Latest 30 Comments

Quoting: SeegrasYeahyeah, it also says you need Microsoft Windows to play this; nobody needs Microsoft Windows to play games anymore in 2026. 😆

Windows is the minimum; Linux with Proton is the upgrade. 😄

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

"There's a reason we don't see many modern arena shooters - because they're just not really popular now. The industry clearly moved onto other genres a long time ago."

That is really the biggest mystery to me.
This particular genre did not have any big successes in... decades, at this point?

All games that tried to enter had rather small launch peaks and then kind of fizzled to low hundreds (if that much).

Online games without any kind of progression that are pure PvP arenas just don't do well anymore.
And those that bungle their own launches and sit at about 60% or so obviously don't stand much of a chance, relaunch or not.

Sure, it sucks for the devs, and maybe the game is even great now, who knows.
But in a market with way too many games, in a genre that hasn't been popular in a long while, you really only get one shot.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: LoudTechieApple finally started nearly caring for gaming(Game porting toolkit). Also Valve has been sponsoring Apple gaming, since around the same moment they started sponsoring Linux gaming(MoltenVK), modifying open source is just easier.

Good points, I had forgotten about GPTK and MoltenVK. Both lackluster compared to what we get on Linux, but certainly positive steps. Seems like MoltenVK is on the way to being deprecated in favor of KosmicKrisp that is part of Mesa.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I got the beta key for speed runner 2 some time ago and tried it, it was a blank copy of the first one tho.
If you say this is from the original author I wonder what happened behind the scenes.
I would love to see if they are able to improve on the first game with this one. I already decided that I wouldn't buy the second one with what they had to offer.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: fenglengshunWill the full podcast be uploaded to YouTube as well? I only watch/listen to YouTube podcasts.

As noted in the article yes, the full episode should be on YouTube next week.

Thanks! I didn't saw it since I was scanning around for a link to the full YouTube release, haha.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: elmapulafaik they only sell components at multiples of 2 numbers (2,4,8) so you cant purchase an 6GB ram module.

It has historically been n**2, but more recently they are making 3GB modules. So you'll see a lot of 24 and 48 and 96 GB kits these days. It still isn't common, but I suspect it will become the norm eventually.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Last I checked (must've been around a year ago) there was still a pretty huge performance hit, especially when running PT. Indiana Jones & the Great Circle with Supreme settings and full PT ran at 30fps for me in Linux, but 45fps in Windows on 7900 XT. Portal RTX was basically unplayable in Linux as soon as you got to the room where you get shot at. Now I got rid of Windows a few days ago so I can't really check how it is now, but it's nice to see continued improvements to RT performance

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

This new model is the M Preset?! I think.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I got a Intel ARC NUC PC recently on a decent deal, it was barebones,
I knew it wasn't going to have RAM or NVMe which is fine as I have a spare, but the memory DDR5 SODIMM was going to be like $300-1000, so I've had to just throw it on the storage shelf until I can find a realistic memory price sometime.

Maybe once the entire world explodes when the AI bubble bursts (when we are all bankrupt), I'll find some!

Every time I look at DDR5 prices I see dramatic increases in cost. I don't think people realize how much of a negative impact this is going to have on the PC market.

PS. Down under these Ryzen AI APU devices are INSANELY expensive, we talking $3000-5000 price tag.. I got this ARC NUC which has USB4 and EVERYTHING(feature wise excluding nvme/ram inc) for like %10 of that cost, lol

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

It is desperately needed. I do wonder how Stalker-2 looks now with these improvements which has MASSIVE ~%40 drop in fps compared to Windows WITH NVIDIA cards! (huge issue with nvidia which may or may not be fixed)

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

PVP FPS fatigue perhaps?

There is a lot they can do with this game, I don't know if it has it but they could do 4-8 player coop story missions and all sorts, that be fun challenge. Leaning on pure player vs player engagement WILL eventually fatigue out, even the MASSIVE BIG SUCCESSES have suffered player drops due to this issue!

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: suchWell, yeah, which is why I mentioned it. I guess if you really wanted to you could throw in up to 4x6GB if your motherboard is avant enough let you, so 18GB then is also possible. But, that's so far from common even IOI system requirements isn't the place for this level of needless confusion.

afaik they only sell components at multiples of 2 numbers (2,4,8) so you cant purchase an 6GB ram module.

