Check out our Monthly Survey Page to see what our users are running.
Latest Comments by F.Ultra
Canonical have released a statement on Ubuntu and 32bit support, will keep select packages
24 June 2019 at 6:56 pm UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: Eike
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: F.UltraThis is how things are done and decided in the real world all the time, the only difference now is that the immature Linux fanbase for some reason decided to run around in circles screaming that the world was ending.

You mean like Microsoft gave up 32 bit support? And enforced UWP only? Oops...

So tell me when Canonical gave up 32-bit support and enforced UWP only. Oh that it right this very thread exists only because Canonical decided to not give up 32-bit support.

What ever this now have to do with Microsoft?!


We are talking about Ubuntu reverting their decision to not properly supporting 32 bit software anymore. You've said others were doing such stuff all the time. That's where Microsoft comes to mind quite naturally. Giving up 32 bits and enforcing UWP are two examples of stuff they couldn't do due to software that must be supported.

No I didn't say that others did such stuff all the time. What I said was that in the real world companies announce their plans, then they await comments from users and partners to see how said plans will be received after which the plans are either amended or put into production.

The problem here is that the Linux fanbase decided to see the announcement of plans as a foregone conclusion and then run around screaming.

Canonical have released a statement on Ubuntu and 32bit support, will keep select packages
24 June 2019 at 6:45 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: TobiSGD
Quoting: GuestI can see why they want to remove 32 bit libs because it's a ton of work.
But a ton of work for whom? They still get the majority of their packages directly from Debian, throwing a patch on one or the other package and just compile. If Debian still supports newer versions of 32 bit libraries, how much work is there really to be done for canonical?

They get the base source code of each package from Debian, then they have to build the IA-32 version themselves, and provide support themselves. Considering the amount of packages in the repo it will take quite some time to build the packages for IA-32 and that is time taken from building for other archs and so on. If there where no cost for providing IA-32 builds then they clearly wouldn't have planned to throw them out to begin with.

The only real cost is QA. Building is normally cheap.

Currently Ubuntu have 6391 packages in Main, building that will take hours even for Canonical.

Seriously, do you people really think that Canonical decided to drop IA-32 for some other reason and then have their devs lie that it had to do with resources? What is next, UFO conspiracies, 9/11 Truthers, Freemasons, anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO fools?

Canonical have released a statement on Ubuntu and 32bit support, will keep select packages
24 June 2019 at 6:41 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Eike
Quoting: F.UltraThis is how things are done and decided in the real world all the time, the only difference now is that the immature Linux fanbase for some reason decided to run around in circles screaming that the world was ending.

You mean like Microsoft gave up 32 bit support? And enforced UWP only? Oops...

So tell me when Canonical gave up 32-bit support and enforced UWP only. Oh that it right this very thread exists only because Canonical decided to not give up 32-bit support.

What ever this now have to do with Microsoft?!

Canonical have released a statement on Ubuntu and 32bit support, will keep select packages
24 June 2019 at 6:22 pm UTC Likes: 7

Quoting: dannielloGood that Canonical changed their bad decision, but anyway - it means that "Linux desktop" situation is much worse than I thought:(

Sad, very sad situation. It is well known that Canonical is not serious company, but such absurd situation also harmed Valve reputation (at least from Linux enthusiasts perspective).

It is oblivious that Canonical took this decision without consultation with Valve. It means - there is no agreement between Canonical-Valve. No agreement at all!!! Valve set Ubuntu as "recommended distribution" for game developers and Linux users WITHOUT any serious agreement with Canonical to protect their investment!

And you think that there are an agreement between Valve and Apple? Or between Valve and Microsoft?

This whole fiasco is a fiasco of the Linux fanbase, nothing more.

Close to two years ago they announced that they planned to drop 32-bit (IA-32) support and since no one back then voiced any concern they moved forward to the decision they now made for 19.10.

However they didn't silently drop the packages, instead they announced yet again that it would be done. Then they again waited for comments which this time came in droves and after that they changed their mind.

