since a GPU is a commercial thing and also it is the ago itself while the content is the result of the algo so to speak.

E.g MP3 there you had to have a license to be able to compress and decompress the data since both use the MP3 algo but just having a MP3 or distributing it doesn't involve the algo so that is not something that they could prohibit you from doing with any license.

But yes I'm with you that this is all hairy and I for one would gladly see software patents go, they only stifle innovation in a field that is moving way to fast for something to be locked away for 25 years.

edit: Wikipedia:

On September 29, 2014, MPEG LA announced their HEVC license which covers the essential patents from 23 companies.[48] The first 100,000 "devices" (which includes software implementations) are royalty free, and after that the fee is $0.20 per device up to an annual cap of $25 million.
...
On December 18, 2015, HEVC Advance announced changes in the royalty rates. The changes include a reduction in the maximum royalty rate for Region 1 countries to US$2.03 per device, the creation of annual royalty caps, and a waiving of royalties on content that is free to end users. The annual royalty caps for a company is US$40 million for devices, US$5 million for content, and US$2 million for optional features.
...
On November 22, 2016, HEVC Advance announced a major initiative, revising their policy to allow software implementations of HEVC to be distributed directly to consumer mobile devices and personal computers royalty free, without requiring a patent license.
So as of 2016 they see sw implementations is license-free, that to me tells that they still require a license for the hw implementation. So Firefox et al can use the hw implementation since AMD have licensed it and Firefox is not creating content, they are only using the API:s provided by e.g AMD. You for non-commercial don't have to pay a license but a commercial entity probably have to.

This is always so damn silly. The same happens in the financial industry where I work. Over here in Europe the EU have standardised to use ISIN-codes as the universal identifier for financial instruments and they are completely free to use, but in the US they use CUSIP-codes instead (and they create the ISIN by prefixing the CUSIP with "US" and then suffixing a check-digit at the end) which requires a license in every single step, aka if you issue a instrument you have to pay a license, if you distribute that CUSIP/ISIN to some one else then they also have to pay a license and if they happen to whisper that code to any one then they are also required to pay a license and so on and on.

Vulkan API update brings Video Extensions for Accelerated H.264 and H.265 Encode
21 Dec 2023 at 2:16 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: soulsource
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: soulsourceI just saw this toot [External Link], and now I'm wondering if one really needs to worry about licensing if one uses those APIs...
Or, worse, if one needs to worry about MPEG licenses if one uses unrelated parts of Vulkan...
Kind of an overly alarmist take. The API being able to do it, doesn't mean you have to use it. You're not subject to patents you don't use - if they even cover this.
exactly and one cannot patent a function call. In any case nVIDIA, Intel and AMD have all licensed the MPEG patents to be able to implement the hardware decoder (since the patent covers the algorithm) so this is all covered.
Iirc the hardware and drivers don't need a license, only the software that makes the codecs available to end users. At some point Fedora even removed some Mesa features related to those video codecs because of that: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected]/thread/PYUYUCM3RGTTN4Q3QZIB4VUQFI77GE5X/ [External Link]
I see a lot of hand-waving without any evidence or proofs and just guesswork on that thread to be fair. It's the compression/decompression algorithm that is patented and if the GPU have hardware acceleration of it then the GPU manufacturer must be a patent license or nVIDIA, AMD and Intel would expose all of they customers to be sued for infringement (including themselves). They are however most likely licensed to cover only "personal and non-commercial use" since they really want to extort a license from commercial content creators as well (that is where the big license money is).

But that is no different from any other software, aka it doesn't matter if you use macOS, Windows, Adobe or whatever. If you are a content studio compressing H.264 content then you need a license regardless of what hw or sw you use.

edit: In any case I'm just happy to be in the EU since software patents are not enforceable here.

Vulkan API update brings Video Extensions for Accelerated H.264 and H.265 Encode
20 Dec 2023 at 3:04 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: soulsourceI just saw this toot [External Link], and now I'm wondering if one really needs to worry about licensing if one uses those APIs...
Or, worse, if one needs to worry about MPEG licenses if one uses unrelated parts of Vulkan...
Kind of an overly alarmist take. The API being able to do it, doesn't mean you have to use it. You're not subject to patents you don't use - if they even cover this.
exactly and one cannot patent a function call. In any case nVIDIA, Intel and AMD have all licensed the MPEG patents to be able to implement the hardware decoder (since the patent covers the algorithm) so this is all covered.

Feral GameMode v1.8 out now with CPU core pinning and parking
7 Dec 2023 at 4:12 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: XpanderIs this still even needed? The cpu governors used to be an issue like 6-7 years ago, but these days amd has amd_pstate and intel has its intel_pstate which are boosting correctly on the default governor so i dont really know whats the point of this.
I haven't noticed any difference when benchmarking stuff with this on or off at least.
Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark and Unigine Superposition.
Well the pinning should be relevant if you have a cpu with non-uniform cache and/or frequencies and the split lock mitigation for those windows games that breaks it heavily (like God of War).

At least I hope it is so the work wasn't a total waste.