The head of Xbox shares his thoughts on the SteamDeck, Amiga 500 Mini consoles with working keyboards, SDL adds support for PipeWire, Team Fortress gets the Source 2 treatment, why Valve put Arch on Deck, and the creator of Garry’s Mod takes a swipe at Linux users.
Special thanks to:
Game_mo_tron (new patron)
Kylinux (bl3 & Grime)
RTheren (Days Gone)
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
06:43 Why Arch for the Steam Deck
09:33 Steam Deck will be your next PC
12:18 Microsoft xCloud on Deck?
15:48 Proton 6.3 testing can delete saves
17:33 SteamVR Beta enables floaty desktops
18:51 Garry’s Mad
24:26 4 new Pocket cars
26:51 Steam Fortress 2 on Source 2
26:26 Nvidia makes a tiny Quadro
41:04 Mini Amiga 500 with working keyboard?
43:36 What is DXVK native?
46:11 SDL gets support for Pipewire
48:26 0 A.D. 25 improved netcode
51:26 Review: Worlds Apart
01:00:36 Emails
Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro
Steam: News
- Mainstream media just got the most basic grasp of what the hell a Linux is so now they’re passing the obvious as “News”.
- Since it’s not pushing any disinformation, I’m gonna call it a win
- I find that Debian based SeamOS has a warmer overall tone.
- The shortage isn’t that bad, yet.
- I definitely think it could be people’s next PC purchase, but not necessarily an upgrade
- I and others have a desktop and a laptop. Pedro has 6
- This might be folk’s secondary device
- The shortage is exactly why I’m going to pay the money they want when they send me the email to say that my reservation has been met.
- If XCloud runs on the BPM browser (it is built on the CEF) what’s the next reason the Windows fanboys are gonna pull out of their ass to justify running Windows on it?
- I’m not sure how great the wifi gaming experience is ultimately gonna be on the deck, but more options are good
- Gotta figure Microsoft doesn’t wanna fight a battle on two fronts. If they can still get game sales from their studios, I guess they really don’t care what computer you’re playing their games on as long as it isn’t a playstation
- It’s not like the Deck is actively competing with anything Microsoft has put out. Yet
- This is not as crazy as it sounds.
- Microsoft has stated they want to put gamepass on other consoles but nobody has taken them up on the offer.
- Valve stated they toyed with the idea of making a streaming only GabeGear.
- Elite dangerous now launches without having to install hacked mono versions into wine prefixes
- Still can’t play the game cuz foundation won’t let me log in
- The big refactor is that cloud save locations are being changed.
- There might be some weirdness, so valve recommends backing up your save file before playing a game you care about using it.
- Straight-up expect this to nuke your savegames.
- You can map views to individual controllers
- You can also access them with facemouse. Which is a good name for a crust punk band
- Pulling desktop views out into the VR world may make for an interesting experience.
- Though I’m pretty sure most people already have a Discord desktop view pinned to their VR HUD.
I need attention (RTheren)
- https://twitter.com/garrynewman/status/1426173332874010628
- https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/p3fahv/vote_for_native_linux_builds_of_sbox_facepunchs/
- ♬Garry garry why you buggin♬
- Did you get a little too good a reception from your help with EAC?
- Did you have to go poke the stupid nest?
- By all means, address the original requester and say no
- Don’t make a public mockery of your confirmation bias.
- Indie gamings favourite millionaire.
- Dude spent some time cherry picking those comments.
- I went into that thread with some popcorn expecting a shitshow.
- Na, it’s 99% civil and this tweet has more spice than that thread.
- What is it Garry, did you think to yourself, it’s been a minute since I punched down?
- And it’s gone… wonder if Valve had anything to do with that.
Steam: New Games
- 4 new cars
- Customizable horn
- Updated: Hotkey for custom event create button
- Does this mean what I think it means?
Steam: Game Updates
- Valve is probably definitely watching this with great interest
- If it goes well, they won’t have to do the source2 work themselves.
- As long as they don’t start trying to cut into valve’s hat business
- I can see VALVe paying them to make the project official, if it turns into anything.
News:
- Just got out of the pool.
- Available in October.
- Workstation card so it’s going to be in the 5/700 range.
- 70W means PCIe power.
- That would make for a powerful Steambox GPU.
- Even if it’d be even louder than the Zotac Low-Profile 1650.
- I’m more interested in the RTX A4000 Teardown but this one is kind of a why card.
- Quadros be shouty yo.
- Seriously, the Quadro I have can’t be used in the studio with the fan set to STFU.
- Since it’s a workstation card, I don’t think it’ll be an LHR card, which doesn’t bode well to actually gettin gone
- “Users can forgo the unit’s tiny keys by plugging in their own USB keyboard”
- That’s a working keyboard?