This is how things are done and decided in the real world all the time, the only difference now is that the immature Linux fanbase for some reason decided to run around in circles screaming that the world was ending.

Canonical have released a statement on Ubuntu and 32bit support, will keep select packages
24 June 2019 at 6:17 pm UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: TobiSGD
Quoting: GuestI can see why they want to remove 32 bit libs because it's a ton of work.
But a ton of work for whom? They still get the majority of their packages directly from Debian, throwing a patch on one or the other package and just compile. If Debian still supports newer versions of 32 bit libraries, how much work is there really to be done for canonical?

They get the base source code of each package from Debian, then they have to build the IA-32 version themselves, and provide support themselves. Considering the amount of packages in the repo it will take quite some time to build the packages for IA-32 and that is time taken from building for other archs and so on. If there where no cost for providing IA-32 builds then they clearly wouldn't have planned to throw them out to begin with.

Valve release a new stable Steam Client from all the recent Beta builds, nice fixes for Linux
17 June 2019 at 8:41 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: gradyvuckovicAll Valve has to do now is offer some kind of option to run your own remote instance of a gaming PC on a Valve server, and connect direct to it, and they'll have an alternative to Stadia. Buy your game on Steam, download it to play it locally, or stream it to any PC or phone/tablet or TV. Stream it from your PC or stream it from a Valve server. All your workshop mods, your cloud saves, your Steam friends, etc, take them all with you anywhere you go.

Buy Portal 2 and download/install it locally to play on your PC, then stream it from your PC to your TV and play it with any controller you want, then stream it from a Valve server to your phone and play it on the train.

If Valve offered that service for free, (which they probably could because the overwhelming majority of users would prefer local gaming so it wouldn't be a commonly used option), Stadia would be dead on arrival.

For Linux (& Mac) gamers, that would mean all those games currently not playable on Linux, the 40% or so of Steam that isn't quite there yet with Proton, would suddenly immediately become playable via an alternative solution, ie: streaming from a Valve server. Effectively bringing all Steam games to Linux.

Boom, no need to ever install Windows for any game on Steam. No need to buy games on Google's or iOS's app store even, just buy it on Steam and stream it to your phone!

I'm calling it, this is what Valve is working towards. Valve is going to make it happen.

They would also have to invest a number of billions in new datacenters and bandwidth for that to happen on the scale that Valve operates (they have roughly 90 million monthly users) and they would have to build them locally all over the world. The costs of running stuff like this is extreme and is why currently only Google is pulling it off (and we don't know yet if they will pull it off).

The other services described in this thread is nowhere near to compete, Shadow seams to have only a small number of servers in California and Geforce Now seams to have only 300k users with some reports that performance is bad during peak hours (but to be honest I have just spent a few minutes googling this).

For what it's worth I worked as the CTO of a Cloud computing startup 11 years ago and had to design stuff like this.

I have an Nvidia Shield. GeForce Now has a small set of free games included with the service, as standalone games and managed by Nvidia, but and this is where it's getting interresting, you may run Steam, Origin, Uplay and/or Epic launchers inside GeForce Now to play any games in your personnal library on Nvidia's servers (remote computer). Each instances are powered by a Tesla P40 GPU and grapical options are preset for each officially supported games. Stil, no problems running games at ultra for the other games, as far as I witnessed.

Imo, it would be the ideal services if it ran on Linux instances, but I don't think it's what they do.

Thanks for the info! Do you know if the GPU shared or dedicated?

Sorry. I have absolutely no clue on this one.

Edit: All I know is that it's based on the former Nvidia Grid technology, so I suspect it might be shared with some form of "load balancing". Is it the good expression when it comes to GPU workloads?

That can mean many things so that remains to be seen. Since you can play all your Steam and Uplay games I guess that it's just a matter of time before some hardcore gamer manages to get some GPU tool installed to measure if it always performs to 100% or if it appears to be shared.

