LinuxGameCast Weekly 281: Linux Fashion Show

SteamOS beta receives a massive update! Humble picks a Bundle, OpenTESArena resurrects The Elder Scrolls and Catbot runs out of lives. All this plus your hate mail.

Special thanks to:
Luke W (new patreon)
TheSyldat (new patreon)

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Colour key: Venn Jordan Empty

Steam News:
Ban hammer
http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-is-handing-out-tf2-vac-bans-to-linux-users-with-catbot-in-their-usernames/

Good ol’ kneejerk reactions. Keeps the internet interesting
The short version is cheaters are super salty their shit is getting caught in TF2 and they were hoping to drum up public pressure on Valve to relax their anti-cheat
And lets be real, anti-cheat software does some questionable things, but I really do think it’s a net good. If you want t have a thriving multiplayer community, you gotta cut that toxic shit out ASAP so that new people will actually want to play your game
Unless you’re a dota like. Then you need your shitty community
Something like this kinda needed to happen.
Now the average gamer knows cheaters are straight-up scumm.
I’ve seen it happen time and time again in /r/Steam where some FKR moans and bitches (gets lucky and the thread gets a shite load of upbaots) about being unfailey banned for no reason.
Then someone from VALVe shows up and tells them they are full of it and their response is always along the lines of “well, it was worth a try, right?”
The whole thing sounded too dumb to believe when I first heard about this, and indeed it was.
Try to cheat VAC, get banned.

Show me the
http://www.pcgamer.com/steam-reveals-2017s-biggest-earners-including-the-witcher-3-h1z1-and-pubg/`

Well, at least a quarter of the top games have linux versions
There’s at least one linux game in the top sellers of every month, which is nice, but we need more titles. Big ones
- Shit son, I would be happy with a little cup-o-head at this point.
Unfortunately that brings up another thing.
It seems the more popular a game is the less likely it is to get a Linux port after the fact.
- Feral (and to a lesser extent Ass-Pyre) being the exceptions.
For PUBG runs on UE4 which supports Linux, nut nope
…and CDProjektRed grinds it in our faces by still not porting Witcher 3

Steam HW survey finally has Vulkan systems section
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/directx/

Basically a neat little lead in to the next story

RIP 750
https://www.techspot.com/news/72530-steam-december-survey-gtx-1060-now-most-popular.html

Still a good little card for basic gaming.
That seems legit. People tend to cycle their mid-range video card every couple of years, so the generation handoff seems to support that behaviour
Also apparently usage for many cards dropped
I just stepped from my 780ti to a 1060 – same performance, half the power

Chicken dinner
http://store.steampowered.com/SteamAwards/

That is a big old honking list of games that should be on the Linux.
That said we got Rocket Cars, Stardew, G-MOD, CS, but not Tomb Raider *glares @ Feral*
MORE WITCHER 3, MORE PUBG, I QUIT
It’s good to see RL on these lists

Brewmaster
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/1621726179565936999/

Guess at least one person @ VALVe remembers they support Linux.
Bump to 387.22 NVIDIA
17.2.4 MESA
Kernel 4.14.3

PAWARUMI
http://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=610410

Bunch of little enhancements to several levels.

State of mind
http://store.steampowered.com/app/437630/State_of_Mind/

The game has an interesting Max-Headroomy aesthetic
Aside from some environment interaction dialogue, not much in the way of indicating how the game will play
Coming spoon

STARBO
http://store.steampowered.com/app/774321/STARBO/

Seizure warning all the things
Seems like this is an adventure game in the vein of your Amenisas and your SOMAs
Maybe slowjam piano music isn’t the best way to sell your game…
Graphics look really nice, except the people
The uncanny valley strikes again

News:

Drivers
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/128743/en-us

Finally you can rest in peace knowing that your 24 display xinerama setup can now work OOTB
No word on the workaround for that performance issue,
1070TI support came a bit late IMO
- I think it “worked” but didn’t have official support.
Now what I want to know is if the damn thing will built against 4.15 kernels OOTB
They’re polishing up their EGL support, so we’re switching to Wayland when?

