Latest Comments by Pikolo
The Linux market share on Steam is at a 14 month high as of September 2018
2 Oct 2018 at 11:07 am UTC Likes: 2
I fully expect more states to start their national distro's as a cost saving measure, with business licenses for Windows increasing as a proportion of software licensing cost. This won't happen in the USA, but it might happen in Europe(France already provides Linux as one of the two OS's on parliamentary laptops) or in China/Saudi Arabia/Brazil. It's an interesting tactic to keep homegrown IT talent in the country.
2 Oct 2018 at 11:07 am UTC Likes: 2
Quoting: TPhasterWhy wouldn't they? Ubuntu Kylin is sponsored by the Chinese academy of sciences and Windows 10's snooping is a competitor to the great firewall. There is a reason the only North Korean OS was Android based - Linux is the easiest place to start. A Chinese company recently bought the license from AMD to make Ryzens and 4.18 saw them supported in the mainline Linux kernel.Quoting: SadLWhat I see is a massive 30% still using Windows 7. This might be our ticket to success. We got one year to improve Linux gaming. Windows 7 EOF is January 2020. If we could get even 1/10 of those users.Aren't most of these people Chinese? If so, they almost certainly won't switch to Linux.
I fully expect more states to start their national distro's as a cost saving measure, with business licenses for Windows increasing as a proportion of software licensing cost. This won't happen in the USA, but it might happen in Europe(France already provides Linux as one of the two OS's on parliamentary laptops) or in China/Saudi Arabia/Brazil. It's an interesting tactic to keep homegrown IT talent in the country.
An update on the status of porting Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation for Linux
22 Sep 2018 at 10:18 am UTC Likes: 5
22 Sep 2018 at 10:18 am UTC Likes: 5
It will be very interesting how Ashes of the Benchmark Vulkan performance compares between Linux and Windows. I've heard Stardock literally set the bar on performance optimizations in the Windows version of the game, so it should give us another interesting comparison between different Vulkan drivers.
And obviously, it's lovely to hear about their "Linux as a bridge to consoles" approach and I hope more studios take it - more games are always welcome
And obviously, it's lovely to hear about their "Linux as a bridge to consoles" approach and I hope more studios take it - more games are always welcome
Valve have been fined 147 thousand euros in France
18 Sep 2018 at 6:21 pm UTC Likes: 4
To put that into human words: if you can't buy the same product without Windows, you might be able to get it refunded.
18 Sep 2018 at 6:21 pm UTC Likes: 4
Quoting: x_wingWell, today I was reading about refund policies for Windows OEM and end up reading Microsoft EULA:The EU law did at one point state that you can't be required to accept all parts of a package deal and can return parts of it, provided that you can't obtain a part of the the package otherwise. There was a case of a french woman who managed to refund her OEM license, and soon after Dell started the Developer edition, to show that you can buy their laptops(at least the non-gaming ones) without a Windows license.
By accepting this agreement or using the software, you agree to all of these terms, and consent to the transmission of certain information during activation and during your use of the software as per the privacy statement described in Section 3. If you do not accept and comply with these terms, you may not use the software or its features. You may contact the device manufacturer or installer, or your retailer if you purchased the software directly, to determine its return policy and return the software or device for a refund or credit under that policy. You must comply with that policy, which might require you to return the software with the entire device on which the software is installed for a refund or credit, if any.So, if you're lucky enough, you can actually get a Microsoft refund for an OEM key you never used on your computer. The ugly part is that it could also mean that the manufacturer could decide to ask you to return the whole computer. Maybe in first world countries you can refund the key... would be nice to know if this refund policy works in the EU.
To put that into human words: if you can't buy the same product without Windows, you might be able to get it refunded.
GOG have gone on the offensive with their new 'FCK DRM' initiative
22 Aug 2018 at 7:00 pm UTC
22 Aug 2018 at 7:00 pm UTC
Quoting: einherjarI don`t trust them.The official version is that the Witcher 3 CD release had DRM which got cracked while the online(aka. through GOG) release didn't. And I think both happened simultaneously
I AFAIK the witcher 2 and 3 where Denuvo tempered.
Cyberpunk will surely not be DRM free in the first weeks.
I can`t remember that CDPR does something for Linux since the one port of Witcher 2.
So no Bucks from me. (Except old games for less then 5€ to try them on wine - maybe there is no need for this anymore because of Proton)
Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine
21 Aug 2018 at 11:08 pm UTC Likes: 3
21 Aug 2018 at 11:08 pm UTC Likes: 3
I think Wine will be the biggest benefactor... it might even be more stable than Win 10 in the long run. Though I'm happy to see Valve setup Wine for me. It'll save me quite a bit of time
The next Linux patch for Civilization VI will be out soon with cross-platform online play
21 Aug 2018 at 10:46 pm UTC
21 Aug 2018 at 10:46 pm UTC
Quoting: EikeThis actually comes down to the implementation details. 64 bit doubles the number of registers you have and guarantees AVX2 support, so there are non-trivial gains to be made by making tight loops contain slightly more variables and vectorising calculations, but I doubt they'd do such a fundamental engine rework as a patch.Quoting: MayeulCAlso, 64-bit is not a big performance boost for games that are GPU bottlenecked. Civilisation actually is CPU bottlenecked on enemy turns, so in this instance, it could be... if Civ 6 already wasn't 64-bit.There's no severe performance boost to be expected on CPU either.