Valve release a new stable Steam Client from all the recent Beta builds, nice fixes for Linux
17 June 2019 at 5:10 pm UTC

Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: gradyvuckovicAll Valve has to do now is offer some kind of option to run your own remote instance of a gaming PC on a Valve server, and connect direct to it, and they'll have an alternative to Stadia. Buy your game on Steam, download it to play it locally, or stream it to any PC or phone/tablet or TV. Stream it from your PC or stream it from a Valve server. All your workshop mods, your cloud saves, your Steam friends, etc, take them all with you anywhere you go.

Buy Portal 2 and download/install it locally to play on your PC, then stream it from your PC to your TV and play it with any controller you want, then stream it from a Valve server to your phone and play it on the train.

If Valve offered that service for free, (which they probably could because the overwhelming majority of users would prefer local gaming so it wouldn't be a commonly used option), Stadia would be dead on arrival.

For Linux (& Mac) gamers, that would mean all those games currently not playable on Linux, the 40% or so of Steam that isn't quite there yet with Proton, would suddenly immediately become playable via an alternative solution, ie: streaming from a Valve server. Effectively bringing all Steam games to Linux.

Boom, no need to ever install Windows for any game on Steam. No need to buy games on Google's or iOS's app store even, just buy it on Steam and stream it to your phone!

I'm calling it, this is what Valve is working towards. Valve is going to make it happen.

They would also have to invest a number of billions in new datacenters and bandwidth for that to happen on the scale that Valve operates (they have roughly 90 million monthly users) and they would have to build them locally all over the world. The costs of running stuff like this is extreme and is why currently only Google is pulling it off (and we don't know yet if they will pull it off).

The other services described in this thread is nowhere near to compete, Shadow seams to have only a small number of servers in California and Geforce Now seams to have only 300k users with some reports that performance is bad during peak hours (but to be honest I have just spent a few minutes googling this).

For what it's worth I worked as the CTO of a Cloud computing startup 11 years ago and had to design stuff like this.

I have an Nvidia Shield. GeForce Now has a small set of free games included with the service, as standalone games and managed by Nvidia, but and this is where it's getting interresting, you may run Steam, Origin, Uplay and/or Epic launchers inside GeForce Now to play any games in your personnal library on Nvidia's servers (remote computer). Each instances are powered by a Tesla P40 GPU and grapical options are preset for each officially supported games. Stil, no problems running games at ultra for the other games, as far as I witnessed.

Imo, it would be the ideal services if it ran on Linux instances, but I don't think it's what they do.

Thanks for the info! Do you know if the GPU shared or dedicated?

SteamOS had another beta update recently, new Steam Play Proton version 4.2-4 is out
16 June 2019 at 5:42 pm UTC

Quoting: lejimster
Quoting: F.Ultra
Quoting: lejimster
Quoting: F.UltraThe inclusion of DXVK 1.1.1 is kind of a bummer since it requires VK_EXT_host_query_reset without plummeting performance in some games and that is not available in any of the stable versions of Mesa yet.

For me Vampyr just took a nose dive performance wise when Steam updated Proton to 4.2-4 today.

I've decided to stay on mesa-git. For the most part it's been stable and while dxvk/d9vk etc are being developed it works best with them. Maybe when these projects mature and settle down stable will be a good option, but for right now..

Do you compile yourself? I used to be on the Padoka unstable PPA but was burned for far too many times when his scripts released some binaries when others failed which lead to weeks without X on some occasions.

One could have hoped that DXVK would have kept the old code path when it detects that the necessary extension is not found and then remove that code path altogether once it's been in mesa stable for some time but I guess that it was too cumbersome.

I use Arch, there are mesa-git in the AUR that would allow me to compile it easily. But I prefer to use the unofficial mesa-git repo that is very well maintained.
I have had the odd niggling issues in the past with the development builds, but not for at least a year.. Atleast that I remember. If I ever do run into issues... Thats what the downgrade tool is for, I just revert back to an earlier working version.

