Linux Game Cast 452: Profitable By 2027

After an Epic wait Metro Exodus comes to Linux! Commandos 2 gets a slick HD remake, modders discover a co-op mode in Binding of Isaac: Repentance, Steam fixes a log standing vulnerability, and FPGA gaming with MiSTer. Then Metro Exodus faces, the ChairQAsition. All this plus your hate mail.

Special thanks to:
Kylinuxcast (returning patron)


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Timestamps:
05:03 Steam client vulnerability
09:13 Unity hotplug fixes
12:08 TF2 bots for sale
15:13 Binding of Issac co-op
17:08 Commandos 2 HD on Linux
19:08 Metro Exodus comes to Linux
21:13 The Epic burn rate
32:28 New Nvidia drivers
35:13 Nvidia A4000 announced
39:03 Linux game sales numbers
43:12 FPGA gaming with MiSTer
46:33 Powerslide remake
50:28 Logitech keyboard control with Gkeybind
53:18 Gaming in the Cloud Morph
54:38 The game of git
57:28 Review: Metro Exodus
01:16:38 Hate mail


Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Steam client vulnerability

  • They can currently only verify this specific exploit in CS:GO.
  • Why would they not want to close this?
  • Don’t try to gag the people who went out of their way to tell you about a fault with your product.
  • It’s not going to end well!
  • Tinfoil hat says that’s not a bug, that’s a feature
  • In Valve fashion they fixed it after it became a thing.

Hotplugging

  • Allowing for better routing when the VALVe VPN isn’t the best option is a very good call!
  • Fix long delay before first game launch of the session for users with thousands of shared screenshots
    • I too fall asleep on the f12 key sometimes


Bots for sale

  • Pay to have the bots go away, that’s a new one.
  • Full on protection racket!
  • Looks like if you want a shot at a bot free experience, you gotta switch to private servers
  • Still, using TF2 as a child pornography distribution network is le squick
  • Valve may have to do something drastic to actually deal with the problem


Isac coop

  • Dicking around in the command line flags has revealed a network co-op implementation
  • You can use it now, but it’s not the most stable
  • Likely this is either a planned feature that’s still under development that made its way into the release branch, or it was something they tested, decided not to move forward on and dropped. I guess we’ll keep an ear out for news on that front

Steam: Game Updates

Commandos 2 HD

  • For when you want that proper real-time strategy experience.
  • Targeting that Big sur, how bold of them
  • Minimum GPU is a 980 according to them

Steam: New Games

Metro Exodus

  • Cocked that launch right up.
  • Three hours later we could download and play the game.
  • Hit the MAC users as well.

Epic watch:

The Epic burn… rate

  • First movers have advantage and only a ton of money can overcome it.
  • Granted, this only works if you have a product that is competitive.
  • Epic Games could be worth about $28 billion based on its latest round of fundraising.
  • Sony apparently injected a lot of money into Epic.
  • I wonder…
  • Like venn said, you can burn all the money you want, but you gotta make sure you at least have something to back it up
    • Like a shopping card
  • I don’t know a lot of people rushing to buy games on the epic store, aside from folks who really don’t want to wait out epics exclusivity deals. It’s mostly just a place for free games
  • At least they’re on track to being profitable in 2027
  • Do keep in mind that this is a rounding error for Epic with their cash flow.

News:

Nvidia drivers

  • Installed these cuz metro was getting crashy in the intro cinematics
  • Wee new feature branch
  • Looks like it’s mainly a roundup of power management features and bug fixes
  • I’d like to request the people in charge of the Graphics Drivers PPA to not wait a month for this one.
  • They work.


RTX YOLO

  • The latest entry in the if you have to ask line of Nvidia GPUs.
  • HW support for the new spicy A4000, A5000 and to the Robert Smith (patrick?) Terminator.
  • I would say these are going to be cray cray priced to the point people won’t yoink them en masse.
  • Then again, said the same thing about the 3090.

Linux sales digits

  • Linux people are starving for games!
  • Treat them well and you’ll get a bunch of sales.
  • It’s an interesting difference between the Humble and Steam numbers.

FPGA gaming

  • This is a project to move FPGA gaming from the MIST board to a more commonly available, higher powered field programmable gate array: the Terasic DE10-nano
  • You only need the main DE10 board for most functionality, but some of the emulators need a bit more RAM, so that’ll require an expansion card
  • Supports a wide array of 8 and 16 bit computers and consoles


Powerslide Remake

  • How did I not know about this for 3 years?
  • Also, one of my heretic purchases just got erased!
  • It’s ogre 9000


Gkeybind

  • If you have a Logitech keyboard, you can use this to bind the macro keys.
  • A GUI wouldn’t go amiss.
    • I do appreciate the clear and concise yaml config though

Cloud morph

  • This is part two from this developer
  • Originally set up an webrtc accessible frontend for retroarch to play emulated games on
  • This takes it a step further to running PC games via webrtc
  • Uses wine in Docker to spin up containers and run windows apps

Git Gud

  • Time to git in the mud and learn some command line
  • It’s a framework done in Godot for little bash scripting challenges
    • Project wants you to focus on git, but you could theoretically do it with anything
  • It’s a bit like vikey, gamifying the learning experience.
  • MIght be necessary considering a lot of people don’t really understand git all that well
    • Are you saying passing –force with every command is not best practice?
  • Keep developing this and give it a solid scoring system.
  • It would be a good tool.
  • Make the new hire get X source before they can touch the repo.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Metro: Exodus
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/412020/Metro_Exodus/
Devel: 4A Games
Engine: 4A Engine
Price: £34.99 / $39.99 / $49.99

Wazzat: Flee the shattered ruins of the Moscow Metro and embark on an epic, continent-spanning journey across the post-apocalyptic Russian wilderness. Explore vast, non-linear levels, lose yourself in an immersive, sandbox survival experience, and follow a thrilling story-line that spans an entire year in the greatest Metro adventure yet.