Combat helicopters are coming to War Thunder in the next update
21 Aug 2018 at 10:40 pm UTC Likes: 1
Boats are still "in testing", aka. pay to play. They keep introducing bigger ones - Corvetes and Destroyers are current biggest, but who knows how far will the tree reach.
21 Aug 2018 at 10:40 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: razing32Uhm , two things :No idea about 1, but since some of the tanks in game go up to the 70s and there is talk of early guided missiles, I'm sure they'll fit them in somewhere. It's not like anybody with a life can ever reach them... Seriously, I've been playing WT for 5 years now and I barely have 3 tier 4 machines...
1. The game start you out at WW2 tanks. Exactly at what tier are they going to be available ? Aka how much grind to play them ?
2. Weren't they working on boats at one point ? Did that get scrapped alltogether ?
Boats are still "in testing", aka. pay to play. They keep introducing bigger ones - Corvetes and Destroyers are current biggest, but who knows how far will the tree reach.
The next Linux patch for Civilization VI will be out soon with cross-platform online play
9 Aug 2018 at 8:33 pm UTC
Also, 64-bit is not a big performance boost for games that are GPU bottlenecked. Civilisation actually is CPU bottlenecked on enemy turns, so in this instance, it could be... if Civ 6 already wasn't 64-bit.
9 Aug 2018 at 8:33 pm UTC
Quoting: MayeulCI'm quite hyped for this!Many games are 64 bit already. They even list `64-bit Linux` in requirements. The Steam client doesn't have to be 64-bit to enable 64-bit games, it'll just allow people to skip installing 32-bit libraries at all.
Question: I read in the article comments about Steam's possible 64bit update that the game is 32bit. Could this update bring 64bit to the table as well? If it's just a matter of recompiling (and performing QA >< though that could be a beta), I'd be thrilled if Aspyr did just that!
Also, 64-bit is not a big performance boost for games that are GPU bottlenecked. Civilisation actually is CPU bottlenecked on enemy turns, so in this instance, it could be... if Civ 6 already wasn't 64-bit.
War Thunder currently has a Vulkan renderer under development that you can try out
9 Aug 2018 at 8:27 pm UTC
https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/402831-v177-and-20fps-and-black-blotches-on-ground/&do=findComment&comment=7611241 [External Link]
9 Aug 2018 at 8:27 pm UTC
Quoting: TheRiddickWanted to do some testing under Windows10, and well it doesn't work I suspect it's exclusively being tested under Linux atm. Would have been nice to do some comparisons of win/lin driver performance.The person who published a post about how to activate Vulkan plays both on Linux and Windows, and they described the Windows method which quickly got ported to Linux, where it makes a bigger difference:
https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/402831-v177-and-20fps-and-black-blotches-on-ground/&do=findComment&comment=7611241 [External Link]
An interview with the CEO of Gaijin, developer of War Thunder, about supporting Linux and working with the Vulkan API
27 Jun 2018 at 11:10 am UTC
27 Jun 2018 at 11:10 am UTC
I'm one of the thousands of Linux WT players, I've been playing since before I jumped the Windows ship.
There are some bugs, for example when I used it, the non-steam Linux download links wouldn't work and I had to dig up an updater script to get a working version of the launcher and V-synch still doesn't work(though that might be Nvidia's fault, I don't play many other games without a locked refresh rate) and the Ground Forces Performance is subooptimal - I get ~40 FPS with high settings on a 1050Ti that should be more than enough for stable 60 FPS. The Air Force performance is much better, though I don't find that mode engaging.
Overall it's a really god game on low-middle tiers, with terrible balance and grind problems on the high tiers, which is about what you'd expect from a F2P game. I do have a single premium tank and that has to foot the bills for other machines.
There are some bugs, for example when I used it, the non-steam Linux download links wouldn't work and I had to dig up an updater script to get a working version of the launcher and V-synch still doesn't work(though that might be Nvidia's fault, I don't play many other games without a locked refresh rate) and the Ground Forces Performance is subooptimal - I get ~40 FPS with high settings on a 1050Ti that should be more than enough for stable 60 FPS. The Air Force performance is much better, though I don't find that mode engaging.
Overall it's a really god game on low-middle tiers, with terrible balance and grind problems on the high tiers, which is about what you'd expect from a F2P game. I do have a single premium tank and that has to foot the bills for other machines.
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