You're right. I Googled something that turns out to be a typo, apparently.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: mr-victory

Quoting: sarmadThe GabeCube's target audience is mostly Steam Deck owners who want to continue their gaming session on TVs with better resolution and frame rate, and those won't bother with anti-cheat because they'll mostly be running the same games that run on the Deck.

Is that the only possible audience? Such people would be satisfied no doubt however I expect buyers to play different games on the cube, F2P FPS or retail AAA games more often while on Deck the most popular game was Vampire Survivors for months with many other indies in the mix.
Perhaps DOA was a strong word, the better way to put it would be "many people would refund it". Which I believe can create a negative impression and push away potential new buyers but yeah I was pessimistic.
I'm partly this pessimistic because where I live the go-to game most people play together is EA FC (formerly FIFA), there are even "PlayStation cafes" where people meet up and play EA FC. The cafes have PS4/5 with a selection of games but typically everyone plays EA FC, which doesn't work on Linux. But the Deck is not even sold in my country sooo...

Definitely not the only audience, but I would say that's the primary audience. And yes, many people will not be satisfied as you say, but I think Valve doesn't need to satisfy everyone for this to be a success. When the PS4 was released it only had a handful of games but people still bought it. So, it depends on how Valve markets the device. They need to make it clear to customers that not every game is available for it, but on the other hand its launch library is bigger than the PS4's lifetime library and that should be a big selling point.

Too bad that FC doesn't work, but at least we have e-Football. Let's hope UFL supports Linux when it gets released on Steam though I'm not sure how good it is.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: suchWell, yeah, which is why I mentioned it. I guess if you really wanted to you could throw in up to 4x6GB if your motherboard is avant enough let you, so 18GB then is also possible. But, that's so far from common even IOI system requirements isn't the place for this level of needless confusion.

afaik they only sell components at multiples of 2 numbers (2,4,8) so you cant purchase an 6GB ram module.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: elmapulRam was cheap.

That's the joke :)

Quoting: elmapulyou have a point, but there is also another thing to consider.

you can have 24GB of ram by having 16+8 or 8+8+8...

it makes a difference!
in theory 3 channels of 8GB is faster than 8+16GB but i think there is a trade off for having everything you want to access in the same chip vs spliting it into multiple chips, so im not sure if 3 channels is always better

Well, yeah, which is why I mentioned it. I guess if you really wanted to you could throw in up to 4x6GB if your motherboard is avant enough let you, so 18GB then is also possible. But, that's so far from common even IOI system requirements isn't the place for this level of needless confusion.

Either way, I'd be quite surprised to see 007 chew through 32gb even at such eye-watering frame rates like 60fps in 1080p. You're not making back that licensing money if this is now you optimise your game, RAM crisis or not...

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Always up for some Liam podcasting action! I still think he should do this more often.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: suchOne possibility regarding RAM is just that outside of the oddball 24GB configuration 32GB is simply the next stop. So, if a game realistically utilises 18ish at the ultra-high end of... 1080p60 (or 360p240, if you're feeling like braving those high frame rates) you slap 32GB on the requirements and you're done with it, no biggie. RAM is cheap, after all.

Ram was cheap.

you have a point, but there is also another thing to consider.

you can have 24GB of ram by having 16+8 or 8+8+8...

it makes a difference!
in theory 3 channels of 8GB is faster than 8+16GB but i think there is a trade off for having everything you want to access in the same chip vs spliting it into multiple chips, so im not sure if 3 channels is always better

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Steamy.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

One possibility regarding RAM is just that outside of the oddball 24GB configuration 32GB is simply the next stop. So, if a game realistically utilises 18ish at the ultra-high end of... 1080p60 (or 360p240, if you're feeling like braving those high frame rates) you slap 32GB on the requirements and you're done with it, no biggie. RAM is cheap, after all.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: mattaraxia

Quoting: mr-victoryI feel that the GabeCube *ahem* Steam Machine will be DOA due to anti cheat, I hope to be proven wrong but Windows on ARM laptops being frequently returned item on Amazon doesn't give me confidence, those laptops' game compatibility issues are not that different from ours... the advantage Deck had was being a handheld so who cares if an fps doesn't work.

If the Deck wasn't DOA because of anti-cheat, why would the cube be?

That just makes no sense. Will it be a bit limited? Sure. Will there still be tons of people who don't care about games like Battlefield? Clearly the answer is yes.

It's not expected to sell 50 million units, even 5 is a . . . huge success.

I'm not sure they're right, but I do see their point: People expect different things and play different games on a handheld.

