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Latest Comments by scaine
Intel launches their new CPUs with Radeon RX Vega M Graphics along with two new 'NUC' mini-pc models
8 Jan 2018 at 11:57 pm UTC

Quoting: Luke_Nukem
Quoting: orochi_kyo
Quoting: EagleDeltaI understand your feelings, but if that's how you feel, then you shouldn't use computers.
Such a long post to justify something that actually could be avoided if testing before releasing were done properly, then Intel jumping into new models and products while old stuff is still broken isnt good. Im pretty sure intel will keep pushing new stuff in order that people forget about this meltdown problem because they cant fix it, those models are just too deep broken.
"I understand your feelings" no you dont, and stop telling people to stop using something just because they expect quality and responsibility from manufacturers.
The flaw isn't something that could be tested for. It's an inherent design flaw, a bad decision made in the name of performance. Their reasoning would largely have been "Well, who the hell is going to manage to exploit that?"

Everyone here should read this thread on twitter explaining meltdown and spectre [External Link] instead of making these weird armchair assessments.

The one thing I agree on is that Intel handled it bloody poorly.
Apart from someone trying to use Twitter to explain such a technical subject, I completely agree with you. BUT, while that design decision was made as long ago as 1995 when security was 99th on a list 100 priorities, this is 2018 now and Intel (and AMD and probably to a certain extent ARM) can only be described as wilfully negligent in overlooking this behaviour in the modern day.

As I said earlier, I suspect that Intel knew about this much earlier than June, probably for years and kept a lid on it. Their pushing KASLR so hard (for unrelated attacks, such as KRACKS and the whole Intel ME cock up) was probably done in the hope that a software remedy would be found and accepted early, so that they wouldn't have to acknowledge the extent, reach and scope of this hardware design flaw.

I'm not a fan of the The Register, but they sum it up pretty perfectly here [External Link]:

Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a “bug” or a “flaw” and are unique to Intel products are incorrect.

Translation: Pleeeeeease, pleeeeease do not sue us for shipping faulty products or make us recall millions of chips.
Before the kernel devs called their Kaiser implementation KPTI, they were mulling over whether to call it FUCKWIT [External Link]. I think that tells its own story!

The Signal From Tölva is now officially released for Linux on Steam & GOG
8 Jan 2018 at 6:50 pm UTC

Quoting: SeegrasI played some 7 hours or so yesterday, and it doesn't really feel like I'll finish it soon. Maybe that's because they added stuff, or maybe it's because I just suck, or maybe it's because the fucking pieces of shit of other bots level the same speed as me (what's the use of levels if everything else gets better the same time as you? I hate it).

It's lying in the corner because of shitty leveling mechanics now, together with Borderlands.
I hit a wall with it too, at around... can't remember... level four? It's the final level before your "command robot" tool allows you to control four robots. Once you (somehow) hit that level, the game's a lot easier. I think I ended up sniping from miles away while my two robot companions through themselves to the wolves was I eventually managed to steal a couple of crucial nodes and make that last level jump.

Hope you get back into it though - a lot of fun, despite that bit of frustration!

Intel launches their new CPUs with Radeon RX Vega M Graphics along with two new 'NUC' mini-pc models
8 Jan 2018 at 6:46 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: EagleDelta
Quoting: HoriThe Meltdown vulnerability was the final straw. I completely lost hope in Intel. It's too late to bring me back (and many others).
I understand your feelings, but if that's how you feel, then you shouldn't use computers. ]
The way Intel handled this wasn't bad PR, it's a catastrophe. They were notified in June, did pretty much nothing except push harder for Kaiser (now KPTI in Linux, the fix) to be implemented in various places they had influence.

More damning is one of their chief engineers dumping over $50M of Intel stock this year. Intel are saying "it was a scheduled stock movement", but in fact, it was scheduled in October, long after disclosure of Meltdown in June.

And if you want a conspiracy theory, apparently Intel, as early as January this year, were pushing hard for KASLR adoption across the industry - KASLR is the predecessor to the KPTI/Kaiser fix for Meltdown. So it looks like Intel saw this bombshell coming from a long way off... but continued to sell their faulty processors without any disclosure.

I expect they've just lost a massive amount of pricing power with their (big) cloud customers who will be rightly pissed at their attitude. Playing their cards so close to their chest and the stock dump after disclosure is the icing. I imagine there will be huge lawsuits out of this, and possibly some jail time for insider trading if the SEC get involved.

Fun and games.

