Linux Game Cast 483: TriceraHoff

Star Citizen enables EAC for Linux gamers, Steam adds 4K capture with PipeWire, NVIDIA open-sources their Image Scaling SDK, GTA Modders take Take-Two to court, and Streamlabs does a dumb.

Special thanks to:
Pebble (new patron)


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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
06:31 Big update for Linux Steam client
10:01 Clunky Hero
11:31 Wrought Flesh
13:31 Warp Frontier Linux build
16:01 Star Citizen enables EAC
19:21 Baba is You level editor
21:41 Kung Fury post launch patch
32:21 NVIDIA DLSS 2.3 hotness
32:51 Nvidia Image Scaling open-sourced
35:16 Nvidia Zink performance bump
38:01 Portals with Gallium
42:18 Switch emulator YUZU progress report
47:48 GTA modders go to court
51:13 Streamlabs accused of plagiarism
56:58 Review: Evertried
01:07:53 Emails


Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Steam Client Update

  • Bringing the non beta client up to speed
  • Highlights include pipewire streaming, the let’s encrypt root certs and CEG support
  • 4K capture with the Pipes?
  • Initial support for games using CEG DRM through Proton.
  • Bioshock Infinite is a crashfest.


Xbox back on the menu

  • Yeah, Xbox controllers were knackered for a full week.
  • It wasn’t just XBox controllers.
  • The DualShock and DualSense the moment you turned on Steam Input just stopped working.
  • Trying to nix all those game streaming bugs under Mesa before February, eh?

Steam: New Games

Clunky Hero

  • Peter buckethead came to town.
  • 2.5D platformer with a sense of humour.
  • I like what they’re showing so far!
  • Not “I’mma buy your game in Early Access” like it, but I will definitely shoot them an email when it’s released.
  • Holy reasonably priced early access game batman
  • The art looks cute.
  • Hopefully it doesn’t control like butt


Wrought Flesh

  • Serious Frankenstein Monster?
  • Reminds me a bit of skellboy or that one Lovecraftian roguelike, in the house of silence
  • Use organs to manipulate your stats
  • Get sent back to 1998 with those retro graphics

Steam: Game Updates

Warp

  • The developer called for Linux testers at the beginning of October.
  • They made good on the threat of bringing it to Linux.
  • You can grab it for 10% off until Tuesday


EACitizen

  • It’s good to test these things early in development.
  • After all Star Citizen has only been in production for… let me google right quick… 10 years.
  • At least someone is publicly giving it a try.
  • Also, don’t have two pointing devices plugged in or BANHAMMER!
    • Apparently doing this in software is an aimbotting technique
  • It seems like shit is still borked for now, but hopefully the RSI folx tell a better love story than elite dangerous


Baba is level

  • Begun the fresh hell has.
  • Couple of hotfixes came out right after the update.
  • Apparently it caused some levels to become unbeatable.
  • How anyone could tell is beyond me.
  • 150 new pre-baked levels along with the editor to make your own.
  • Baba is infinite!
  • You also get the devil’s babas rejects and some developer commentary.
  • I wonder what the criteria was for hitting the cutting room floor


Kung patch

  • Didn’t expect that.
  • Play as the Hoff and enjoy the new story mode.
  • Was this always a Windows affair?
  • Am I experiencing the Mandela effect?
  • People might have this in the libraries since it had a Linux build back in the day.
  • Since the updated version lacks Unity nope screen.
    • -screen-width 1920 -screen-height 1080 -screen-fullscreen 0

News:

Are our DLSS learning & Open-sauce scaling

  • NVIDIA DLSS 2.3 is available now in 16 titles.
  • Spoiler: It looks more good.
  • NVIDIA Image Scaling SDK is now open-source.
  • It works like AMD FidelityFX.
  • I look forward to the day when the GabeGear, with its AMD APU, uses NVidia FSR.
  • So 2 weeks until GloriousEggroll gets this going in ProtonGE?


NV Envy

  • Update on the Zink hotness.
  • How does NVIDIA’s Vulkan driver (with zink) stack up to NVIDIA’s GL driver?
  • zink with NVIDIA’s Vulkan driver is roughly 25-30% faster than NVIDIA’s GL driver for Tomb Raider.
  • Spreading the inherent single-threadedness of GL over the Vulkan abstraction blanket makes it faster.
  • Just like it did with D9VK (DXVK nowadays)
  • Mike is very quick to say that this is by no means typical of results, but it is noteworthy
  • Vulkan really is turning into the “I’m gonna make my own drivers with blackjack and hookers” toolkit
  • For reals tho, new openGL stuff seems to be going the way of the dodo now that Vulkan is at the point of maturity. Nvidia has no reason to ditch it for now, but eventually who knows?
  • This is likely going to be necessary unless nouveau successfully petitions satan for any amount of openGL performance.


GPU Goes Brrr?

