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Latest Comments by Pikolo
Deadlock from Valve gets 6 new experimental heroes and new stylized rendering of heroes
25 Oct 2024 at 6:53 pm UTC Likes: 1

A `Commend` is not a thing, commend is purely a verb. A `Commendation` is likely what they're going for...

The latest free games with Prime Gaming - October 25 edition - lots for Steam Deck / Linux
25 Oct 2024 at 5:40 pm UTC Likes: 1

Monster Train is definitely the highlight - I've had that on my wishlist for a while!

NVIDIA 565.57.01 Beta has Wayland and HDR improvements, plus DXVK and VKD3D optimizations
22 Oct 2024 at 9:15 pm UTC Likes: 5

Quoting: StellaWhy are these Linux patch notes always so cryptic :cry: in the Windows Patch notes, you read things like 'game ready driver for this and that', 'optimal settings for this and that', 'fixed this bug'. Whereas with the Linux drivers i feel like I need a degree to understand that. What the frick is VK_EXT_depth_clamp_control for example
A Vulkan extension. https://registry.khronos.org/vulkan/specs/1.3-extensions/man/html/VK_EXT_depth_clamp_control.html [External Link]
You can see which driver supports which extensions on https://mesamatrix.net/ [External Link], except proprietary drivers are missing from there.

Windows release notes are written for gamers, hoping they update drivers or are encouraged by game developers to do so.
Linux release notes are written for compositor developers, game developers and distro graphics drivers maintainers, to let them know if it's worth backporting a driver to a stable release and which workarounds they can try disabling.

Mojang give an update on the future of Minecraft development
10 Sep 2024 at 4:49 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: nwildnerThat is huge when we are talking about 7y old kids playing, with no mouse ability whatsoever. And this is something that could break more often if Microsoft decides to release updates in a faster pace.
You might want to get your nephew a really small mouse and keyboard instead - not being able to use both at 7y seems like a serious impediment at school.

Terrorformer TD is a seriously good tower defense game where you shape the battlefield
10 Sep 2024 at 4:44 pm UTC

I tried this one as a demo, and it got repetitive fast. The optimal strategy is to build a wall of turrets asap, an as turrets can't be moved by environmental disasters, the fully counters the game's standout feature. Eventually, waves become a slow slog, with certain bosses only going down when pausing the game and spamming a few thousand spells to hit at a single point (some enemies have insane healing)

Terrorformer TD is a tower defense roguelite with a map you terraform as you go
12 Jun 2024 at 7:56 pm UTC

I tried it - it's a fun concept, but the performance is terrible. For how simple the graphics look, I didn't expect the lag on explosions to be so bad

Linux user share on Steam breaks 2% thanks to Steam Deck
2 Jun 2024 at 10:34 am UTC Likes: 1

`Ubuntu Core 22 64 bit` is probably the snap version of Steam - is the the default packaging on Ubuntu 24.04?
Ah, Ubuntu changed the default package type found in software centre to be snap, and Steam snap is out of beta.

No leaving a Steam account in a will after you die according to Valve
30 May 2024 at 1:14 pm UTC

Quoting: bonkmaykr
Quoting: TheRiddickI wonder if Valve will setup a expected death of account owner timer. So once you turn 80yo they consider you dead and invalidate your entire library, lol. That would be dystopian but I suspect in 40years time we will all have MUCH more pressing issues to deal with other then computer stuff.
GDPR has already been pushing tech companies to nuke accounts after 2 years so it actually could very well happen.
2 years after you stop using it - so long as you keep logging in, you should be good.

No leaving a Steam account in a will after you die according to Valve
28 May 2024 at 6:37 pm UTC Likes: 3

Allowing games to be heritable lowers the rate of amortization. Sorry for bringing accounting terms into a gaming discussion, but it's important to recognise Valve's motivation.

When you buy a game, the publisher can't recognise 100% of the sale price as revenue straight away. They have to leave some part of the sale price for amortising the future cost of supporting the game - servers making downloads available in the future, developers fixing incompatibilities with OS upgrades, developing new features if a game ships with a roadmap and the publisher honestly wants to deliver it. You should only recognise the revenue proportionally to the remaining cost of the game. This means you should aim to only recognise the full revenue when the game requires no further support.

You can be a terrible company and cancel support soon, or you can give it a reasonable period. Steam allows you to download a game as long as possible("lifetime"), but this gives them amortization periods of up to 100 years! If you could inherit a Steam account, the period could potentially be infinite. That's why they're saying the game on device is yours to play with, but they don't want to make any commitments about making it available for download to your successors.

Secondly, with the exception of first party games, it's not Valve's decision. They can't change the rules for games that have already been published. They could change the rules for games released in the future, but this would result in publisher pushback.

LPCAMM2 upgradeable RAM for laptops sounds awesome
13 May 2024 at 1:41 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: emphy
Laptop RAM has been a problem for quite a long time, and while there's various laptops out there that do have somewhat easily upgradable RAM there's plenty that don't. One of the major reasons being power-draw in tech like SODIMM (which is pretty old now)
Another one being product segmentation. Guess what I suspect will turn out to be the bigger consideration for major manufacturers.
Product segmentation is less of a factor than you think.

Manufacturers have to balance the reduction in the BOM (Bill Of Materials) from integrating all the components against the increase in SKUs (Stock Keeping Units). Most of the time, it's only the biggest manufacturers for whom the math comes out in favour of more SKUs. That's why Apple can afford to soldier all the RAM - they sell enough that the saving from using slightly less materials outweighs the saving from from making more computers. If you look at smaller manufacturers, their math makes it more favourable to have adjustable RAM