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Latest Comments by jens
Steam Play Proton 5.13-1 Linux compatibility layer up and ready for testing
17 Oct 2020 at 12:22 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: slapinWell, nothing works on Proton 5.13 due to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/4278 [External Link]
Well, it really depends on the setup. Here on Fedora everything is fine, but according to this post especially Arch users with some weird things installed (steam-native cough) seems to have issues. Steam within Flatpak seems to be another thing that doesn't work now. Not sure though if one of those are relevant for your setup.

Steam Play Proton 5.13-1 Linux compatibility layer up and ready for testing
17 Oct 2020 at 8:28 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Rooster
Quoting: VavooonAlso wondering whether RDR2 works.

BTW this release also includes fix for flickering textures in Just Cause 3 so it's also playable now.
Checked protondb today and it seems it works very well now, without any tweaking (aside from having to kill rdr2.exe process before starting the game):

https://www.protondb.com/app/1174180 [External Link]
I tried RDR2 briefly yesterday, it worked here even without pausing or killing the rdr2 process. I had to do this earlier, but not anymore. I didn't created a new prefix, but just let Proton update my existing prefix shich worked just fine.

Cyberpunk 2077 confirmed for Stadia on November 19
16 Oct 2020 at 8:07 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: robvv
Quoting: GuestI liked the news, Thank you Liam. But stadia is not for me. Streaming is the ultimate DRM.
Agreed. Whilst I appreciate that this excellent website covers all manner of Linux-related gaming, Stadia really isn't Linux gaming as I understand it.
Well, opinions about Stadia may differ of course, but you cannot deny the fact that with Stadia you can fully officially and supported do gaming on Linux :)

Cyberpunk 2077 confirmed for Stadia on November 19
16 Oct 2020 at 7:00 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: jensHaving the technical part solved does not imply that there are no support costs. These are very different things.
It implies that support costs are affordable and not an argument against expanding into Linux gaming market. CDPR CEO said so himself, so I'll refer you to him. So I'm not even going to argue about support cost point - it obscures the real issue.
Politics, personal preferences and beliefs are surely part of it, but ignoring support costs is a very much black and white view. I'll stop here, I don't think whatever I say will reach you.

Cyberpunk 2077 confirmed for Stadia on November 19
16 Oct 2020 at 6:49 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: jensI really don't believe that.
It's up to you, but for me it's obviously a political problem. Technicalities were solved already or can be solved by anyone who doesn't care about the petty politics part.
Having the technical part solved does not imply that there are no support costs. These are very different things.

Cyberpunk 2077 confirmed for Stadia on November 19
16 Oct 2020 at 6:43 pm UTC

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: jensIt is quite a difference to offer support for 10.000 sold copies vs 2.000.000 or more copies. I don't think you can compare both cases.
The support argument is used as an excuse, but the real problem is different - see above.
I really don't believe that.

Cyberpunk 2077 confirmed for Stadia on November 19
16 Oct 2020 at 6:37 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: GuestExcept that it _is_ normal. It's entirely normal for a company to look at the costs of support and factor that into whether a game is released on a given platform, regardless of technical viability.
No, I don't buy the support cost excuse anyone. It's bunk. Not when small studios with much thinner resources can afford it. It's platform politics in its worst form.
It is quite a difference to offer support for 10.000 sold copies vs 2.000.000 or more copies. I don't think you can compare both cases.

NVIDIA release another fresh Vulkan Beta Driver - 455.26.01
12 Oct 2020 at 4:48 am UTC

Nvidia’s ray tracing extension has been superseded by a Khronos raytracing extension, see https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/specs/1.2-extensions/man/html/VK_KHR_ray_tracing.html [External Link]
So it’s no longer Nvidia only.

My experiences of Valve's VR on Linux
4 Oct 2020 at 2:12 pm UTC Likes: 2

New Valve Index user here since a bit more than 48 hours.

The process for getting everything up and running had been somewhat bumpy for me here on Fedora 32 with a GTX 1080, but it was still better and faster than expected. Actually I stood in the SteamVR lobby after ~ 2,5 hours. I didn't had to use any beta version, I just run stable Steam and stable SteamVR.

My lessons learned:
- I had to switch from the latest Nvidia Vulkan Developer driver (455.22.04) to the latest stable (450.66). The Vulkan Developer driver gave me a hard system lookup when the headset was supposed to start. I haven't tried an earlier Vulkan Developer driver.

- The "Restart headset" function in the SteamVR menu is the life saver when the headset wont come to life. Initially I started to reboot my system or tried to reconnect the headset to the GPU (which sometimes worked, sometimes not) when the headset failed to start (red lights on the headset). It took me a few hours to discover that menu entry. Meantime I came close to think that I had already bricked my headset, it would have been useful when a short troubleshooting guide had been included.

- The system menu when being inside SteamVR can be activated by pressing the power button on the controller. The tutorial didn't mentioned this one, thus initially I didn't discover that menu and had to switch quite often between headset on and off.

- Getting the sound to the headset was also initially somewhat exhausting. I guess pulseaudio doesn't switches that easily from one display port sound output to another (I'm also using audio on my main screen via hdmi audio). In the end I spend some time into pactl and came up with `pacmd set-card-profile 0 output:hdmi-stereo-extra2` to do the re-routing with just one command.
I do have to restart pulseaudio after coming back from suspend and have to enjoy a few minutes of crackling when sound is played, though it has always been like this on my machine.The volume control in the SteamVR menu isn't working here unfortunately.

I've mostly played in the lobby with different environments. I tried two games, Elite Dangerous and DCS. Both are a bit tricky to get started in Proton, but once they started normally, they also started flawlessly in VR. Pretty impressive! I do see that I'm now missing a lot of GPU power :). When I switch to "low VR" setting in ED, it is really playable. With higher settings I'm experiencing a lot of jitter (I hope this is the correct term). I guess this is the missing async reprojection feature? I haven't played much with the SteamVR settings, expect setting the headset frequency to 90 Hz.

I tried some video players in Steam, none of them worked. Using the player that had been mentioned earlier here (https://git.dec05eba.com/vr-video-player/) I could enjoy the IMAX countdown from https://kodi.wiki/view/Samples#3D_Test_Clips [External Link] in full 3D which is also pretty cool.

Finally, thanks a lot @Patola for recommending the full kit. Initially I wasn't sure if I wanted the controllers since I wanted to go mostly for flight/racing simulations, but now I'm really glad that I have them! The experience in the SteamVR lobby alone are worth it.

Overall I'm really glad with the kit and how it works on Linux. Now it's time to keep an eye on the GPU market!

PS: I can also hear the noise of the base station. Having a reachable power switch for them is also a must for me.

Valve developer shows off Gamescope for Linux at XDC 2020
18 Sep 2020 at 4:49 pm UTC

Quoting: Phlebiac
Quoting: bisbyxI have no idea if there is any "bad blood" between X and Wayland devs
The X devs turned into Wayland devs; no one is really working on X11 any more.
Well, it makes a lot of sense if you just think Wayland = X12.