  • Apparently we ain’t done with gallium9 just yet. Now just Nine.
    • Number nine? Number nine?
  • No need for a special Mesa build.
  • Simple wrapper for any compatible DXVK title.
  • Unless you’re running Nvidia.
  • A 50% improvement with the exact same backend GPU driver isn’t too bad for a simple preload shim.
  • Uses hella less power as well.
  • This only affects DX9 titles using dxvk, but with the amount of legacy titles, combined with the power savings makes this a very attractive option for older games on the deck if you’re willing to tango with it


YUZU

  • It’s a shame the new Switch was delayed by two months.
  • Speaking of resolution scaling.
  • If you’re using the 490 series drivers on your NVidia card and want to play Yuzu, proceed with caution.
  • You’re gonna need a 1080TI or better if you want that good 4x texture scaling
  • FSR is implemented. They recommend it if you’re upscaling a lower resolution and want to clear up some of the fuzzies


GTA

  • GTA 3 and Vice City projects were actions protected by fair use under the Copyright Act.
  • Any alleged ‘reverse engineering’ of original code represents a transformative use of that content.
  • They point out that you still had to buy the game.
  • The United States Copyright Act should not be applied outside the United States and its territories.
  • If this goes to trial it will hinge on the judge knowing what the hell a technology is.
  • Given the shitshow that was GTA Remastered, It looks like rockstar went with litigation over innovation and by gum they’re gonna sink those costs
  • I really do hope someone like the EFF or some other advocacy group with a bunch of money can remind Take2 what the DMCA is supposed to protect.


Bunch of SLOBS

  • Twitter has definitely picked up on this tuesday-wednesday
  • Copypasta of marketing copy is definitely not a good look
  • SLOBS isn’t in violation of the OGL, but there’s definitely some trademark nono happening
  • Faced with community backlash, they have taken the bold step of renaming SLOBS to Streamlabs Desktop
  • Logitech didn’t expect this when they yoinked them last year.
  • Neither did Twitch.
  • I was shocked to see how many people thought SLOBS = OBS.
  • Apparently they have been up to this kind of nonsense for a minute.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Evertried
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607040/Evertried/
Devel: Lunic Games / Danilo Domingues
Engine: Unity
Price: £15.49 / $19.99 / $22.79

Wazzat: Evertried is an isometric, tactical rogue-lite where the player ascends a mysterious tower in the afterlife using their wits, strategy and positioning in turn-based combat. Make clever use of attacks, movement, skills and hazards to clear floors of enemies and advance higher toward your destiny.

Mandatory Disclosure: Devs sent us keys on Curator Connect



Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Yo, about that fullscreen.
  • Video of something is supposed to play at launch, it doesn’t.
  • If you’re not going to brother testing your Linux build at least make the game saves cross-platform.
  • It’s hitting 800+ but not getting the coil whine.

Fun?

  • You boop around and slice up enemies.
  • Unless there’s a cannon on the map.
  • Then you run about in circles until they get killed to death.
  • That’s about it, not kidding.
  • After a few levels you encounter a store where you buy health.
  • At least that was my strat since HollowMoth can take all of three hits.
  • It’s a simple puzzle game with nice art and a serviceable soundtrack.
  • …that’s priced $5 higher than Into the Breach.
  • Not working in fullscreen on three systems is a no go in the Steam AD era.


Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • So fullscreen in game is borked. Fullscreen menus are fine
  • What in the actual fuck is going on with the control settings. The PS4 setting jacks up all of the prompts
  • I ended up just playing with arrow keys. Keyboard based isometric grid movement is eugh
  • It’s going for a hollow knight-esque cutesy aesthetic. Even down to the masks. It’s a bit less plagemarizing than SLOBS
  • This is why you don’t just click export

Fun?

  • Ah, the time tested combat system of jam your ass into your enemy until they run out of HP. Those were the days…when you were playing on a terminal.
  • This reminds me a lot more of warlock of firetop mountain than into the breach
  • You have information on hazards here, but not enemies. So you gotta bait them
  • Which means you really just end up spinning your wheels for a bit while you wait for your enemies to get into a position where they don’t murderfuck you
  • But the game also wants you to get in there and build up combo meters so it can feel a bit inconsistent
  • There are some upgrade you can get and you can make them stronger in between runs by using them more
  • I got past the first boss, which admittedly was a neat little puzzle, but the game didn’t really grab me.
  • However with the technical issues and odd controls I really can’t give this a recommend


Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • It launched out of the box but starting the game proper gave me a black screen.
  • Changing from fullscreen to window mode worked around that
  • The FerPS… well they’re completely uncapped.
  • You’re looking at 900-ish in game unless you libstrangle it.
  • It’s coil whine city over here with the 1080.
  • The controller mappings are also fucked.
  • By default in PC/XBox mode, left and right on the dpad are up and down. Up and Down don’t work.
  • If you change it to PS4 mode, Circle becomes accept and Square becomes back.
  • At least all four directions on the DPad work then, but Up becomes down and vice versa.
  • It also completely ignores SteamInput on both the beta and non-beta Steam clients.
  • That’s impressive!

Fun?

  • The comparison to Into the Breach is fairly inevitable, but this is even more simplified than ItB.
  • And as much as I praise simplifying mechanics and distilling them down to what makes them interesting, I do think you can go too far.
  • And I think Evertried may have done just that.
  • There’s also the fact that this is a turn-based roguelike with a real-time nanny bar which deals you damage if you let it empty all the way down.
  • So even in its simplicity it seems rather schizophrenic with its own mechanics outright fighting each other.
  • It looks good, the mechanics are simple, and it’s very easy to understand what’s going on here.
  • But when taken as whole, it doesn’t work as well as it should
  • Which may also be related to the technical shitshow I mentioned at the top.

Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:


Hate Mail:

Downboats

  • Think of the children.
  • Problem is average users are the ones disliking as well as liking.
  • This is to get more people to watch more videos because more money.
  • The Tubes exist to serve ads.
  • It seems we have a new generation coming to grips with this.
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