Latest Comments by Corben
Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition arrives on Steam in 'early 2024'
27 September 2023 at 12:24 pm UTC Likes: 3

Woohoo! HZD was soo good! Next to Death Stranding and Cyberpunk one of the best games I've played in the recent years. Can't wait to continue the story in this fascinating world.
And I dream about Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain coming to PC (Steam) at some point as well.

SteamVR 2.0 Beta released with a big UI overhaul
26 September 2023 at 11:28 am UTC

Quoting: Liam DaweI actually found with 2.0 that even though I had the old UI, all the flickering and weirdness on it was gone.
The flickering/jumping in the chapperone view? Chanky controller behaviour in the game?
From my experience this is caused by async reprojection: the games rendered nicely smooth, just that room (I have Steam VR Home turned off) and the controllers slighty jumping were an issue. As I don't look at the controllers all the time, it wasn't too bad.
If that's fixed now, it would be a great improvement!

SteamVR 2.0 Beta released with a big UI overhaul
26 September 2023 at 10:56 am UTC Likes: 9

Looking forward to see Valve giving VR (on Linux) a bit more attention. Sure, the Steam Deck will still have a majority of workforce, but VR on Linux is corrently not in a great state.
For me a rogue black window is sitting there all the time (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS + Gnome), the settings windows pops up on each start of SteamVR, quite some games stopped working (e.g. latest Beat Saber 1.31, Pistol Whip, AmongUs VR), xrdesktop isn't working properly anymore, closing Steam VR crashes Steam.
And I miss playing VR those games. Okay Beat Saber works with the legacy version 1.29 accessible via beta branch, Pistol Whip could be downgraded via console and manifest... still, would be great if this could be fixed.

Will have to check what SteamVR 2.0 brings (if it works for me)

Heroic Games Launcher 2.9.2 Hotfix #2 is live
13 September 2023 at 11:42 am UTC

 
- Fixed installation of EOS Overlay

I've been waiting for this one.

Linux user share remains above macOS in the latest Steam Survey
3 September 2023 at 12:43 pm UTC Likes: 2

Nice too see that Valve's strategy is paying off.
Back then, when we asked game devs about a Linux version the answer was always, not worth it, not enough users, not feasible. At the same time asking for a Mac version was no issue. Well... does that mean now we can as for Steam Deck support without issues? :)

For me it's also interesting to see, how well games are supported on Deck now, while I'm getting more and more issues on my nVidida and Ubuntu powered Linux desktop. nVidia driver version 535 has quite some issues, there are now library issues with native Linux games, e.g. I cannot run Insurgency (the old one) anymore without tinkering (solution here. GTA V doesn't run via Steam for me anymore, but I can play it via Heroic on Desktop or without issues on Deck... Pistol Whip VR stopped working due to an update for nVidia users. XRDesktop isn't poperly working anymore etc. etc.

I'm sure it'll get better again, it still feels like there are ups and downs regarding how good things run on Linux and currently it's more of a down, at least for me and my setup.

Exoprimal from Capcom tested on Steam Deck and desktop Linux
19 July 2023 at 7:42 am UTC

Oooo, it got a Steam Deck playable rating. That's probably the best we get for official EAC support. I just remember there had been games where EAC also suddenly seemed to work, we got excited, but in the end it was just temporarily disabled for testing purposes and for gathering data. After re-enabling the game stopped working with Proton/on Linux.

ChimeraOS 43 out now adding ASUS ROG Ally support
6 July 2023 at 2:19 pm UTC Likes: 10

This is cool! I got the ROG Ally (for... erm... testing purposes )
And the only two nice things I could say about it so far:

1. It looks fancy
2. The hardware is powerful

Everything else I think the Steam Deck is better. But I might be biased, as I **love** my Steam Deck.
But to some details:

  • Haptics:
    I don't like the arrangement of the buttons and sticks. Being able to have my thumbs without bending to switch between dpad/buttons and sticks feels much better on Deck than on the Ally.

    Also when having my thumb on the left stick, while having the other thumb on the right buttons, I cannot hold it "symmetrically". Which feels odd.

    The analog sticks are more easy going than the Deck ones. This might just be an issue of getting used to, but I prefer the Deck's analog sticks.

    The Deck feels much better in the palm of my hands due to its case. The Ally has different edges, which doesn't feel as pleasant to hold.

  • Software:
    Well, it's Windows, so I expected things. But gosh how can people take this. It takes like up to an hour to have everything setup. First the Windows 11 setup routine, where they of course ask you several times if you want to give them your data. You have to have a Microsoft online account. Then updates. Not only for Windows, also for the Armory Crate (ASUS way to bridge the gap between keyboard and gamepad issues). And BIOS updates.

    The BIOS update routine gave me a shock: first it said three times, the update needs a reboot. After three reboots, I found in a different dialog, the BIOS update routine needs power attached. Then the device shut down, and I couldn't start it up anymore. I thought it was bricked. Had to hold the power button for 15 seconds, until it booted up and finally installed the BIOS update. A horrible experience.

    Windows with touch is not a nice experience. I had severe trouble entering the Wi-Fi password, if you think you mistyped, you can click (touch) on the eye, but it only shows for a second. So if you keep touching the eye, it goes into select mode, doesn't show the entered password anymore and if you continue typing it'll overwrite the current entered chars.

  • Gaming:
    When a game runs, it runs great due to the more powerful hardware. The 1080p screen is indeed nice. But it comes at a cost. Battery is empty after an hour. But well, it runs Fortnite directly, and Mini-Corben is pretty happy about that.

    I tried my kinda most favorite game: Fall Guys. It took 2 reboots to install the C++ redistributable runtime for 32 bit and 64 bit. The game runs then flawless, except if you want to accept a friend invite. Unlike on Deck where you can just use the touch screen, or steam button + right trackpad for mouse, you have to open the Asus Control Center thingy, switch from gamepad input to keyboard input, use the right analog stick for mouse movement, right shoulder button for click. After accepting the invite, closing the menu by "clicking" somewhere else and then re-open the control center to switch back to gamepad controls. Very annoying procedure, especially in comparison to the Deck.

Short conclusion: it's a nice piece of hardware, and I guess the user experience would have benefited much from a SteamOS install. Too bad ASUS probably took a deal with Microsoft. So I'm looking forward to try ChimeraOS on it!

EVERSPACE 2 out now, devs focus on Proton for Linux - Steam Deck optimizations planned
12 April 2023 at 8:00 am UTC

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: CorbenAnd to show Rockfish Games know what they are doing, and they are actively supporting Linux via Proton:

The videos in Everspace 2 are using Media Foundation codecs, normally Valve does re-encode them for us, and ship them via pre-cache, so they don't run into legal issues. But those videos don't work at first, it needs some time for Valve to re-encode and ship them.

Not in Everspace 2, the videos (especially new ones that haven't been seen in Early Access, so nobody could have triggered the re-encoding process on Valve's end yet) work from the start! This is because RFG has re-encoded them, and checks if the game is running via Wine/Proton. If so, they use VP9 encoded videos via Unreal's WebM player. On Windows the WMF player is used.

Unfortunatly the WebM player in Unreal has a memory leak: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1128920/discussions/6/3823034248723581631
But even here they are actively working on resolving this issue! This is support for gaming on Linux!
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1128920/discussions/6/3823034248723581631?ctp=2#c3823034639980711061

Didn't notice memory leaks in Wine 8.5. But video cutscenes didn't work at all in the past and started working in the pre-release version at some point.

The memory leak is not related to wine, it's the WebM player plugin of the Unreal Engine they are using now in the release version. The videos before started working after a while, because Valve reencoded them and shipped them via pre-cache. I think no new videos were added for a while. I think you also got a Steam key for the EA first, right? And now you are on GoG?

EVERSPACE 2 out now, devs focus on Proton for Linux - Steam Deck optimizations planned
11 April 2023 at 12:21 pm UTC Likes: 5

And to show Rockfish Games know what they are doing, and they are actively supporting Linux via Proton:

The videos in Everspace 2 are using Media Foundation codecs, normally Valve does re-encode them for us, and ship them via pre-cache, so they don't run into legal issues. But those videos don't work at first, it needs some time for Valve to re-encode and ship them.

Not in Everspace 2, the videos (especially new ones that haven't been seen in Early Access, so nobody could have triggered the re-encoding process on Valve's end yet) work from the start! This is because RFG has re-encoded them, and checks if the game is running via Wine/Proton. If so, they use VP9 encoded videos via Unreal's WebM player. On Windows the WMF player is used.

Unfortunatly the WebM player in Unreal has a memory leak: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1128920/discussions/6/3823034248723581631
But even here they are actively working on resolving this issue! This is support for gaming on Linux!
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1128920/discussions/6/3823034248723581631?ctp=2#c3823034639980711061