Linux Game Cast 526: Public Submarines

EVGA nopes their GPU division, Steam improves their Vulkan capture, CS:GO gets a performance bump, and fully functional DualSense haptics on Linux.

Special thanks to:
Rtheren (Gifted Sam4 & Marionette Souls)
Mark (new patron)
Oil of Hope (inc patron pledge)
Chzbacon (twitch resub)
ptDave (twitch resub)
Nubbn (twitch resub)
Mir (twitch resub)


Listen:


Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:59 Hipster EPYC gaming PC
04:56 Acer monitor numbers
05:36 Come play BACK 4 BLOOD
07:46 Pedro returns to the island
08:53 Steam Deck offline mode problems
STEAM UPDATES
10:23 Steam client beta Vulkan capture performance
13:13 Speeding up the Steam store
15:38 Ultimate dark mode theme for Steam
17:48 Proton GE updates
STEAM NEW GAMES
20:08 Isonzo
23:23 Cyberpoly
STEAM GAME UPDATES
26:13 CS:GO Mesa performance bump
NEWS
36:28 ZOTAC RTX 4090 images leak
39:00 EVGA exits the GPU market
44:50 GODOT W4 raises 8.4M
47:30 GODOT 4.0
50:15 Full function DualSense haptics on Linux
52:35 VCMI 1.0
54:47 Review: Pulling No Punches
01:05:17 Emails
01:10:40 Is Arc really ded?


Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Vulkan speed

  • New purchase approval for us second class Mac & Linux users.
  • Better Vulkan capture performance.
  • Lol Windows users need additional software to use ds4 controllers
    • Why have DInput when they were the ones who created XInput?


Speedy Steam

  • Valve is a game company, not a website design company.
  • They don’t know how to write efficient code for browsers!
  • Pavel does though.
  • It’s still slow because their code is horrendous.
  • He was able to reduce the time to load a page with 2100 games from 16 seconds to 1.
  • Someone tried it on a page with 20k games, it went down from over 7 minutes to 10 seconds.
  • In Valves defense, loading that many games at once is not a typical use case.


Steamy dark mode

  • I’m throwing this in because it’s a dark mode theme that looks the business.
  • It requires using SFP but now I know about SFP.
  • It can’t theme the buddy list on Linux because reasons.
  • Added benefit of angering the French.


GE-Proton7-33

  • A slightly under-caffeinated eggy pushed out 7.32 missing a bunch of stuff. Oops
  • Divinity OS 2 doesn’t need it’s protonfix anymore, which is nice. That game is dope
  • Fairly small update considering some of the major ones with the FSR improvements previously.
  • I’m sure this would have been refreshing if GE hadn’t forgotten the actual Proton patches.

Steam: New Games

Isonzo

  • This one has a little hype around it.
  • There is a niche for WW1 shooters, apparently.
  • Beard and mustache DLC.
  • It looks alright.
  • From the folks behind Verdun and Tannenberg
  • Those guys are doing the simulationist jam, trying to accurately recreate everything down to the map.
    • Apparently they even sent some people out to the Valley


Cyberpoly

  • Ah someone remade the PS4 version of cyberpunk
  • I don’t hate the low poly aesthetic.
  • Bound to run better than Cyberpunk on Pascal.
  • If this is a real open-world RPG then it could be fun to play around in.
  • The trailer makes it look like a third person zoomer shooter.

Steam: Game Updates

CS:GO Faster on Mesa

  • 90% reduction in start up time is a pretty substantial improvement
  • Apparently some old Mesa bits were causing the initial start time of CSGO to be in the minutes, plural.
  • No word yet on how this will affect other games, if at all, but everything that has an issue with glTexSubImage in GL_DEPTH_STENCIL will probably be much faster now.
  • Hopefully no breakage comes of it.

News:

4090

  • That’s a round boi.
    • Real GPUs have curves
  • Pricing and availability please.
    • Yes. Please
  • I know this will be 70/80/90 announcements but I am curious what the 60 series will do.
  • I guess 3-4 slot cards are the norm now on the high end.
  • Can’t wait to see what EVGA has to offer for the 40 series.
    • Well so much for defaulting to EVGA video cards


W4 raises 8.5M

  • Player 3 is going to join the game.
  • That’s a fat chunk assuming the Godot dev peeps get most of it.
    • Now is the time to relocate to California!
    • And hire 200 staff!
    • Open some global offices.


Godot 4 Beta

  • Feature freeze time, so now it’s time to get stuff working properly
  • And the big one is Vulkan, which has been something which was lacking.
  • There’s some new physics too, I do want to see the floppy penis render with Godot 4.
  • C# compiler uses .NET6 rather than Mono now, mostly.
    • Needs it’s own build for now but eventually a unified editor is coming
  • FSR 1.0 is included, 2.1 is planned


Haptic Sense

  • The dualsense has a bunch of funky haptic effects that nothing except a scant few PS5 launch titles are using
  • Thanks to some custom wine patches, you can get those features exposed on linux
  • You do need a custom udev rule too
  • I really do hope the person submits that to WINE proper for consideration, or may even just Proton.
  • Having fancy haptics instead of just the traditional rumble would make me feel better about the £50 I dropped on this one on release.


VCMI 1.0

  • Open source heroes of might and magic
  • Congrats on hitting 1.0 guys!
  • Some good features including multiplayer save and resume from a single host and mixed hotseat multiplayer
  • Gargoyles are no longer immune to prosecution
  • Spectator mode
  • A whole bunch of fixes and rebalances for stuff I don’t really understand
  • Possibly the best way to play Heroes 3, which according to a large segment of the fanbase was the last true Might and Magic game.
  • I like Dark Messiah.

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Pulling No Punches
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1425760/Pulling_No_Punches/
Devel: BrainDead Broccoli
Engine: Unity
Price: £7.19 / $9.99 / $11.49

Wazzat: A classic 2D arcade action game animated frame by frame. Survive a fictional pandemic in a city filled with madness and denial.

Mandatory Disclosure: Devs sent us keys on Curator Connect



Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Double complete mouse cursors.
  • No option for window / fullscreen.
  • No option for resolution.
  • Graphical options are Lighting Quality and Bloom sliders.
  • No option to disable vsync.
  • Couple of sliders for volume levels.
  • 60 2160p on the 3060.

Fun?

  • In PNP you have the punches and kicks along with assorted throwables and wackables.
  • Didn’t like the dropkick being triggered on the punch button but that’s not a show stopper.
  • Standard lot of brawler baddies.
  • Blocking prevents you from taking any damage.
  • Tosses the need for crowd control out the window if you’re patient enough to wait for proper baddie alignment.
  • Animation is fluid enough for a brawler.
  • Soundtrack is forgettable.
  • I got all the way to not Baxter Stockman with a golden AK and learned about the lane indicators on the killed to death screen.
  • That would have been helpful.
  • It wanted to start me back at the beginning of lvl 2 and I said, na, I’m good.
  • This all happened in the span of 50 ish minutes.
  • That’s how long I can play a 2D arcade brawler before things get repetitive.
  • Sorry not sorry, I’ve been playing This Game ™ for the last 30 years.
  • Nothing to do with PNP, did the same with the latest Turtles game, SOR, Charlie Murder etc.
  • That’s how long it takes to learn the mechanics before you squad up.
  • That’s where PNP falls flat on its face.
  • Local couch co-op only.
  • You know what people shouldn’t be doing during a pandemic?
  • Meeting up in groups to play games.
  • If the last three years taught us anything it’s that you need to have online multiplayer built-in and no, Steam Remote play does not count.
  • PNP incentivises people not to self-quarantine during a pandemic.
  • Two chairs.


Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Launches OOTB
  • Hold 60 @UHD with both the 580 and the 1080. That’s two types of 80s!
  • No windowed mode option
  • No cloud saves either
  • The hand drawn art style is super cute. Everything is so expressive and and those little dudes can get the shit kicked out of them
  • It’s very brazilian though
  • The chiptune music is alright. I didn’t mind it

Fun?

  • The gimmick here is super cute
  • I too am frustrated by the state of the world thanks in no small part to the pandemic
  • So getting to beat the crap out of people is some nice catharsis
  • The fighting mechanics are just okay. It’s competently done, but you really gotta get the timing down
  • They do the river city ransom thing of having your unlock moves as you go. Unfortunately, like Pedro says, a lot of the standard defensive stuff (dodge rolling, side stepping) needs to be sought out. The book pieces you gotta collect aren’t out of the way, but it is a nuisance
  • I like the face punching minigame at the end of the level
  • It needs online multiplayer though
  • The game is a lot more fun with two players, so if you got a partner or roommate it’s kinda the only way to play the game without breaking quarantine


Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Launches out of the box
  • Mostly holds 144 at 2560×1440
  • I saw it dip on a few of the levels.
  • Then again, I was playing it on “Minimal” which has the least amount of health and mask drops.
  • I saw that game over screen a few times
  • DualShock worked, though I did have to go and set the Shapes in the options for the correct glyphs.
  • It’s some gruesome hand-drawn animation going on!
  • Especially as you get past the church level.
  • The music… It started to grate after a bit.

Fun?

  • Punhos de Repúdio as it was originally called.
  • Trust me, it took some googling to figure out the actual name of the game so I could send the Devs an email.
  • If the prominent flags and general green, yellow, and blue set dressing doesn’t make it entirely obvious, it’s made in Brazil.
  • It’s rare that we get to see a very competently done game come out of Brazil though not as rare as the ones coming out of Portugal.
  • And in the wake of the Turtles, this is not bad at all!
  • Except for the half-chiptune music, that shit can die in fire!
  • And not being able to dodge reliably or do a back attack until you’ve unlocked the 3rd and 5th move respectively seems to me like a bit of a dick move!
  • But I didn’t hate it

Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:


Hate Mail:

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