SteamOS has a fresh beta update with some major package updates
6 Jan 2018 at 2:44 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: dubigrasuNot many reasons to be disappointed in SteamOS itself. The SteamOS experience (features wise) is as good as the Steam Client allows it to be.
Quoting: dubigrasuAll these feature you want (and we want) belong to the Steam Client, not to SteamOS.
The Steam machines didn't failed because SteamOS wasn't doing its job, they failed because (among other strong reasons) the Big Picture experience as is provided by the Steam Client wasn't up to par with what you find on existing consoles. The disappointment is mostly wrongly directed at SteamOS, which just a vehicle for the Steam Client.
I don't agree here. I don't want Netflix/Spotify/Amazon Prime/whatever support in Steam. But if I buy a Steam Machine, running SteamOS, I want an easy way to access those third party tools, just like my PS4 does.

Sure, SteamOS is linked to Steam, and I get that. But they shouldn't be if they truly want to offer SteamOS as a viable "console" experience. People keep saying "...but SteamOS isn't competing with consoles!!", but if the public see it as a console alternative, then it really, really is competing with consoles. And it fails, badly - more expensive, less AAA games, no third party support. Literally, not a single reason to buy a Steam Machine (except Linux gamers wanting a couch experience) and nothing exciting about running Steam OS otherwise.

I think ElectricPrism nailed it - it's a development target now and nothing more.

SteamOS has a fresh beta update with some major package updates
5 Jan 2018 at 5:15 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Code ArtisanThe steam machine reminds me the Apple Pippin:

  • Hardware same as PC (Macintosh)

  • Running a PC OS (MacOS)

  • Produced by third parties (Bandai)


The Pippin was a huge failure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin [External Link]
That Wikipedia article is gold:

Marketing failure
Once Bandai licensed Pippin from Apple, Apple made no effort to market the Pippin platform. All the marketing was to be done by the licensees.
Sound familiar??

SteamOS has a fresh beta update with some major package updates
5 Jan 2018 at 12:21 am UTC

Quoting: TheRiddickNow all we need is Microsoft to force steam games to sign in through their store system, now that would be funny as all hell! (that originally got valve pushing for SteamOS Linux in the first place)
Would love to see a big MS misstep like that, especially the look on Tim Sweeney's face (Unreal CEO) after all his ranting and inaction on Linux (at least UE4 has some support).

Smaller game devs/publishers probably wouldn't bat an eyelid generally. Instead of giving 30% to Valve, they're giving it to Microsoft? What's it to them? But the big guns? Imagine the outrage if Battle.net, uPlay, Origin, Steam, Galaxy (ha!) were suddenly outlawed by Microsoft. The fireworks would be spectacular!

Here's to an interesting 2018.

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
4 Jan 2018 at 1:48 am UTC

Quoting: kudlatyI usually don't buy Early Access games, but in this case I just had to make an exception. Purchase made.

Edit: It seems I already found a bug. When I change the three letter code for the hull identifier from "PLY" to "C64", the game instantly crashes. Other letter/number combinations, e.g. "DS9" or "A99" apparently work, though?
I buckled like a cheap belt and bought it. And yep, I got the same crash when I entered "SC4". It does, however, pretty clearly say "Three letters only". I blame myself for not reading it properly, but this is a (tiny) lack of polish that will need addressed at some point, for sure.

Love the atmosphere so far. Although, I'm a bit baffled that no-one, anywhere is making fuel, but most of my contract offerings so far are "deliver fuel". If I can't buy it, I certainly can't sell it...

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
3 Jan 2018 at 4:16 pm UTC Likes: 5

Quoting: StrangerLong version : it's pretty hard to test a game for Linux. Some AMD GPUs work with the AMDPRO driver (which apparently works well with UE4?) while most modern hardware works only with the open-source Radeon driver ; and we found that different distributions didn't provide the same level of dependencies to the driver (namely, different versions of LLVM were apparently shipped with the same driver). We try to offer multiple options to help players find a working setup - the stable release channel is currently playable on AMD but features a lighting issue ; while the beta channel was meant to provide Vulkan support to workaround OpenGL issues, but has new, different issues.
I love the die-hard approach, but I do wish you guys would take a more pragmatic approach to supporting Linux. Just aim for Ubuntu as a minimum (or SteamOS of course) and latest stable Nvidia and latest stable Mesa. Once you start extending support (particularly during EA) to multiple platforms, multiple implementations, multiple drivers, it's no wonder devs are sometimes scared of offering Linux support.

Sure, if you have a quiet period and want to help troubleshoot (such as a beta branch), that's really cool. But your game's development is more important, in my opinion.

Related - do you have issues with Windows XP and Vista (no longer supported by Microsoft), or differences between Windows 7, 8, and 10?

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
3 Jan 2018 at 4:09 pm UTC Likes: 2

I suspect I'll end up buying this soon - another game where I break my "no-Early access" rule. Shame about the AMD situation though, but such a great story from these devs that I'd quite like to support it earlier than later.