Infect ALL THE THINGS
https://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/NVIDIA-addresses-Spectre-vulnerabilities

Two variants of Spectre could theoretically be used to infect you.
NVIDIA is already pushing out Linux drivers to sort it.
Even for OLD arse-hardware.
…and their drivers are still a swiss cheese of security vulnerabilities

3.5 Linux games
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/scribble-staff-picks-bundle

Couple of good one in there.
You should totally help us out through our Humble affiliate link too
$6 for Aragame is worth it.
Shenzen I/O looks like fun
By the guy who did TIS-100

A new bench
https://github.com/Tylemagne/TFM

Remember back in the day when things came with build instructions.
- It is using Unity, probably not so happy on providing the sauce.
10348 on Vulkan Extreme, 10067 on OpenGL Extreme.
Nopes, and nopes hard on the dual GPU system of business.
I smell a BENCHOFF!!

Do not tango with the type of people who run Linux on their Playstations
http://wololo.net/2018/01/01/can-now-run-linux-ps4-4-05/

Glad to see a final release. A year for cracking a brand new console isn’t too bad
Curious if you can get some decent HW accelerated openGL or Vulkan with the mesa driver. Would definitely make the PS4 a pretty slick little desktop box
- Considering it is an AMD gpu and the nightmare that is amdgpu… I’m not holding my breath.
Booting may require multiple attempts due to memory randomization.

1UP
https://linuxgameconsortium.com/linux-gaming-news/newer-super-mario-bros-fan-made-sequel-linux-games-61950/

Grab it now before nintendo ASMR’s it
Contains 80 completely new, fan-made levels across 8 worlds.
1 to 4 players
DL server located in Mordor.
Heads up, it does require you to patch a ROM, so you’ll need to find a way to procure one
Does include an automagic script to patch that business.

OpenArena Lives
https://github.com/afritz1/OpenTESArena

Not quite as unecessary as Daggerfall Unity, and not quite as insane as OpenMW
Still needs the original assets, which are available for free from the elder scrolls site
SDL2, C++11 goodness
Don’t know what the hell a “The Elder Scrolls: Arena” is and plan on keeping it that way.
There is a reason Morrowind was the breakout hit
They hadn’t found the forumla yet

CULL ALL TEH VULKANS
https://rpcs3.net/blog/2018/01/03/progress-report-december-2017/

Apparently the nvidia vulkan implementation doesn’t properly parse values using scientific notation.
- This is the kind of shit I love about these emulator projects. THey do all sorts of weird crap with graphics APIs that really put the drivers through their paces
Demon Souls is playable in 4k now, Uncharted apparently works @ 10K
Inexplicably, the first two Nier games run better in linux
Fixed an annoying bug that had been happening with NVIDIA Linux proprietary drivers/ that made a lot of games display broken graphics when running on the Vulkan render.
Not only do these FKRs have a Linux build they legit support it.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Game: Broforce
Webzone: Broforce
Devel: Free Lives
Engine: Unity
Price: $14.99

Wazzat: When evil threatens the world, the world calls on Broforce – an under-funded, over-powered paramilitary organization

Makes with the working

Venn:

Had to manually set windowed mode via launch options.
It likes to randomly hang when Steam overlay is enabled.
Steam controlla flipped out more than once.
Online multiplayer is a FSM damned nightmare.
Hell, even my hosted game somehow managed to suffer lag.

Jordan:

See thursdays stream for online woes causing le chair to be dinged
Windowed mode worked in the menu for me

Mike:

Opened in a window and detected my controller

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

Venn:

Hipster-pixel goodness.
Nothing to really poop on since it’s very well done.
Character blindness is legit.
Didn’t really notice if it had a soundtrack.

Jordan:

Character blindness is a real problem with this game, especially in multiplayer
That said, all of the character designs are fun little pastiches of known IP

Mike:

Only 300mb legit hipster pixel
Not as clean as Metal Slug, but more variety

Total-

Control

Venn:

“”Works”” with the Steam controlla for the most part.
Has a tendency to flip the hell out in the overworld map.
When it’s not being an arse everything is logically laid out and plays well enough.

Jordan:

No real issues with controls
Mind you, if you’re using a DS4 paired as a steam controller, you need to keep steam overlay on

Mike:

X360 worked flawlessly

Total-

FUN

Venn:

Eh, multiplayer is a bit of alright but spending 20min figuring out how to get everyone connected sucks a LOT of the fun out of it.
I think this is better suited for local coop.
Did I have a good time? Eh, didn’t hate it but really does nothing new.
I like the parody characters and it has a good sense of humour all around.

Jordan:

I had fun playing it
The couch co-op experience is pretty solid, and despite the online mode being very buggy
When network multiplayer works, it is pretty fun
Even single player isn’t all that bad.
It’s a megaman style shooter with destructable environments and fun characters. All and all a pretty fun time

Mike: