Linux Game Cast 527: Big Data Mateus

Proton Experimental enables nvapi for a gang of new games, GPD announces their Steam Deck competitor, Steam introduces real-time charts, NVIDIA 40 series pricing would make a scalper blush, and navigating the Epic Store on Linux.

Special thanks to:
Mark (new patron)
RePlayGamingPT (new patron)


Listen:


Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:51 New audio interface
02:15 Bricking a Mikrotik
05:32 Jordan vs nosey neighbors
STEAM UPDATE
09:42 Steam client beta friends filter
12:02 Proton experimental adds nvapi support
13:47 Real-time Steam charts
NEW GAMES
19:47 Flashout 3
GAME UPDATES
21:43 Splitgate final update
26:12 Dead Cells boss rush update
NEWS
35:20 NVIDIA 40 series announcement
38:18 Priced for miners
39:02 Can AMD RDNA3 overtake NVIDIA?
40:27 40 series pricing intentional?
45:10 GPD WIN 4 Steam Deck competitor
51:30 Rare Epic Games Launcher update
54:11 Super Tux Kart Vulkan RC 1
57:01 SDL adding support for GPUs
REVIEW
01:00:16 Chronescher
HATE MAIL
01:12:43 Excited about power supplies
01:14:13 Buying an Arc encoder


Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Steam: News

Play /w friends

  • Fuckin’ finally

  • You can now filter games based on friends from the library

  • You can also filter based on group chats up to 8 people in size

  • The Sep22 update lets you search for friends using your custom nicknames as well, Jordan

    • Yes Ass-slut?

  • If you ran into an issue where you only got a black screen when streaming to a Linux box, the Sep21 update fixed it too.


Proton Experimental

  • Now with extra bold to indicate the changes.

  • Yeah, someone is watching.

  • A metric fuckton of games get nvidia nvapi support

    • WTF is that?

    • NVAPI is NVIDIA’s core software development kit that allows direct access to NVIDIA GPUs and drivers on all Microsoft® Windows® platforms. NVAPI provides support for categories of operations that range beyond the scope of those found in familiar graphics APIs such as DirectX and OpenGL.”

    • It’s the thing you enable to get the DLSS.

    • Remember kids, Proton lies to games to tell them you have an AMD card even if you’re on NVidia. Well… except for all them ones now.

  • No more upside down videos

  • No more dalmatian desert in BeamNG


RT Steam charts

  • How about RT hardware / OS usage?

  • Not entirely obsoleting Steam Charts yet, you can’t see it on the daily.

  • I guess someone is getting sick of writing those monthly best seller posts


Steam: New Games

Fleshlight 3

  • Yes, this needed a third installment.

  • Flashout 2 was universally panned but a lot can change in eight years.

  • Pod racing is now a thing.

  • Graphically it does look better and has VR support.

  • It’s a single player racing game in 2022 so might as well move on.


Steam: Game Updates

Splitgate – 8.0

  • This is the end of development update

  • Unique item drops will get duplicated over time to create a feeling of “endless loot”

  • Battle pass is going on forever and ever and ever

  • Splitgate is actually a pretty fun shooter.

  • I remember when I figured out that that bonking people with the ball was a 1-hit kill, that was fun.

  • A new map, new pro tiers, and a gang of game modes.

  • New sprays and nametags.


BOSS Rush Alpha

  • One of the longest running action roguelites, is getting even more stuff.

  • The third door after the tailor is going to be the boss rush rooms, and you can do 3 or 5 back to back bosses with or without modifiers.

  • Boss Rush comes with a few unlocks, some cosmetic, others less so.

  • And there’s some new legendary item affixes.

  • Save game backups highly recommended, though not necessary, if you would like to try this while it’s still in Alpha.


News:

Nvidia 40 series announcement

  • Lol and you thought you were tired of paying thousands of dollars for a video card

  • DLSS3 also showed up in the announcement.

  • New version of the NVENC along with dual encoders will be included in the 40 series.

  • AV1 support landed in OBS so now we play the waiting game.

  • The 4090 looks like a 3.5/4-slot design and that’s a bit silly.

  • 4090 24GB $1599 & 4080 16GB $1199.

  • $3.50 says they will try to get away with $500 4060s.

  • If the last 2+ years taught us that scalper pricing can get fucked.

  • That miner revenue stream has dried up and regular ordinary consumers are not going to pay that with the flood of cheap 30 series cards on the market.

  • AMD can come in with RDNA3 and disrupt the hell out of the GPU market if they want to get medieval with the pricing.

  • Being slightly less greedy is not going to cut it.

  • AMD saves a lot on die costs by forgoing AI and ray tracing fixed function accelerators and moving to smaller dies with advanced packaging.

  • Base level 4080 with 12GB is $999.

    • But it’s a 4080 in name only.

    • 192-bit memory and almost 1K less CUDA doodles.

  • I already felt pretty good about my decision to buy the 6700XT, now it’s just confirmation bias.

  • Now, how much of this is Nvidia keeping 40 series prices high to help burn through 30 series stock?

  • As someone in the market for a new GPU this is pretty disheartening

  • $900 for a 4070 is not really another purchase I want to swallow, especially if I can get a used 3080/3090 for less than that

  • Now nvidia knows they actually don’t have to even try to compete with intel

  • Hopefully the 7000 series is priced a little more sanely


GDP Win 4

  • RGB shoulder buttons ZOMG!

  • Heavy on the details unless you’re looking for the price.

  • Over $400 and it’s not a Steam Deck competitor.

    • The cheapest GPD Win 3 launched at $850.

      • But…butt it’s better than a steam deck says the marketing

  • That comparison table is the kind that Gamers Nexus likes to tear apart.

  • That CPU Geekbench score they show for the Deck is on Windows.

  • 2TB SSD, so minimum $900.

  • Apparently this is a “dual OS” machine because you can’t run windows on a steam deck

  • The EGPU support is kinda neat.

  • 1080P low is their run target


Magnolia Catnip

  • Looks like a competitor to Heroic although this one purports to be more focused on EGS

  • They got a flatpak and an appimage, or you can install from pip

  • Has some screenshots but looks pretty bare bones compared ot Heroic.

  • They got some catching up to do

  • The thing that hit me was that people actually use Heroic on windows because the EGS client is pretty bad, apparently.


SuperTux vulKan

  • Launch with –render-driver=vulkan to try it out.

  • I’m only getting resolution options for 1024×768.

  • And a warning message about old OpenGL.


SDL Shader Tools (Oil_of_Hope)

  • SDL 3D API that focuses on the shaders, written in SDLCL, and passes everything to the lower level Mantle-based APIs we’re already more or less familiar with.

  • Limp mode planned for OpenGL 4.5 and DX11.

  • WebGPU support is also planned


CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies


Game: Chronescher
Webzone: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1911170/Chronescher/
Devel: PurpleSloth
Engine: Unity

Price: £3.99 / $4.99 / $5.69

Wazzat: Chronescher is a challenging turn-based puzzle game in Escher-esque spaces. Use impossible geometries, teleportation and environmental snapshots to navigate your mind and uncover your lost memories.

Mandatory Disclosure: Devs sent us keys on Curator Connect



Venn:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Launches clean on Debian Testing.

  • Fullscreen and CYOA mode for resolutions.

  • No official controller support but it attempts emulation mode with Xbox controllers.

  • It’s arguably unusable.

  • A+D and a lot of clicking.

  • No performance settings but you do get the basic bitch volume & music sliders.

Fun?

  • This is a game designed for Android and iOS / something with a touchscreen.

  • Why it’s not on the Play or Apple store is beyond me.

  • If you’re going to play this on the Steam Deck get ready for a touch-fest.

  • On PC you’re stuck with the keebs & mouse and it killed the experience for me.

  • “we don’t exactly know how the game could be played with joysticks”

  • That’s what PurpleSloth said when asked about proper controller support.

  • Grids, you do it with highlighted grids like all the other puzzle touch games that implemented proper controller support for desktop.

  • For $4.99 you get a fun little puzzle game that scratches your brain on occasion.

  • Level design is nice and I enjoyed the perspective twist fuckery.

  • With 50 puzzles in 6 biomes there is a lot to keep you occupied for the money.

  • Unfortunately like most mobile-first games Chronescher is best experienced in quick hits.

  • Have 3 or 4 minutes to kill? Let’s take another crack at that level we were stuck on.

  • Even playing on the desktop I found myself checking email and reddit.

  • I think these games work best as a sitback experience where the player can zone out and focus.

  • That’s just me.

  • At the end of the day it’s cheap and you can get your $$ worth even if you’re playing with the keebs and gerbil.



Jordan:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Launches OOTB

  • Holds 60@ “fullscreen”. There’s a full screen tickbox and you can drag your resolution of choice

  • No controller support, just click which makes me think this is a mobile port but no!

  • A little unfortunate too cuz there isn’t really anything mouse or touch specific about the ui

  • Graphics get the job done. The art style is a little sparse but no real complaints

  • The harp loop did get a little grating after a while. I wish there was a bit more variety in the music

Fun?

  • It’s a decent little puzzler

  • Rotating the camera and changing the perspective changes the level a la captain toad

  • Having to deal with sliding block puzzles from multiple angles is a fun twist on sokoban

  • Each set of levels tosses a different modifier at you. Sometimes you can make portals, sometimes you can snapshot and restore

  • There is a story here, but they’re doing the nonverbal thing. Solve puzzles to unlock the fragments of your shattered past

  • But honestly, we’re here for the puzzles. And as far as puzzles go, they’re pretty fun.



Pedro:

Launch/Looks/Sounds/Control

  • Launches out of the box

  • Fairly barren on the options

  • Mouse/Touchscreen affair, though you can use left and right on the keyboard to turn the map.

  • Very simple graphics and inoffensive music.

  • Perfectly functional

Fun?

  • Did you like Monument Valley? Because this is Cairn Gully.

  • If putting Escher in the name didn’t tip you off, there’s a lot of impossible geometry shenanigans happening.

  • “Oh, but that gets boring after a while doesn’t it?”

  • Right up until they give you the Dark Crypt teleportation ability or the Camera from Snapshot in the second chapter.

  • And I’m guessing in the 3rd chapter you get to use all of them at once.

  • It gets proper mind-fucky in the best possible way!

  • For the price, it’s a good game to have on your laptop to give your brain a proper workout if your job is otherwise completely mind-numbing.


Verdict:

Venn:
Jordan:
Pedro:


Hate Mail:

POWA


A770

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