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Latest Comments by Shmerl
An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
3 Jan 2018 at 11:01 pm UTC

Quoting: Alm888
Quoting: StrangerWhile I wish it was, the game isn't available on GOG right now. I hope that will change when the game has an official release after the Early Access period, but that depends on GOG - they want only the best :)
And what about itch.io? I've heard they are much more cooperative in this regard.
I second this suggestion. Releasing on itch.io will also help exposure of the game to wider audience.

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
3 Jan 2018 at 4:58 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: StrangerIt's available to use, and we build with beta support for it, though we default to OpenGL.
That's good to know, thanks! So what they working on then, are there some engine features that can be used only with OpenGL or it's just in the beta state now?

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
3 Jan 2018 at 4:51 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: StrangerVulkan is very probably going to be available, especially if this week's beta patch works out. It's probably not going to be as fast as the regular OpenGL implementation yet, though.
So did UE enable Vulkan for Linux builds already? Here they list it as TODO: https://trello.com/c/lzLwtb5P/124-vulkan-for-pc-and-linux [External Link]

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
3 Jan 2018 at 4:41 pm UTC Likes: 4

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.
Yeah, this makes sense, but you can probably make it easier for yourself. You don't need to focus on PRO driver, even AMD themselves don't recommend using it for gaming. Just focus on latest stable release of Mesa first (with whatever combination of llvm and libdrm it requires). And if you have more time - test with older Mesa versions. That would address your potential audience the best. Majority of Linux gamers who use AMD know how to use latest Mesa with their respective distributions.

I.e. to put it in the level of priority for testing:

1. Newest stable Mesa with most recent compatible stable llvm / libdrm.
2. Older Mesa and may be Mesa master to see if it improves anything.
3. PRO.

If you address just #1 for AMD - it would be already great. If you can do more - even better but not strictly necessary.

Another point, newest hardware isn't using radeon kernel driver with Mesa, but amdgpu. For OpenGL it's normally radeonsi+amdgpu (and Vulkan: radv+amdgpu or amdvlk+amdgpu). For older hardware it can be indeed radeon kernel driver, which sometimes makes a difference. But again, it's probably best to focus on amdgpu+radeonsi as a first priority.

GOG adds another classic game 'Death Gate' with a Linux version
3 Jan 2018 at 3:33 pm UTC Likes: 1

Ah, I remember this game. The story was quite original and quirky, and some choices were rather hard. For instance, at some point simply using magic would equal to killing sleeping population.

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
3 Jan 2018 at 3:31 pm UTC Likes: 1

At this moment, we only test on NVIDIA hardware, based on what we currently own. When the game moves to a final release, we'll try to have more testing on AMD hardware ; but hopefully by this point we will have our AMD issues resolved.
This sounds a bit confusing. How can they resolve such issues by that time, if they don't test on AMD?

An interview with the developer of space sim Helium Rain who says ‘Linux gaming is alive and well’
3 Jan 2018 at 3:28 pm UTC Likes: 2

Looks like an interesting game. Did GOG not accept it for their games in development program?

In 'Ruggnar' you control a dwarf with a candle-hat searching for treasure
2 Jan 2018 at 4:30 pm UTC

Looks promising :)

Candle on the helmet reminds me intro to The Hobbit film.

Retro-inspired FPS 'DUSK' should still come to Linux after the main launch
2 Jan 2018 at 4:29 pm UTC Likes: 2

Interesting, but again Steam only? They should try itch.io.

Some reflections on radv, the first open source Vulkan driver for AMD GPUs
31 Dec 2017 at 6:24 am UTC

Quoting: GustyGhostOh wow I just realized my source on AMD DC is over a year old. Looks like you're right. Now I await downstream. [External Link]
I already tried it out in Debian testing (using 4.15rc5 from exprimental).