Quoting: ShabbyXLast year I bought an SSD. It was expensive and I got a 256GB one. On windows, I consistently see about 100GB~200GB of OS+programs storage while on Linux all my OS+programs (that is everything excluding /home) takes about 20GB. So yes, that _is_ an issue still. I'm not talking just about games.

Do you honestly think all those data is multiple versions of the same library?
That's utterly ridiculous.

I have about the same amount of SSD usage and regularly use WinDirStat to check what is taking that space.
By far the largest chunk is the user data directory, as every single program (unfortunately usually not configurable) stores its data there. And usually redundant data, too. Browsers, email clients, Windows installer caching nonsense, those are the evildoers.
I don't really have an explanation of why on Windows every programs just spams that folder (while on linux it doesn't?), but it has very little to do with duplicate libs.

You also forget that applications might share the same library, but certainly not the same version. So if 20 apps used the same library, it is pretty likely that they have been built against, let's say, 10 different versions. So even on linux, you will have 10 different library versions lying around. Not that much of a difference any more.
Again, storage is cheap. Except SSDs (for now). If you install all your programs on your SSD instead of just vital data (save games, coding profiles, etc. just usage data) - well, that is your fault.
I install everything on my non-SSD drive (given a choice), and it works just fine, since I'm not running a toaster and if you can afford a rather large SSD, chances are you aren't running one either.

Quoting: ShabbyX- Security: If the library fixes some bug, 20 applications (on windows with 20 different updaters) have to update that dll. We all know (on windows) that not all of them will do it, and the buggy library will end up remaining on your pc.

Not wrong, but you are talking about bugs so important that applications HAVE to update. When does that actually ever happen? Once per year?
Usually, dependencies aren't updated simply because they don't need to be. Because most software doesn't actually deal with security issues.

Quoting: ShabbyX- File System Cache: If the library was shared between the 20 applications, then loading one application after the other would be much faster given that the same .so files are either already in RAM or likely at least in the file system cache. Each application shipping a separate copy of its .so files mean slower application start.

Not wrong, but I think the last time I was actually bothered by an application starting up taking more than a few seconds must have been Win XP. Or one of my first smartphones.
I am a VERY impatient man, and if I'm not bothered, it really isn't bad. Another non-issue.

Quoting: ShabbyX- Memory: Unless the OS does a byte-to-byte comparison of the whole .so files, it cannot know that the applications are using the same .so file, which means running multiple of those applications results in the same .so files loaded multiple times in RAM, resulting in higher RAM usage, as well as worse CPU cache usage.

I'm not really convinced the CPU cache argument is correct. Won't it actually be faster if each program runs its own version of a library as the data will be closer together? At least as a general rule, redundancy improves speed at the cost of space.
The RAM usage... my main PC has 12 GB. I have never seen that filled, and I do work some heavy applications regularly. My laptop even has 16GB. So, yeah... another non-issue.

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This looks like Blood Bowl!
But only with the human team... and a severe lack of blood. Meh.

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[quote=ShabbyX]

Quoting: TheSHEEEPThat aside, the real problem is in fact that they try to force a windowsish distribution on an operating system that has a proper package manager. The libraries on linux actually have pretty decent abi versioning, which means multiple libraries can co-exist and each application would choose to higjest compatible version. Dependency-hell may be an issue for packagers, but the end results are damn nice for users.

Imagine for a moment if Linux games were also packaged like the rest of the system... No more 100 duplicates of .so files like on windows!

First of all, those duplicates were an issue many years ago when disk space was a problem. It simply isn't any more. This is a non-issue. Games nowadays can take any amount of space from 100MB to 60+GB. A few MB more in dependencies simply will not matter.

Also, yes that package managing stuff is nice. But only in theory, where it actually works.
In practice, games (and other software) are not constantly developed and updated with latest versions of libraries. And they shouldn't! Don't change a running system.
So at some point, version X of a dependency WILL rotate out. And then users have to find custom solutions, which is annoying as hell and will cause more people to switch to Windows for the product than it will cause them to fiddle around with their system. Fiddling around is nice for us proggers, but not for average users. This has happened SO MANY TIMES with open source libs that actually are maintained by someone - and so many times more by closed source software.
So either package maintainers have to carry ancient versions of their libs around (possibly even fixing critical bugs in them still if they appear) - and with that outlook, who still wants to maintain packages "properly"? Nobody.
Or developers are forced for a life long update-my-dependencies-game, including possible API changes and whatnot. Hooray.

No, I'm sorry. This package managing stuff may have noble goals, but in practice it is a terrible crux for developers that are actually paid for their work. And it throws more than just a few stones in the way of spreading linux.

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Yeah, the worst part about linux is that app/lib version mess.
Honestly, it should just be like on Windows - look in the executable folder first, done. Would solve all problems, at least for closed source distributions.

Instead you gotta do some tricks like this script or my preferred method - changing rpath of the executable (and recursively the other dependencies).
Both is hacky, though.

But at least there are solutions to this, hacky or not.

