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Latest Comments by g000h
Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass teaser trailer revealed, more to be shown at E3
20 April 2018 at 10:29 am UTC

Now that the Serious Sam Complete Pack is seriously reduced (87% off) on Steam, I'm thinking to buy it again for my second Steam account.

Go Croteam!!! :)

Rise of the Tomb Raider is now officially available on Linux, here’s a look at it with benchmarks
19 April 2018 at 10:40 pm UTC

Got my copy of Rise of the Tomb Raider. Installed it on Debian 9.x with stable Nvidia non-free drivers (approx 375.xx) and it didn't work. But, the Feral Launcher showed up and let me know that my hardware configuration was not suitable (well, the drivers anyway).

So, what did I do... Edited /etc/apt/sources.lst and changed my distribution from Debian 9 (stretch) to Debian 10 testing (buster). After all, this machine is my game playing rig, and I've still got a stable distribution on my other workstation.

The apt-get dist-upgrade didn't go completely well (grrr). But after a fair bit of fiddling I had working gnome3 and Nvidia driver 390.84 which as some people have reported is working for them.

One thing I did was to apt-get remove -purge nvidia* and then re-add the Nvidia bits again, e.g. apt-get install nvidia-driver nvidia-settings nvidia-smi
There was also dpkg --add-architecture i386 and other things to get it all working properly.

Good news. After getting Debian 10 up and running, Rise of the Tomb Raider worked for me too, although Feral's launcher is still reporting that the hardware is not suitable (e.g. Nvidia driver 390.48).

Working for me on 390.48, I put the various settings up to Very High and also set the Resolution to 3840x2160, and YES, it looks lovely and runs at a decent frame-rate. Played just over an hour so far.

Thumbs up to Feral for a good job. :)

Serious Sam 4: Planet Badass teaser trailer revealed, more to be shown at E3
19 April 2018 at 11:31 am UTC

Quoting: BeamboomI'm such a dull person. When I watched the video, I thought, "how can that guy scream "waaaaaaa!" with no head?".

Much like when skeletons are talking and they have no lungs in their chest, let alone vocal cords. Details like that really annoys me.

I really am no fun.

They still got lungs and a hole... hehe

Humble Store is running a sci-fi week with some good Linux titles on offer
17 April 2018 at 11:54 am UTC Likes: 2

Got the full Humble Strategy Bundle and the Humble Monthly myself. I already own all of your Humble Sci-Fi recommendations apart from Avorion (which I'll probably get eventually, but I'm pretty stocked up for titles at the moment, heh).

A recommendation of my own to share:

I know it has been around for a long time - FTL: Faster Than Light is at 75% discount in the Sci-Fi sale (78% with the Monthly Subscription).
Absolutely love this game, played over 200 hours of it. Recently they made some game updates (e.g. being able to resize the play window if you use windowed-mode) which has made a perfect game even better.

One advantage of buying it on Humble - You get the Windows, Mac and Linux Steam key and the DRM-free downloads and the Chrome/Firefox browser game links.

Survival game Rust adds in boats and an exciting Chinook Event
16 April 2018 at 2:59 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: morbiusI tried to play it, always some dipshit with a gun will call you a Jew and shoot you while you're empty handed and naked. A game practically made for internet trolls and sadists. I usually like PvP, but in this game it's beyond bad taste.

You're right that it is the sort of game to attract trolls and bullies. But, not all servers are the same. Some are a lot friendlier than others.

Also, here is some advice for dealing with a "hard" (tough PvP) server:

- Accept that it is going to be hard, and change your play-style to counteract.
- When you first appear, check where you are on the map. Check for Shops and Buildings. If you run into trouble at, say map position H6, then when you re-appear, then avoid that vicinity.
- Aim to create a Storage Box and a Sleeping Bag. Make sure you place them where they are not visible. They should be close to each other, but not too close. Behind rocks, under bushes. Note the map position.
- As you collect and construct things, put spares into your storage. Then if you die you can get stocked up again. Also, when you die it means you don't lose everything. You resurrect at your Sleeping Bag, and then run over to your hidden storage, and grab your stuff.
- Take advantage of the night-time. Avoid using a light source. Use the map to orient yourself. Go out chopping down trees at night. Keep your ears open for rustling leaves. Be ready to hide and stop making noise, when there's anyone around.
- When you've accumulated enough components, build a small base with a locked door. Ideally hidden and NOT near any other player or monument buildings, assuming that you're on a tough PvP server. I like to take advantage of the landscape, so, say a rock cliff protects half my base from attack on one side.
- Ideally have more than one base, with resources split between them. Someone takes down base A, at least you're not back to square one. (You've still got base B.)

Survival game Rust adds in boats and an exciting Chinook Event
16 April 2018 at 2:35 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Beamboom
Quoting: DuncI've hardly played it because the multiplayer-only thing puts me off. I'm not against multiplayer (much), but I like to be able to practice quietly while I learn the ropes without being killed every thirty seconds.

Can't you just fire up your own server to practise on, or isn't it that easy?

It probably is easy to fire up your own one, but it is still more effort and you don't have any one else to interact with.

Here is the one I'm currently using:
UK_Simply_Rust

This is a quiet server where people are generally friendly. I've been playing on this server for about 40 hours in game, across the past 3 weeks. I haven't had a base broken into, as yet. On numerous occasions someone has got close to my character and not attacked. Usually just curious and want to chat.

Answering Beamboom - I don't have any performance problems, and I'm running it at Ultra settings in 4K resolution. Anyone with 4 year old PC and 4 year old gaming graphics should be able to play at 1080p. (Good to have sufficient RAM, though.)

Survival game Rust adds in boats and an exciting Chinook Event
15 April 2018 at 4:07 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: DuncAlthough I got Rust ages ago in a bundle, I've hardly played it because the multiplayer-only thing puts me off. I'm not against multiplayer (much), but I like to be able to practice quietly while I learn the ropes without being killed every thirty seconds. The GOL server sounds interesting, though. Maybe I'll give it a shot sometime...

I've played on a couple of servers, including the GOL one, and had no issue with excessive PvP deaths. If the server you choose is quiet then you'll have an experience not unlike a single-player game. Generally I find there's rarely any fighting unless a few people go for the same air-drop. And you don't need to go after air-drops to progress.

I've been killed more times by the AI Helicopter and AI Bear than real players.

The Humble Strategy Bundle has a few interesting Linux games
12 April 2018 at 12:47 am UTC

Grabbed the full Humble Strategy Bundle, mainly for Tooth and Tail, and less so for the other Linux titles. Adjusted the developer share so that the Linux supporting devs (particularly T and T) receive the larger portion.

Feral Interactive have released an open source tool that’ll help get the most performance out of Linux games
11 April 2018 at 6:51 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: BloomberyHow can i use GameMode on Ubuntu?

The easiest thing to do if you're an Ubuntu user is this - Go to the terminal and type:

sudo apt install cpufrequtils indicator-cpufreq
(and enter)

Once installed you'll have a switch on your menu bar which you can set to "Performance" when wanting to run games and "OnDemand" or "PowerSave" when you want to run normal software.