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Latest Comments by Geopirate
Leaving Lyndow removes Linux support from Steam due to masses of bug reports
27 Jun 2017 at 8:43 am UTC

Quoting: Doc Angelo
Quoting: slaapliedjePretty sure anyone on the planet that uses Ubuntu to game on isn't going to stick with such an old distribution.
Thanks for the info that the extended period is for paying costumers. Ubuntu 12.04 was still supported just a few months ago. And I know people who had 12.04 on their systems just a few months ago. Not everyone wants to upgrade everything all the time. I've running Debian Stable now, and intend to do so as long as it is supported.
Debian stable is only a few weeks old currently. It's way more up to date than even Ubuntu 14.04 and arguably rivals 16.04.2.

Planetary Annihilation: TITANS updated and still alive, adds new free commanders and more
27 Jun 2017 at 8:27 am UTC

I actually was a kick starter backer from when they initially added Linux support to the alpha version of the game. The game was OK, but I never really had the enjoyment I had from Supreme Commander. The developers did some shady things, and it seemed their interest in Linux was never in creating a smooth experience. I spent all that money to play it on Linux but the Windows client was always a lot more polished.

I stopped playing when they announced you had to pay for Titans to get the full game experience that was promised initially....

The big SteamOS update that drops AMDGPU-PRO in favour of Mesa has left beta
6 Jun 2017 at 8:17 pm UTC Likes: 1

IMO they were too early with SteamOS for their intended use case/audience. These things are supposed to compete with a console that's just plug and play.

As others on the thread have said you need some Linux knowledge to troubleshoot issues. In the next year, we should actually have wider Wayland adoption, merged DC/DAL in mainline and more solid Vulkan infrastructure. Hopefully the Nvidia Wayland issue will also get worked out. They will also move steam over to Debian 9 which has been much smoother for gaming for me at least for the last 6 months or so compared to Debian 8.

The Ashes of the Singularity Linux request topic has more requests than the game has reviews
6 Jun 2017 at 6:42 am UTC

Quoting: melkemindThis is why I kind of don't like when devs make open-ended statements about requests to show interest. They've still really made no commitment. They can always just keep saying there's "not enough." I think it would be more professional to say, "I'd like to see at least X number of requests." This is about money after all. They should be able to crunch the numbers and set a target for profitability.
Well this is a different situation from most because this is a small company that self publishes. So if the CEO says he's interested there's no overlord for him to point to later saying this was vetoed from above. They also have smaller sales goals than a lot of games of this caliber so thousands of players on Linux would be statistically significant.

AMD Ryzen 9 'Threadripper' announced with up to 16 cores
19 May 2017 at 3:40 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: MayeulC
Quoting: STiATJust 16? Ohh :-(. I have 4, the upgrade is almost not worth it XD.
Don't worry, it makes for 32 threads with SMT. Oh, well, you can still wait for the Epyc server chip, which has 32 cores, which makes 64 threads, if that's not enough.

One thing to note is that it is quite close to NUMA architecture (multi-socket), powered by AMD's "Infinity Fabric" (some sort of memory exchange bus similar to PCI). Non-NUMA aware workloads might perform less well on such architectures, but it was already the same on the Ryzen 7, that had two "core complexes". Hopefully, the scheduler will help with that, if the workloads don't do anything stupid like start a thread on each core when memory locality is critical.

Look at those server chips, man... *goes back counting his (few) banknotes*
I'm very suspicious that's why they launched the R7 and R5 chips first to get them out there so developers could get cracking on those optimizations with this 6 month lead time. I think a lot of these "Ryzen" optimizations that were pumped out so quickly are in this arena. By the time people get their hands on Threadripper those optimizations will already be in software for the bulk of applications and already ready to go.

Here’s some interesting answers from Gabe Newell and Valve from the reddit AMA
18 Jan 2017 at 7:00 am UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: RussianNeuroMancer
Quoting: sarmadValve is now also over-relying on Windows and have an alternative that they are not brave enough to push full-speed
Right now Linux gaming not in the state that can be accepted by general audience. Many papercuts need to be fixed first (like Steam Runtime issues, Mesa-specific games issues, and get-this-damn-Optimus-tearfree issues, etc.) Maybe a little bit later, when new Steam Beta with Steam Runtime fixes will be pushed to stable channel, stable Ubuntu get Xorg Server 1.19 and Mesa with many game-specific fixes? Yep, I wish that happen ^_^
This is a super important point that a lot of the Linux community is completely ignoring. Other gamers are not interested in dropping to the command line and searching dozens of forum posts to get a game working. We need widespread Wayland adoption and we need a smooth Vulkan experience. Nvidia dominates Windows as well as Linux to a lesser degree in the steam surveys and their driver situation needs to get worked out for Wayland. AMD's open driver is still a work in progress and HDMI audio is a major pain point still.

He did post a lengthy response about SUPPORT and that really highlights the current state of Linux gaming. Some people have already purchased real steam machines and they aren't grizzled Linux veterans so they are really disappointed with their gaming experience. Valve has to deal with this and it costs them money. I know a couple people that recently joined their support staff and they are getting PAID.

Editorial: The Nintendo Switch will use Vulkan, why that doesn't suddenly mean more Linux ports
25 Dec 2016 at 10:31 pm UTC

There are a few important things that are missed here.

First, the mobile market is largest, then the console market, THEN the PC market is smallest. PC here includes Windows/Mac/Linux/BSD/etc. PC gamers are still only ~ 30% of the console market. This is the reason AMD is still relevant even though they get crushed by Nvidia in the PC market.

With this in mind the real battle here is DX12 vs Vulkan. The Xbox uses DX and that's why games are developed with DX12 still, the Windows market is an afterthought. The Linux market is then a footnote. Some companies just make games for the PC market and they have a much smaller userbase so a few hundred Linux users can make a significant difference. This is why these porting companies even exist.

The switch announcement is big because it will push more developers to just write their game for Vulkan once and they can run it on every platform with less effort than what's currently needed for an OpenGL port.

The other thing that's kind of off topic but important is that Vulkan drivers for mobile are way better than anything else available. This is going to push adoption there regardless of anything else, which will likely trickle down. This is also likely why this decision was made for the Switch. It makes much more sense for the Switch to be an overpowered smartphone than it does to be a stripped down PS4. They also announced that this is not going to be a WiiU replacement and they are still continuing that line of products.