Latest Comments by Marlock
Proton 10.0-2 gets a Release Candidate for gaming on Linux, SteamOS and Steam Deck
20 Jun 2025 at 11:29 am UTC Likes: 4
ps:
i'll leave aside the usual "why do we even need another launcher" argument for a second to say this... why do game devs have such a hard time making well behaved launchers?! it's a windowed app folks, literally any app besides games got this right... it's really not rocket science! you're all embarassing yourselves in front of your customers before they even go into the game!
20 Jun 2025 at 11:29 am UTC Likes: 4
Fixed Black Desert launcher rendering all black on Nvidia + Wayland setups.i'm glad this bug got fixed along a ton other things, but it did seem kind of befitting :tongue:
ps:
i'll leave aside the usual "why do we even need another launcher" argument for a second to say this... why do game devs have such a hard time making well behaved launchers?! it's a windowed app folks, literally any app besides games got this right... it's really not rocket science! you're all embarassing yourselves in front of your customers before they even go into the game!
Nexus Mods is under new ownership
17 Jun 2025 at 10:27 am UTC Likes: 2
17 Jun 2025 at 10:27 am UTC Likes: 2
They mentioned that not a lot will actually change (famous last words) as they've "already been stepping back bit by bit" with the team taking on more but what's changing now "is simply the formality of it, making sure the right people are in place to guide Nexus Mods into the next era".seems like some of the most involved community members are the ones who own it now, not some random investment fund the cat dragged in
Search engines are getting worse, so OpenWebSearch funded by the European Union want to fix it
19 May 2025 at 7:17 pm UTC Likes: 3
19 May 2025 at 7:17 pm UTC Likes: 3
my 2 cents:
if it doesn't offer a basic reference website, only an API, users might be distanced from it by a myriad of half-assed privacy-eggregious frontends
if it cares for only european content or it's only for europeans to use it, it's also dead in the water, because even europeans need non-european content to be searchable, etc
fortunately i suspect it's actually all the world's content for all the world but under european legislation, which is probably the best new option we (the world, not just europe) can have right now... yes, there'll be some content filtering, but less so than the reality bubbles Google, Meta & friends have been building around everyone while horning "free speech" against country laws
and given the EU still leaves room for national differences in content restriction rules, i suspect the API will actually allow EVERYTHING to be indexed and searcheable, with each frontend defining its national/corporate/political filter as an option, not at its core (eg: API providing filtering flags for ...&show_allowed_in=UK, ...&pegi=13, show_fakes=false, etc)
there are actually a zillion valid usecases for eg: a researcher or a company to be able to list and explore otherwise banned content, and if they're smart they might avoid "censorship" allegations this way
the obvious caveat is crazies building a campaing for everyone to actually use search.breitbart.eu daily "to avoid censorship" while unwittingly falling into a secondary web UI reality bubble atop a perfectly ok base
but the API license could enforce filtering trasparency as a condition for its usage
anyway, here is to at least a hint of hope for less ad-driven top results 🍻
if it doesn't offer a basic reference website, only an API, users might be distanced from it by a myriad of half-assed privacy-eggregious frontends
if it cares for only european content or it's only for europeans to use it, it's also dead in the water, because even europeans need non-european content to be searchable, etc
fortunately i suspect it's actually all the world's content for all the world but under european legislation, which is probably the best new option we (the world, not just europe) can have right now... yes, there'll be some content filtering, but less so than the reality bubbles Google, Meta & friends have been building around everyone while horning "free speech" against country laws
and given the EU still leaves room for national differences in content restriction rules, i suspect the API will actually allow EVERYTHING to be indexed and searcheable, with each frontend defining its national/corporate/political filter as an option, not at its core (eg: API providing filtering flags for ...&show_allowed_in=UK, ...&pegi=13, show_fakes=false, etc)
there are actually a zillion valid usecases for eg: a researcher or a company to be able to list and explore otherwise banned content, and if they're smart they might avoid "censorship" allegations this way
the obvious caveat is crazies building a campaing for everyone to actually use search.breitbart.eu daily "to avoid censorship" while unwittingly falling into a secondary web UI reality bubble atop a perfectly ok base
but the API license could enforce filtering trasparency as a condition for its usage
anyway, here is to at least a hint of hope for less ad-driven top results 🍻
PartyDeck is a split-screen game launcher for Linux / SteamOS
19 May 2025 at 10:37 am UTC
19 May 2025 at 10:37 am UTC
about the audio, you can probably set one of the game instances to suppress the soundtrack so only actual in-game sounds are coming in from both players
i'm pretty sure there will be some issues with UX in this trickery due to using 2 fully independent game instances but it is indeed genious level stuff
i also loved that it uses Goldberg Emulator to allow using an online multiplayer stack behind the scenes to make this possible... it's probably going to limit which games this can work with, but what an elegant hackery ❤️
ps: goldberg emulator should allow this to work even after valve and steam themselves no longer exist
@stormtux any suggestions of a GUI app we can use to set each game instance to a separate audio output via pipewire?
