Linux Game Cast 503: Fearing the Reaper

Valve reflects on one month of Deck, nvtop adds AMDGPU support, Intel changes ARC ship dates, and a Pi Pico powered DIY racing wheel.

Special thanks to:
David (inc pledge)
Zeno (inc pledge)
Anjune (new patron)
Mir 30mo (resub)
Oil of hope (gloomhaven)
Mfoxdogg (fall guys)


Listen:


Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
05:22 One month of Steam Deck
07:54 TSA vs Steam Deck
12:15 New games for Proton 7.0 RC
14:01 Project Heartbeat 0.14 new audio engine
15:51 New stage for Mighty Goose
17:55 Duck game gets official Proton support
27:57 Intel unreleases ARC
32:06 Unreal Engine 5 on Wayland
35:51 Ray traced DOOM
39:57 Nvtop gets super AMD powers
41:24 DIY racing wheel with Pi Pico
44:20 Review: Hypercharge: Unboxed
56:45 Emails


Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

A Month of Deck

  • Well, we used to make the joke about going down to the linux store and buying a linux computer. Now you kinda can.
  • I want number digits on how many units have been shipped.
  • Apparently they’re continuing to look into providing a basic set of working Windows drivers.
  • I too would like to know how many units have been sent out to paying peeps.


TSA on Deck

  • Further compounding their uselessness
  • Apparently though the screen doesn’t withstand ass too well.
  • Having a big Deck is not everything it’s cracked up to be.
  • You wouldn’t bring a laptop on a plane, would you?
  • Deck has a bit of a branding issue.
  • Big portable console or wee gaming lappy.
  • If someone judges you, break out some of that big Deck energy.


Proton 7.0-2 RC

  • Multiplayer in UNO is fixed, finally!
  • DXKV & VKD3D bumps.
  • That is basically all that is currently in Experimental
  • Look forward to the next batch of stuff.

Steam: Game Updates

Heartbeat 0.14 Anniversary

  • Brand new audio engine.
  • Yeah, it seems the Gotdot engine was not up to the task.
  • Lower latency is best latency.


New goose

  • A brand new water level on planet Keto. So I assume the cheese and meat is all under the sea
  • Gotta beat the main campaign to get access to the DLC
  • Just in time for 4/20
  • Soggy Goose.
  • Have to beat the main game first, grr.
  • Add some online coop.
  • Free water goose if you’ve been aching for more honks.


Quack Patch

  • “…and there’s unfortunately nothing I can do about it on my end.”
    • You could… stay with me here… support the platform natively.
    • Just sayin’
      • This is how it’s going to work for the time being.
      • Make Proton tweaks for Deck.
      • Natvie build.
      • ????
      • Profit.
    • Ah the first wave of “/shug valve is handling it iunno me developer know nothing about software”
  • Generally with wine if you found a version that works you stick with it, but with proton generally newer is better

News:

Slow ARC

  • Promising products “at launch” and not delivering.
  • The Acer prelaunch lappy has been moved from May 25 to June 13.
  • Samsung is now saying ARC is optional.
  • Man, I hope ARC survives Intel being Intel.
  • Waiting on date / pricing for the discrete GPU or a MSRP’ish 3060.
  • Whatever comes first.
  • Can’t be the only one.
  • It’d be nice if they launched it
  • It may kick prices back around to the old “normal”.
    • Yeah Intel, think of the poor scalpers.
    • They are going crazy trying to figure out the proper amount to overcharge.
    • Checking the two guys on Amazon going back and forth is part of my morning routine.


UE5

  • Software ray tracing only for Unreal’s fancy new lumen tehc
    • Same with their Neural network interface. DX12 on windows only
  • Linux as a first party dev platform is really nice though.
  • Kudos on the SDL work ethan. It keeps paying dividends
  • I look forward to seeing games come out with it.
  • With UE4 everything was covered by stupid amounts of lens flare, I wonder what the distinctive visual feature of UE asset flips will be.


Ray traced DOOM

  • Kinda messes with the original artstyle.
  • It sort of reminds me of the remastered TOS episodes that have all the old footage with 2009 era TV CGI
  • Very shiny looking
  • Needs RayTracedGL1 to build.
  • Linux support is a bit dodgy ATM.
  • The way projectiles and fireballs change the lighting looks pretty good.
  • Though, I do wonder if the same effect couldn’t be achieved without tracing rays.