Padoka Stable release Mesa 19.1.0 today but it actually made things far worse. Vampyr now freezes every second frame and Wolfenstein II refuses to launch due to some Vulkan init that fails, hope mesa will fix those regressions soon...

Valve release a new stable Steam Client from all the recent Beta builds, nice fixes for Linux
15 June 2019 at 12:17 am UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: gradyvuckovicAll Valve has to do now is offer some kind of option to run your own remote instance of a gaming PC on a Valve server, and connect direct to it, and they'll have an alternative to Stadia. Buy your game on Steam, download it to play it locally, or stream it to any PC or phone/tablet or TV. Stream it from your PC or stream it from a Valve server. All your workshop mods, your cloud saves, your Steam friends, etc, take them all with you anywhere you go.

Buy Portal 2 and download/install it locally to play on your PC, then stream it from your PC to your TV and play it with any controller you want, then stream it from a Valve server to your phone and play it on the train.

If Valve offered that service for free, (which they probably could because the overwhelming majority of users would prefer local gaming so it wouldn't be a commonly used option), Stadia would be dead on arrival.

For Linux (& Mac) gamers, that would mean all those games currently not playable on Linux, the 40% or so of Steam that isn't quite there yet with Proton, would suddenly immediately become playable via an alternative solution, ie: streaming from a Valve server. Effectively bringing all Steam games to Linux.

Boom, no need to ever install Windows for any game on Steam. No need to buy games on Google's or iOS's app store even, just buy it on Steam and stream it to your phone!

I'm calling it, this is what Valve is working towards. Valve is going to make it happen.

They would also have to invest a number of billions in new datacenters and bandwidth for that to happen on the scale that Valve operates (they have roughly 90 million monthly users) and they would have to build them locally all over the world. The costs of running stuff like this is extreme and is why currently only Google is pulling it off (and we don't know yet if they will pull it off).

The other services described in this thread is nowhere near to compete, Shadow seams to have only a small number of servers in California and Geforce Now seams to have only 300k users with some reports that performance is bad during peak hours (but to be honest I have just spent a few minutes googling this).

For what it's worth I worked as the CTO of a Cloud computing startup 11 years ago and had to design stuff like this.

Valve release a new stable Steam Client from all the recent Beta builds, nice fixes for Linux
15 June 2019 at 12:02 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: kuhpunkt
Quoting: jens
Quoting: Mohandevir
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: kuhpunkt
Quoting: gradyvuckovicFor Linux (& Mac) gamers, that would mean all those games currently not playable on Linux, the 40% or so of Steam that isn't quite there yet with Proton, would suddenly immediately become playable via an alternative solution, ie: streaming from a Valve server. Effectively bringing all Steam games to Linux.

The Valve servers would have to run on Windows, though and I highly doubt Valve would want to pay for those licenses.
No they wouldn't, not with Steam Play once it's mature enough.

I suspect SteamStreaming, or SteamCloud (who knows how they will call that), might happen the day SteamPlay/Proton leaves beta and become official. Simultaneous announcements is my guess.

Edit: It can't be too far away, because Valve risks long term damages, if they let users get accustomed to the competitions' solutions (Xcloud or Stadia).

I wonder if Valve is legally allowed to offer everything in your library as a streaming service just like this. I could imagine that existing contracts would need at least some review. This might also be the reason that official Steam Play whitelisting isn't happen that often, even for games that work perfectly well (e.g. TW3). I'm just speculating here though.

They sure can. Services like Geforce Now and Shadow already do that. You just rent a remote computer with those and access your Steam library from there.

The list of supported games on Geforce Now is very very small: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/geforce-now/supported-games/ or am I missing something obvious here? Looking over the Geforece Now site tells me that it works just how Jens wondered, aka they must license each game from the publisher before they can add support for it on their platform.

Shadow I have no idea how they work since they don't offer their service in my country and consequently don't want to shed much information either.