Mandatory Disclosure: Venn bought Jordan a copy.



Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • No windowed mode.
  • I could live with that if it didn’t launch in the leftmost monitor and undo my nvidia colour / brightness calibrations every, time, it, launches.
  • My options are to attempt to play while looking to my left or play on the primary monitor in a 1080 borderless window after hacking on the *.cfg.
  • I could technically fullscreen the window by setting 2160p but that’s a bit cinematic.
  • The DXVK fullscreen hacks for X exist for a reason.
  • And no, changing my X layout for a two year old game is not happening especially when every Linux title in the last 5 years has figured this out.
  • Enabling RTX ingame locks it up but it can be enabled in the *.cfg.
  • Performance on YOLO @ 1080p is in the mid 70’s.
  • With RTX enabled that gets knocked down to 50.
  • As for the raytracing, you can kinda tell a difference if you squint.
  • It does a bangup job utilizing all 24 threads.
  • Moral of the story, I’m playing with Proton.
  • Protip: Delete the video files in the Metro folder.

Fun?

  • 2.6 hours and I’m still in the prologue.
  • Oh my, the first two hours of gametime have a lot of not gaming.
  • I’m not exaggerating, I forgot some buttons between the time they were introduced vs actually needing them.
  • qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq *craft* qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq
  • Post nuke Soviet winter gives stralia a run in the everything gonna kill ya department.
  • About 4 hours in I had my first “fun” part and that was getting the trolley.
  • 7 hours in and I’m at the let’s go full Mad Max section.
  • Might be done with it if I’m honest.
  • The story so far has been paint by numbers and the combat is only so so.
  • I use my airsoft rifle and headshot everything unless I get bored and stealth wipe a camp.
  • Then you go back and loot all the things.
  • It’s alright, but not $60 alright in 2021.
  • Catch it on sale one of the eleventy times a year it goes for $19.99 and get some popcorn.
  • Seriously, most of your time will be spent watching unskippable cutscenes.

 



Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • It really, really likes my second monitor
  • Also a wee crashy when you wanna do something like, I dunno, leave the window
  • Still, it runs kinda meh on the 1080TI on ultra. I get no RTX love
  • It really uses the full keyboard when it comes to control, don’t it
  • Having a button be on the opposite side of the keyboard to most of the other useful keys is a nice touch

Fun?

  • Whoof, that intro. At least half life lets you dick around
  • It’s been a minute since we’ve had a AAA game ported natively to linux, let alone an in house port
  • It kinda shows, the linux client is a bit poo poo unstable, at least on fedora
  • We’ve finally left the metro after 2 games and 2 remakes and it’s off to greener pastures
  • The soviet fallout vibe is in full force and hot damn did they have the budget to make it beautiful
  • However at the 3 hour mark, I kinda find myself feeling the gameplay is a little lacking
  • The landscapes are all beautiful, and you want to explore them, but the game itself is pretty linear, going from point A to B to C
  • Railroading (no pun intended) isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Roller coasters are linear but exciting. But you gotta have some MEAT.
  • There’s certainly a bunch to do, managing ammo, crafting, stealth, but it all feels very bare bones. Busy and bare bones
  • This might be me, but I’d feel a metal gear solid style game might do the story a little more justice

Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • It at least launched out of the box on the right monitor.
  • In a borderless 1080p window.
  • Couldn’t for the life of me make it fullscreen with the .cfg but KWin does manage windows.
  • It is a shit compositor, but a wonderful window manager.
  • The graphics… Yeah. It’s a AAA game.
  • If you rebind the movement keys to literally anything other than WASD, you can’t interact with the map.
  • You cannot progress if you have the audacity of changing the world’s most changed keys.
  • Not everyone is right handed, and not everyone has symmetrical hands.
  • But I’ve banged on that drum enough.
  • My solution was to keep the iFYOO Pro One controller plugged in and wiggle the D-Pad when I have to use the map or any of the WASD prompts.
  • I have to use 3 input devices to be able to play Metro Exodus.
  • That compounded with the fact I still had to hit the cfg file to disable mouse smoothing and motion blur, doesn’t spell a good introduction to Metro: Exodus.

Fun?

  • As much as I want to tear into a AAA game about how this shit is unacceptable for this price.
  • I… I like it.
  • They basically addressed most of my (and many others’) complaints with 2033 and Last Light.
  • For one it’s not on rails, ironically enough.
  • You have fairly linear segments in between the semi open world bits.
  • You get to explore as much as you like and then you move on.
  • I hear if you stick to the main mission you can finish it in about 14hours.
  • That’s about 6 hours more than the previous 2 games.
  • That’s 6 hours more Metro with the possibility of just meandering about the open world bits.
  • That’s what I wanted a Metro game to be.
  • Having played Fallout 3 and STALKER before Metro 2033 back when it came out, I was very underwhelmed. Last Light too.
  • But Exodus gives me exactly what I wanted
  • But since we can never have everything, it’s also broken in more ways than one.

Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:


Hate Mail:

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