NVtop /w AMD

  • AMDGPU only, no pre-GCN card support.
  • Nice looking usage graphs

Pi R Square

  • The actual wiring is pretty bare bones so you can make your wheel as fancy as you want
  • Plugs in via xbox360ce
  • This is bringing steering wheel tech into the rage-quit price range.
  • Good use of a Pi Pico.
  • How hard is force feedback?
  • Asking for a friend… who wants to make his desk jump around.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope
– Not sure if want
– Check it out
– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Hypercharge: Unboxed
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/523660/HYPERCHARGE_Unboxed/
Devel: Digital Cybercherries
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Price: £15.49 / $19.99 / $22.79

Wazzat: Now with Native Linux support and Steam Deck Verified! Hypercharge is a solo and co-op wave-based first/third-person shooter with a small twist: you’re an action figure! Grab a friend and protect the Hypercore. Explore. Defend. Survive.

Mandatory Disclosure: Devs sent us keys



Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Windowed and fullscreen make with the working.
  • Had to dial down the res scaling to 50% when fullscreen exclusive was enabled.
  • At 1080p with everything on max it’s 90+.
  • 2160p struggles to hold 60.
  • Considering the game is UE4 under the hood, yeah, impressive.
  • WASD was logically mapped unlike the Xclone but you can rebind them.
  • As a hardcore gamer ™ I prefer to play FPS with a controller, for the challenge.

Fun?

  • Digital Cybercherries put their Unreal Dev Grant to good use.
  • This is a polished FPS tower defense game with deathmatch & zombie mode thrown in.
  • Yea, the tower defense is wicked simple but bouncing around in big maps gives me TDM Bathroom 3 flashbacks… and that’s a good thing.
  • Collect coins, build shit, defend shit.
  • Zombie mode is alright if you have some people to play with.
  • Unfortunately it peaked back in April of 2020 with 921 players.
  • However, it has received a boost in the last 30 days clocking in at 200+ over the previous avg of 50.0.
  • That said, all the servers are empty at 5PM on a Saturday afternoon.
  • That’s not a good sign because playing in forever alone mode does not spark joy.
  • GETTING IN A GAME WITH JORDAN WAS SIMPLE ENOUGH but I wouldn’t mind an option to join the game from the Steam buddy list.
  • I wish I had 50 keys to hand out to seed a server so we could try it out properly but I don’t, and neither do you.
  • At $19 you’re only going to pick up a single copy, if that.
  • Speaking of, pick up the demo and try it out for free on the Steams.


Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Launches OOTB
  • Performance can be a bit of a shitshow when there are a bunch of baddies on screen when you got everything cranked with the ol’ 1080TI
  • Multiplayer joining really needs some steam integration. It’s nice to provide room codes and direct connect, but I just wanna right click join some folks
  • The enemy beyblades got a chuckle out of m e
  • Controls are wasd

Fun?

  • It’s not a bad little first person shooter tower defense game
  • I’m a sucker for little things as big things so the entire aesthetic speaks to me
  • The game is a little basic though. I guess the meat of the stuff you can build is hidden behind unlocks, but I felt kind of limited with what building I could do. Once you place the walls and traps, there’s kinda not much else.
  • The levels also feel awfully small for what they are. I appreciate the use of verticality, but the actually useful space is down near the enemies
  • I like pedro failed to understand the zombie mode
  • There’s also deathmatch, but we don’t need another deathmatch shooter IMO
  • Speaking of, like most shooters it falls victim to the fact that there aren’t any active players, so there isn’t much going on in the server list, even in the official dedicated ones
  • Which is sad, cuz it’s pretty fun.


Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Launched out of the box
  • It launched very quickly! I’m so used to Proton games taking so long to launch it was actually amazing how quickly Hyper Unbox launches.
  • Some levels do hit 144FerPS at 2560×1440 but others, like the outside one on the video version, can barely maintain 60 with everything cranked.
  • On the Deck it does a very good job of holding 60 at the medium-ish graphics preset.
  • Motion blur comes disabled by default! Thank you!
  • It looks really good.
  • Some of the background tracks are also pretty bumping but most are kinda meh

Fun?

  • Hmm…
  • When it comes to shooters, it really annoys me when I have to take 3 sniper shots to kill another player character.
  • Deathmatch is really annoying because of that.
  • Zombies mode is fun even if I could never figure out the capturing.
  • Waves is alright, but that’s your typical tower defense in which you have to unlock the better stuffs and set your loadout.
  • And it takes a bit to unlock the turrets, which annoyed me greatly as well.
  • Honestly, all of this can easily be fixed.
  • The big one is that there don’t seem to be a lot of people playing.
  • Which sucks! I really wish there had been a bunch of people online to get into games with randos.
  • But, the fact there was 1 singular other person playing Deathmatch with me, probably speaks volumes as to how it’s perceived by people.

Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:


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