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Latest Comments by Ananace
Valve talk about learning from mistakes with the upcoming Steam Deck
2 August 2021 at 11:39 am UTC

Quoting: dindon
Quoting: kuhpunktIsn't the Steam Deck also just a Steam Machine? It's a PC with SteamOS preinstalled.

Custom APU, handheld, new OS adapted to form-factor, no man in between as Valve build the whole thing whereas for Steam Machine I believe Valve only released the OS. Quite different I'd say.

Well, Valve provided the OS and the general dimensions and performance metrics they wanted the Steam Machine consoles to aim for. So they wouldn't have someone just stuff a cheap NUC into a fancy case and call it a day.

If they'd had Proton at that time I bet it would've been a completely different story in how successful it would've been.

Valve talk about learning from mistakes with the upcoming Steam Deck
2 August 2021 at 10:00 am UTC Likes: 7

I'm really hoping that we'll see the end of Linux "ports" with this, and instead actually get games to develop with it as a native target and not something you need to hire a consultancy firm to develop as an afterthought.
Nothing at all against the likes of Aspyr or Feral, but since they're not the original developer they just can't guarantee to keep parity and pace with the "real" version of the game, and that can actually hurt the Linux gamers when their friends are on other platforms.

Had times where I've had to switch away from the native builds simply because a patch released recently and the port hadn't had time to be updated in time for when friends wanted to play, and once that happens then it usually ends up easier to just stay on the Proton-wrapped Windows version instead of flip-flopping between the two.

Garry Newman of Facepunch mentions working with EAC for Rust on Linux with Proton
28 July 2021 at 11:18 am UTC

Hopefully this'll be true for S&box as well, currently waiting for my key so I can start seeing how Proton-friendly it is.

Ryan Gordon and Ethan Lee on Proton and the Steam Deck
22 July 2021 at 4:10 am UTC Likes: 5

I think that one of the things people don't consider in this whole conversation is this;
The cost to develop support for a new platform in a game - either through a port or by fixing up the codebase to be cross-platform - isn't that high in the grand scheme of things, and in the case of Proton it can literally be free for many games.
What actually costs money in having another platform on your "supported platforms" list though is the ongoing costs required for actually supporting your customers on the platform, something that Proton will not really help you with in any particular regard.

And since I doubt Valve are going to allow games to sell Steam Deck/SteamOS/Linux support without actually delivering - see Batman: Arkham Knight as one example of a game not delivering, the developers that want to market their game as working on the Deck will have to do their Linux support regardless. And since Proton as a platform is something they don't have any real control over, and that it can change under their feet at any moment - potentially requiring them to fix code that was working just moments ago, the economics for actually doing a proper native version will most likely prevail in the end. If only so that they won't have to do refunds - or answer tough questions on why their game should be allowed to be marketed to Deck users if they can't promise a working experience.

TI10: The International for Dota 2 may not happen in Sweden now as it's not elite enough
22 June 2021 at 7:39 pm UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: F.UltraJust to clarify the
QuoteValve had meetings, and spoke to the Swedish Minister of the Interior to get it reclassified which was "immediately denied". Valve also appealed directly to the Swedish government who claimed they couldn't help with it.

So the "Swedish Sports Federation" Riksidrottsförbundet (or RF as they are known in Sweden) have zero to do with the Government so the Government and the Minister of the Interior have zero say in what they do or don't do (unless they break the law of course).

Aka RF is a non political people/social movement and 100% private.

edit: and It's against the corona lockdown rules to gather so many people in a single arena unless it's a "sporting event". Which of course is quite logical if you think about it since the thought behind allowing more people to be at the same place in a outdoors activity such as a sport event does not really match that of a Dota2 tournament.

edit2: Not really sure how Valve intended that classifying it as a sports event would solve anything though. The current restrictions for sports events are: Max 50 people for indoor events with designated seats, max 100 people for outdoor events without designated seats and max 500 for outdoor events with designated seats.

And of course, the correct thing to do here is not to try and - as Valve attempted - classify e-sport as an "idrott" - which is what Riksidrottsförbundet have influence over, but rather to get a proper classification for non-physical sports and so prepare rules that allow for such events as well.

It's not just e-sports that have been denied allowances either. Both bridge and chess tournaments have equally had sporting visas denied so far, because of the simple reason that Sweden only has special rules in place for "idrott", not "sport". (The words in Swedish have a slightly different meaning; "idrott" being more a physical activity that could be for training - like football, yoga, swimming, or jogging. And "sport" being more something you could compete in - like chess, hockey, spelling contests, or speed climbing)

Atari VCS finally actually launches (in the US) on June 15
3 June 2021 at 10:46 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: dubigrasuI don't have the hardware itself, but I do have the OS (it was uploaded by some Youtuber > and promptly taken down afterwards) and I must say that is pretty neat.
It recognized most of my controller and got into some games right away. It has that retro feel look and sound overall and I can see why nostalgic gamers might love it.

Definitely agree about the OS, threw some money at them for the cheap-tier on the crowdfunding campaign - mostly because of the Linux aspect. The controllers are rather good, and the UI they've built definitely provokes the right feel for it. Personally hoping to see some good results from their store once they start opening it up for more developers.

A possible light at the end of the tunnel for GPU shortages thanks to Ethereum
24 May 2021 at 2:05 pm UTC Likes: 10

Quoting: Samsai
Quoting: AnanaceYou're thinking of Proof-of-Storage, not Proof-of-Stake, both acronym down to PoS but are wildly different.
Proof-of-Storage, Proof-of-Stake, Piece-of-Shit... it all kinda blends together in the world of cryptocurrencies.

Well, one causes harddrives to become a scarce resource for the entire population, the other only causes cryptocurrency miners to complain.

I'll take Proof-of-Stake over Proof-of-Storage/Work/etc any day of the week, I quite like having hardware actually be available for purchase.

A possible light at the end of the tunnel for GPU shortages thanks to Ethereum
24 May 2021 at 12:22 pm UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: ZlopezI would be rather skeptical about this, because consuming less energy doesn't really mean that more GPU less profit. But if most of the GPUs will just lay in the mining rig with minimal load I would say that miners will get rid of them.

EDIT: I didn't realized that PoS is actually the disk mining. In this case we didn't solve much, we just exchanged GPU shortage for HDD/SSD shortage.

You're thinking of Proof-of-Storage, not Proof-of-Stake, both acronym down to PoS but are wildly different.
Proof-of-Storage requires harddrive space, Proof-of-Stake instead bases the whole blockchain off of the stake people have in it, basically using the ETH that's already been mined as a proof of stake in the handling of transactions.

TUXEDO release the configurable InfinityBook Pro 14 with a crisp 16:10 display
20 May 2021 at 2:22 pm UTC

Must say that TUXEDO have been quite nice, got their InfinityBook Pro 15 (v4) myself, haven't got any complaints about the machine itself - even though I've been a bit clumsy with it and managed to break some plastic off due to dropping it.

Now if they could only do a refresh of that one (or the InfinityBook S 15) with a nice new screen like this.
Gotta have that numpad after all.

David Rosen of Wolfire Games explains why they're taking on Valve in a lawsuit
7 May 2021 at 9:34 am UTC Likes: 12

I personally understand why Steam would want to have the requirement for price equivalency, it makes no sense for them to host a game for someone - and incurring costs on their platform for that - if the original person is going to undercut them from day one. No other storefront would go for that deal either.
Their agreement even states an allowance for price differences in the form of sales, as long as you agree to also give Steam users similar sales so that they're not treated worse than other customers.