The main problem here is Game Maker... really, I'm surprised anyone uses this for actual games and more than just fooling around. There are so many better alternatives.

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Steamworld Dig was great, indeed. But a bit short (I think it took me 7 hours to finish it?).
Hope this one will be a little longer.

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The game has both badgers and mushrooms, so this is a sure purchase.

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Quoting: MayeulCA bit sad to hear this. Would love to hear the complete technical analysis of what happens here. The function names, actual differences, etc.

Is it floating point related, RNG related, other? Wine doesn't seem to have a problem with this. Wouldn't using some parts of winelib help? (It is LGPL, so definitely linkable against).

My guess is that they went for a full deterministic approach (each player is running the full simulation). You can make sure that all players actually have the same results (yes, even with floats and rng) - but only within the same platform.
So far, so good.
What I don't get is why they don't just add an occasional sync to it all to offset the rare case where there would be differences between the platforms. It's not like the game has a great deal of data to sync. It's not a Supreme Commander or something like that.
Afaik, that's how all others do it that go for determinism.

If this is not what actually happens, then I have no idea. There is no logical reason not have a turn-based game work cross-platform.

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Quoting: ExpalphalogI've never understood Civ being a multiplayer game. A single game typically runs me 20+ hours and that's without having to wait for anybody else to take their turn. Is multiplayer faster somehow or do people really sit there without sleep for days on end to play?

We have a weekly online gaming round with some friends going. For a while, we played Civ5 there and actually managed to finish two games.

Obviously not going to work for any "quick session".

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Quoting: nevvyThe trailer looks an awful lot like Ziggurat with funny voiceover. Is that impression representative of how it plays?

It's not completely wrong.
Definitely the same (sub) genre.

I would say the upgrade system in Immortal Redneck feels far more rewarding, while the gunplay itself feels a bit better in Ziggurat.

Also, the best weapon in Immortal Redneck is the potato gun. It's basically a fast firing, piercing (!!) grenade launcher :D

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Quoting: omer666

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: omer666

Quoting: KuJohttp://www.pcgamer.com/well-see-an-expansion-for-dawn-of-war-3-says-relic/

This is article is from march... That is to say, before people starting to troll the game and disappointing sales.

All of which is deserved. A good game does not see such a nosedive in player base shortly after release, especially not a game that wants to be MP focused.

They just developed a game that nobody wanted to have. Instead of targeting one specific group, they tried to appease all somewhat and - as always happens when you try to appease many instead of focusing on "few" - the result just disappoints pretty much everyone.
I wouldn't even call it lack of vision. Just a completely wrong vision.

snip

The problems with DoW 3 are many.

To start with, there is the "story", which is just a joke. But it's Warhammer, so that would be forgivable. Story was never the strong point of the setting ;)
Far worse is that the campaign is jumping from army to army, completely removing the possibility of even somewhat identifying with any characters. One mission from this side, next mission from this side, etc.
This has been done by no strategy game, ever, and for a reason. It doesn't work.
Also compare the pretty great leveling and equipment system DoW 2 had in its campaign (well, for an RTS game, that is). It has been replaced with something totally flat and uninspired in DoW 3.

Then is that super weird requirement to grind for elites and skulls to unlock armies/units. That is BS straight from browser game territory - so being compared to MOBA is ironically relatively harmless.

The core of the problem is that DoW I was a really great RTS game with proper base building. Certainly one of my favourites.
Which got completely scrapped for DoW II in favor of a sci-fi clone of Company Of Heroes. Really not my thing, but the campaign was fun. And it was clearly a choice to take the series in that direction. And at least it had some depth to it with the cover and building mechanics.

The complaints about that must have been pretty big.
So they tried something in-between with DoW III. A bit of base building, a bit of small squad-focused CoH game. The base building is just plain bad when compared to DoW 1 or other RTS games. No depth at all, barely any choices. Seriously, although preferring RTS games with base building, I'd rather have no base building at all than something like this. And the small squad-focused gameplay is also worse at what it does than DoW II. They even dumbed down the cover mechanics to those ridiculous zones.

So all-in-all the game gives off the impression of an extremely light RTS game, no matter from what perspective you look at it. And extremely light RTS game = MOBA, at least I guess that is the reasoning behind those claims (I don't really agree with that, but I see where it is coming from). That there are MOBA-style towers in many maps preventing rushes was just drop of water to a full barrel I guess.

They should have decided to continue the DoW I or DoW II route, but they screwed both ideas up by trying to mix them. Compromise being once again the death of quality.

To fully mess things up, they tried going for competitive players, competing with StarCraft 1 & 2.
Which is just futile since the gameplay of DoW III doesn't even come close to those.
Instead of trying something interesting with online co-op campaigns, a great level editor ala StarCraft 2 or something else. There would have been many other ways than aiming at esports.

I am really glad I stayed under 2h of playing before I had a look around at some other experiences and then refunded the thing.

Obviously, I didn't stay long enough to get to the MP balancing, but I haven't heard anything great about it, either.

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