- The C64 Mini didn’t have a working keyboard.
- And this is made by the same people.
- So who wants to wager it’s running Linux?
- Also, if that keyboard is real, damn.
- Oh look, a readme.
- So this is kinda like winelib?
- More along the lines of a DIY IndirectX
- It’s what VALVe is using for L4Brad 2 and Portal 2 now.
- This does help fulfil valve’s promise of providing developers tools to utilize vulkan in their games
- We’ve talked a lot about the benefits of an open driver stack for video
- I guess now we need a replacement for audio middleware on windows
- Hopefully some studios put this to work.
- One interesting note is that this is what a couple of the Ys stadia ports were using on the backend.
- Better Wayland support.
- It’s got them Pipes!
- Added support for the Amazon Luna game controller that you should order and keep in a box for 20 years.
- Flashing window for when you want to give someone a moment’s pause as they wonder what the hell just broke on their system before they realise it’s the actual software.
- Sensor data rate support on the DualShock/Sense and the Switch controller.
- 0AD chuggs on with the improvements
- Better pathfinding
- Improved netcode for reduced lag and game filtering
CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies
Game: Unbound: Worlds Apart
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/814680/Unbound_Worlds_Apart/
Devel: Alien Pixel Studios
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Price: £16.99 / $19.99 / $22.79
Wazzat: Summon portals to overcome vicious beasts, devious puzzles and fiendish platforming challenges. Master the unique powers of each portal to stop the collapse of reality, while exploring lush, hand-drawn worlds and unraveling a deep narrative full of mysteries.
Mandatory Disclosure: they sent us keys via curator connect
Venn:
Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control
- Zero problems and I mean zero, well done.
- It even picked up the XboxxSx1 controller after the game started.
- It’s even using the Vulkan sauce.
- Did I mention this is UE4!??
- Only tested at 1080 with vsync but didn’t notice any significant dips with everything on 11.
Fun?
- You can usually get a feel for quality by a games start menu.
- It’s that attention to detail.
- Good background music mixed with a solid visual + sound effects when pressing buttons in the menu.
- This is how I knew Hollow Knight was going to be good and the same goes for Unbound.
- That said, Unbound is more of a offense only Ori.
- Watching the trailer had me worried that the universe switching ball would get old.
- Spoilers: It don’t.
- About minutes in Unbound starts turning into Celeste Light and that’s when things get interesting.
- Also you learn how to kill baddies and fly, kinda.
- If you dig puzzle platformers give this a look.
- Solid art, good music, and tight controls and hey, native Linux builds.
- This will be a must have for the GabeGear.
Jordan:
Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control
- Launches OOTB
- Hold 60 @UHD
- those upscaled 720P cutscenes tho. Oof
- Dualshock 4 Worked out of the box with steam input, although you gotta deal with the xbox button prompts
- The art design is quite good. The monsters look like they were shat out of OG DOOM, and I it works
- The soundtrack is kind of just there. It does a fine job of conveying the mood, but nothing I’d consider an absolute banger
Fun?
- Normally, I don’t really like precision plaformers, but gosh darn if this one didn’t grow on me
- I suppose it’s cuz they checkpoint the ever living fuck out of everything, so there’s not much backtracking to do if you die
- The different portals are neat. The shadow realm one can eat a bag of dicks.
- Still, It goes to show you how you can still innovate on platforming mechanics, by making you be patient
- The pace at which they unveil new stuff is pretty consistent and by the time you’re starting to get tired, they move on to something new. I like how the new obstacles don’t overstay their welcome
- Only to come back in new and fucky combinations to mess your fingers on later.
Pedro:
Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control
- Launched out of the box
- VSync is a lie, it just caps the FerPS at 60 and doesn’t actually sync them to the refresh rate.
- Otherwise it’d be capping the framerate at the 144Hz my monitor can do.
- All controllers have Steam Input on by default as set by the developer.
- And to their credit, both the DualShock 4 and DualSense worked out of the box.
- The graphics graphicked and the sounds sounded.
Fun?
- Yes, it is.
- I’m the one who’s very tired of platformers and Unbound managed to keep me interested.
- Not being hipster-pixel helps, for sure.
- They took the interesting concepts from games like Limbo, VVVVVV, Snapshot, Guacamelee, and I’m sure many many others, and put them directly under your control.
- Limited visibility, reversing gravity, moving objects, and dealing with enemies far stronger than you.
- You’re the one with the agency to do all of those now, in the one game.
- I keep bitching about how if a platformer actually improves the formula I might actually like it, and wouldn’t you know it? I do.
- I still think Hollow Knight is better but this one is pretty good too.
Verdict:
Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:
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