When I buy a handheld, I expect the handheld games to work (like on Switch). And I wouldn't want to play FPS on it. On a box on the other hand, on a "real PC", I'd expect "every game" to work.

Yeah, and I should have been clearer, but when I said "Clearly the answer is yes" I really meant when you combine the Deck with this data in this article, the ridiculous growth of the desktop, it just doesn't make sense.

The Cube will most certainly sell pretty well, inline with the deck at least. To think it's "DOA" given all those things, just seems like a crazy stretch. No, it isn't going to outsell the PS5. Yes, it will outsell the original Steam Machines many times over.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

The relaunch has been pretty excellent in every way in terms of the actual changes to the game and I've been having a fantastic time playing on Linux. It's even reasonably well optimized for Steam Deck, though I'm not enough of a gamepad player to stick with it there. It's too bad that I don't expect it to last too long unless they make a huge marketing push (as they claim was supposed to come a while after the relaunch for...some reason), because in the putrid realm of live service shooters this is one that actually has the sauce and is worth pushing through the business model. Unfortunately if it goes down sooner rather than later, the live service disease will take another worthwhile game from all of us.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: KimyrielleTo be fair, 32GB RAM have been sort of standard for gaming PCs for a while now.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

no 55,69% of the market have less than 32GB of RAM.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Persephone the SheepNot that I can afford a new handheld plus dock. How well do the detachable controllers work?

Exactly my question to Liam also: how is LLGo Joycons support in Bazzite when they're not docked to the unit? I adore the Switch Joycons because I can rest my arms on the back of the couch, or drape one arm over my head and the other tucked under my leg if I so cared to. Freedom from standard controller "locked shoulder" pose, if you will.
How is undocked gyro support in Bazzite?

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: helloCLDOn the off chance I actually play through all of this, does anyone have any other recent Quake mods they recommend checking out?

The Immortal Lock was another pretty large mod.

Also other than looking for mods at specific quake community websites like Slipseer both official Bethesda Quake remaster and Ironwail are now capable of browsing and downloading mods right in the menu. Iirc both have relatively small mod lists but since it's so easy to just download and play something you may as well try those

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Anorelsan

Quoting: kaimanI'm on Gnome, but I could swear that this also is a problem I had in the past. Haven't played many games with controller lately, so no idea if it's still an issue or not.

But even then it annoys me at times: screen going blank during lengthy cut-scenes. Or the opposite: screen not going blank when Firefox with Youtube is open, and no video playing (happens only on occasion, though).

On my system with Archlinux + GNOME, if you are playing with the controller the screen doesn't go blank. If you don't touch the controller, a lengthy cut-scene as you say, the screen goes blank and you have to touch the mouse or keyboard (the controller don't work¿?). I have my power saving config to go blank after 5 min of inactivity so it's not a problem anymore for me.

And that applies on steam, emulators etc.

Don't know if it's KDE only, but recently Steam made it so finally that when a game is running it won't take you to a lock screen which in my opinion is most welcome change as games might behave bit badly when power saving is enabled.

Heroic launcher did this already, but for some reason Steam was lacking it before.

Don't know why Valve hasn't announced it in the change logs or anything cause i think it is a big improvement.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: JarmerNice! Gotta love these huge improvements for same hardware.

Although: that said, I'm not sure I notice/care that much about raytracing just in general. It makes things look SLIGHTLY just a tiny bit better at a huge frame cost? But maybe with this the frame cost will be minimal so that slightly better look will be okay?

Apparently some developers are mostly using ray tracing not to improve the visuals but as a crutch that allows them to not bother implementing lighting at all as they normally should, like iirc the latest Doom game doesn't work without ray tracing at all, although when you set it to low the performance is not as horrible as you may expect from ray tracing (but still pretty horrible)

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I like raytraced reflections, the rest I don't really care about personally. Most of the time it's not implemented correctly and it has lots of noise so I don't use it, but for example Cyberpunk is good enough that I would, even though it has light bleed.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Kernel level anti-cheat? Well, that's a way to push me away. Knee-jerk reaction aside, of course.

Although according to protondb this does run. I'm curious on how these works with proton/wine. Or maybe the store page is outdated.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I hope they find their groove.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I was wondering this when watching some Windows 11 vs Linux benchmarks recently. It seemed like RT wasn't as performant on Linux.. Idk why but I always get a kick out of seeing performance gains on Linux, even if I'm not directly benefiting.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment