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Latest Comments by Dunc
Valve are already pushing ahead with updates to Steam Play's Proton with a beta channel
25 Aug 2018 at 3:58 pm UTC Likes: 8

Quoting: Nevertheless
Quoting: GustyGhost"Valve bows down in submission, accepts Microsoft proprietary standards as de facto."
Oh yes. Microsoft will be so happy about this move!
I said it before: embrace, extend...

Valve are giving Microsoft a taste of their own medicine. How strong a dose remains to be seen, but I'm sure - whether GabeN and co. actually think of it in those terms or not - that's what's going on.

Feral Interactive are teasing a brand new native Linux port
25 Aug 2018 at 1:57 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Expalphaloga symbol used by the Knights Templar.
It's never going to be an Assassin's Creed game, but let the speculation begin... :D

Feral Interactive are teasing a brand new native Linux port
24 Aug 2018 at 5:21 pm UTC Likes: 4

My immediate thought was Mount & Blade: Bannerlord, since a previous release was “With Fire & Sword”, but I think that's paradoxically* both too on-the-nose and not close enough. :)

I suspect Expalphalog might be on to something with “forge”. But I don't really follow games that aren't already on Linux very closely, so I'm struggling to think of recent ones with “forge” in the title. I'm sure there are some.

*See what I did there? Also, it's unlikely Feral would port a Paradox title.

Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine
22 Aug 2018 at 4:13 pm UTC Likes: 9

Quoting: MohandevirI don't know if it's been mentionned, this thread is way too long to read through, but Proton might become a Windows programming standard to create a Linux "plug&play" experience. Hiring qualified Linux developpers seem to be a problem for many game studios. If they start programming their Windows build with Proton in mind, they will have to maintain only one build, thus reducing the cost of Linux development. The resulting experience, as per Valve say, should be 1:1 on both platform. Linux will get more quality supported titles this way... I see it as a Win-Win situation.

In a couple of years, if ever Linux gets a 5% to 10% Steam market share and depending on what happens with UWP, we might see true linux native builds of new games, but at the moment, I think it's the best solution for Linux gaming adoption.
That's the view I'm coming round to myself. You have to look at it from Valve's point of view, seeing SteamOS as a platform, rather than ours, simply wanting more native Linux games. I think they're adopting something similar to “embrace, extend, extinguish” against Microsoft itself.

You see, it's easy to look at this and think that it means there'll be no point in developing native games any more, but if Valve can make SteamOS (forget the wider Linux ecosystem for a moment) a more attractive option for playing Windows games than Windows itself - free, maybe eventually more stable, better “quality of life” - even just for 10% of the market, then it's a net win. Just as an example to illustrate the way I'm thinking here, this will make any future generation of Steam Machines infinitely more attractive than the first one, especially once more of the bugs have been ironed out. Once they've gained a foothold in the market, Valve could then deprecate Proton for the next generation.

It's almost like taking a step back in order to be able to make more steps forward in the future.

Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine
22 Aug 2018 at 12:10 am UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: GuestI thought about Skyrim but even if i heard it worked with proton i still wouldn't buy it. I will support those who bring Linux native games.
That's my feeling too. My “five-year rule” stays. It's still Wine, just more convenient.

I think that's (more or less) Valve's attitude as well. Yes, maybe this will lead some developers to think Linux support isn't worth it, but it's important to note that they can't advertise it as SteamOS compatibility. And as far as I can make out, publishers themselves can't even advertise Steam Play support - i.e., being on the whitelist - itself; that's Valve's perogative. So actually, I'm not sure it changes much except making life a bit easier for us Linux users.

As an aside, I'm quite gratified to see that this seems to be almost exactly what I said they should do a few months back when we were all discussing whether Wine should be integrated into Steam: i.e., rather than blanket integration, make it an option for devs who genuinely can't support Linux for whatever reason, with Valve overseeing some kind of quality control so that people can't just dump stuff on Steam expecting it to work. Yes, in reality they've given us the “unverified” option, but it's made pretty clear that it's not the default.

But i have a few win games from bundles i will try...
Same here.

Pro tip: my WINEARCH defaults to win32. Putting “WINEARCH=win64 %command%” in the launch options helps. D'oh! Don't have any sound for some reason. I'll have to look into that, but it's getting late now...

Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine
21 Aug 2018 at 10:28 pm UTC Likes: 2

It currently has a limited set of games that are supported
That's sensible. And honestly, I hope there's going to be some kind of certification process for this long-term, rather than simply declaring open season once it's out of beta. It doesn't matter how much better Proton is compared to vanilla Wine, everything isn't going to work perfectly out of the box. They need to keep control, and convince developers that native is still preferable.

Holy shit. Please excuse the language, but honestly, I'm physically shaking right now I don't quite know how to process this.
Completely forgiven. I mean, that was quick from rumour to confirmation. What happened to Valve Time? The speed of DXVK development suddenly makes sense now, though. :)

Edit: Not directly relevant to us, but I see MoltenVK in the GitHub repo, so they must be aiming at unifying gaming across the entire Steam platform. Nice.

Set Phasers to fun! Stage 9 lets you explore the Enterprise-D from Star Trek The Next Generation on Linux
13 Aug 2018 at 11:34 pm UTC

TNG's probably my least favourite Trek (not a massive Trek fan at all, truth be told*; TOS FTW though), but that is freakin' awesome. :woot:

Love the holodecks and the easter eggs. The one in Engineering is hilarious!

*I did once have a girlfriend** who knew every episode by heart. I'd be talking about “You know, that one where they...”, and she'd say, “Yeah, [whatever],” and proceed to outline the entire plot. Hey, I thought it was cute. I may not be a fan, but I'm still a nerd. And, as such, appreciate nerdiness in others. :)

**Honest.

The Linux version of Forsaken Remastered is now available on GOG
11 Aug 2018 at 5:33 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestTempting to pick it up, though I have no nostalgia over this game so wouldn't know if it's worth it
Me neither, but there's a source port of the original [External Link] which you can try out for free. The binary download includes all the assets apart from the music, which... well, I'm just assuming it's all above board and legal, since the project seems to have been around for at least a decade. Anyway, having messed around with it for a couple of hours I have to say it's not really my kind of thing. I can see why it blew people away back in the day - being a child of the '80s, I totally get the garish colours and OTT sound effects - but it hasn't aged well.

The Xenko Game Engine recently became free and open source
6 Aug 2018 at 3:19 pm UTC Likes: 1

Linux support, from what I've read is currently experimental.
That's interesting. My understanding was that it's nonexistent. But hey, once it's open source it can always be ported. If anyone can be bothered to. (I'm trying really hard not to sound critical here. :) Honestly, it looks like a good engine.)

Football Manager 2019 announced and sadly it's not coming to Linux
6 Aug 2018 at 1:42 pm UTC Likes: 1

The last edition I played was the original, on the ZX81.

And it was open source. Not explicitly, but it was written in BASIC: you could break into the program and edit the code. It wouldn't be too hard to update it to 2018/19. :)