i'm pretty sure there will be some issues with UX in this trickery due to using 2 fully independent game instances but it is indeed genious level stuff
i also loved that it uses Goldberg Emulator to allow using an online multiplayer stack behind the scenes to make this possible... it's probably going to limit which games this can work with, but what an elegant hackery ❤️
ps: goldberg emulator should allow this to work even after valve and steam themselves no longer exist
@stormtux any suggestions of a GUI app we can use to set each game instance to a separate audio output via pipewire?
NVIDIA disclose new security flaw in their Linux GPU drivers
25 Apr 2025 at 12:35 am UTC
25 Apr 2025 at 12:35 am UTC
the link above says the attackers use io.uring to bypass detection by monitoring tools, so it seems io.uring isn't an exploitable vulnerability per se, only a way already invaded systems will keep invaded in heavily monitored environments
Amazon GameLift Streams allows devs to run their own streaming platform - supports Linux and Proton runtimes
14 Mar 2025 at 2:00 am UTC Likes: 1
14 Mar 2025 at 2:00 am UTC Likes: 1
cons:
- no game ownership, like any streaming
- no game preservation, like any game that depends on servers to run (streaming or not)
- input lag, like most streaming and several server-centric execution games... is this still realistically an issue or has the tech improved enough to make it negligible?
- bandwidth, like any streaming and some server-centric execution games
- high subscription cost, i bet worse than multi-game streaming offers if you want to subscribe to more than 1 or 2 games this way each on a separate subscription
- what was that again? modding?!! is this something i can eat?
pros:
- no anti-cheat running locally on my machine
- ANY operating system will do
- almost any hardware will do
so i hope it succeeds in replacing the current distribuition model for competitive online multiplayer games that use aggressive anticheat, and flunks at everything else
- no game ownership, like any streaming
- no game preservation, like any game that depends on servers to run (streaming or not)
- input lag, like most streaming and several server-centric execution games... is this still realistically an issue or has the tech improved enough to make it negligible?
- bandwidth, like any streaming and some server-centric execution games
- high subscription cost, i bet worse than multi-game streaming offers if you want to subscribe to more than 1 or 2 games this way each on a separate subscription
- what was that again? modding?!! is this something i can eat?
pros:
- no anti-cheat running locally on my machine
- ANY operating system will do
- almost any hardware will do
so i hope it succeeds in replacing the current distribuition model for competitive online multiplayer games that use aggressive anticheat, and flunks at everything else
The Triple-i Initiative gaming showcase returns for 2025 with a teaser
13 Mar 2025 at 2:46 am UTC
13 Mar 2025 at 2:46 am UTC
Ubisoft is "Triple iii" indie now?what? where?!
The Triple-i Initiative gaming showcase returns for 2025 with a teaser
13 Mar 2025 at 2:44 am UTC Likes: 1
the 2nd player character has symmetric powers to the 1st, but there are several areas where level design ensures each player will need to fulfill a quite different role in a coop challenge... there's a lot of platformer fighting, but it's a strong cute+funny+goofy vibe through it all, and you can't go wrong with mexican lucha libre and dia de los muertos as a backgroud story
same goes for Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time, plus a game can't get more whimsical than that
and overcooked!
stardew valley coop is not "necessary" but is substantial
13 Mar 2025 at 2:44 am UTC Likes: 1
asymmetric coop puzzlers
can't think of many morewould Guacamelee! qualify?
the 2nd player character has symmetric powers to the 1st, but there are several areas where level design ensures each player will need to fulfill a quite different role in a coop challenge... there's a lot of platformer fighting, but it's a strong cute+funny+goofy vibe through it all, and you can't go wrong with mexican lucha libre and dia de los muertos as a backgroud story
same goes for Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time, plus a game can't get more whimsical than that
and overcooked!
stardew valley coop is not "necessary" but is substantial
Mesa 25.1 will default to Zink+NVK instead of the old Nouveau OpenGL driver for NVIDIA on Linux
11 Mar 2025 at 9:24 pm UTC Likes: 2
11 Mar 2025 at 9:24 pm UTC Likes: 2
back on topic:
in a world with infinite competent human resources, it's likely that Zync would never make sense
in the real world it seems like it's living up to some of its big ticket goals and peoples expectations, eg:
ensure (wherever vulkan exists) a catch-all complete and compliant OpenGL implementation where specific implementations are quirky, broken, slow or missing
make a single effort count tenfold
surpass some suboptimal implementations despite its overhead
heck, even make some magic happen, like providing and using shared context so hibrid approaches like Vukan+OpenGL (done and used in X-Plane + plugins) and OpenGL+OpenCL (in the works iirc) become possible
kudos for the vision and for the deliveries!
in a world with infinite competent human resources, it's likely that Zync would never make sense
in the real world it seems like it's living up to some of its big ticket goals and peoples expectations, eg:
ensure (wherever vulkan exists) a catch-all complete and compliant OpenGL implementation where specific implementations are quirky, broken, slow or missing
make a single effort count tenfold
surpass some suboptimal implementations despite its overhead
heck, even make some magic happen, like providing and using shared context so hibrid approaches like Vukan+OpenGL (done and used in X-Plane + plugins) and OpenGL+OpenCL (in the works iirc) become possible
kudos for the vision and for the deliveries!
Mesa 25.1 will default to Zink+NVK instead of the old Nouveau OpenGL driver for NVIDIA on Linux
11 Mar 2025 at 9:03 pm UTC
11 Mar 2025 at 9:03 pm UTC
so, this is a bit off-topic, but the above comment on DLSS got me thinking...
to choose the perfect pixel to render when translating polygons to pixels a gpu can use supersampling (which sort of extracts more neighbouring pixels from the polygon then melds them into one)
then there's anti-aliasing which helps get rid of jagged edges by sort of displaying several pixels into one or making each pixel semi-affected by its neighbours
and probably a bunch of old-ish techniques that let the GPU think in higher-res then compress the resulting visual to lower-res in a smoother fashion
now there's upscaling techniques like DLSS and FSR that let the GPU think in smooth lower-res and expand the output to a not-quite-as-smooth higher-res
are we, in real world scenarios, partially downscaling then partially scaling things back up instead of doing it all in one scale?
is all this extra logic worth it or are there cases where eg: 4k without the contradictory bells and wistles is faster and looks better than 1080p with everything maxed?
is anyone keeping track of all the ups and downs and how well they go along? game engines, probably, right? driver logic?
to choose the perfect pixel to render when translating polygons to pixels a gpu can use supersampling (which sort of extracts more neighbouring pixels from the polygon then melds them into one)
then there's anti-aliasing which helps get rid of jagged edges by sort of displaying several pixels into one or making each pixel semi-affected by its neighbours
and probably a bunch of old-ish techniques that let the GPU think in higher-res then compress the resulting visual to lower-res in a smoother fashion
now there's upscaling techniques like DLSS and FSR that let the GPU think in smooth lower-res and expand the output to a not-quite-as-smooth higher-res
are we, in real world scenarios, partially downscaling then partially scaling things back up instead of doing it all in one scale?
is all this extra logic worth it or are there cases where eg: 4k without the contradictory bells and wistles is faster and looks better than 1080p with everything maxed?
is anyone keeping track of all the ups and downs and how well they go along? game engines, probably, right? driver logic?
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