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Nightdive Studios confirm Linux and macOS ports of System Shock are cancelled
23 May 2024 at 11:12 am UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: LoudTechie
Quoting: Pyrate
Quoting: rambo919Given that the ONLY linux native version of any game to never give me problems that I can remember has been Stellaris..... this might be for the best.

This. I mean, the only bad part about this is that it was a goal, or a promise or whatever, that they're now throwing away or "giving up" on. Which is still pretty bad, don't get me wrong, not downplaying that part, especially for MacOS users, I don't think they have a Proton equivalent to play the game there? MacOS backers should get refunded.

But on Linux, I booted the game up yesterday, and it just works.... like, who the hell cares beyond this point? I asked the other day on this website what could the actual, real world disadvantages of playing through Proton vs Native, bearing in mind that Proton is slowly becoming the defacto Linux-supported method from game developers side, and other than large prefix folders potentially eating up space over time, it's pretty much nothing to bring up.

They do have Wine(nowadays even as a default app under the name Rosetta), but most of them nowadays also need an x86_64 emulator, which really slows it down to nearly useless.
Most macOS users are using CrossOver or Whisky, I gather.

IGN acquired the Gamer Network including RPS, Eurogamer, VG247 and more
23 May 2024 at 2:17 am UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: LanzJust what the world needs - more gigantism. It's a shame governments don't do their job and use antitrust legislation to keep competition alive. Governments and corporations everywhere are centralizing and increasing in size/power. The little guy always loses when liberty dies.
I mean, Google has had two antitrust cases brought against it so far this decade. That's more antitrust action than we've seen in many years. The US antitrust division's budget has continued to shrink over the years, which limits the number of companies they can challenge. So they pick the really big ones. If you only had the budget and personnel to face down AT&T or IGN, which would you pick?

NVIDIA 555.42.02 Beta driver out bringing Wayland explicit sync
22 May 2024 at 11:51 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: Villian
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualI'm glad NVIDIA pushed the entire Linux Graphics Stack to implement explicit sync too. It makes all of our desktops better.

They dragged us down by 10 years, without supporting GDB, wayland, etc, amd intel always had that figured out, except nvidia, this is a good solution yes, but because of their lazyness we aren't using wayland from default since years
Their decision not to support GBM for many years held us all back, yes, but their decision not to implement implicit sync was a good decision in my opinion. They used the same tactic as Fedora KDE SIG to push others to support explicit sync, which is good for all GPUs. It means better performance and less buggy drivers.

NVIDIA 555.42.02 Beta driver out bringing Wayland explicit sync
22 May 2024 at 2:58 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: hardpenguin
Quoting: XpanderI'm on X11, so i don't really have any benefit from that hyped up explicit sync support
My thoughts as well... Wayland improvements are nice and all but most games and game-adjacent software still default to X11 anyway
XWayland has explicit sync support, which means improvement when you're running your desktop on Wayland and your games through XWayland, but Xorg doesn't have explicit sync support.

Nightdive Studios confirm Linux and macOS ports of System Shock are cancelled
22 May 2024 at 1:22 pm UTC Likes: 14

Quoting: PyrateI asked the other day on this website what could the actual, real world disadvantages of playing through Proton vs Native, bearing in mind that Proton is slowly becoming the defacto Linux-supported method from game developers side, and other than large prefix folders potentially eating up space over time, it's pretty much nothing to bring up.
I'd like to say that a native Linux port means developers will officially support the game when there are issues, but in practice ports may be abandoned afterward, and even when developers are told about fixes, they might not get around to doing them as every Linux user can just work around it.

Native games are more prone to breakage if developers don't bundle all the right versions of libraries and end up depending on dynamic libraries on the system. And sometimes old libraries don't work anymore but newer ones do because something on the system they depend on has changed in a breaking way (e.g. fontconfig, yes really). Native games should really be shipped through Flatpak, like Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers. That guarantees non-breakage.

Putting aside distribution, you also need to consider the engine. For example, Unity writes worse Vulkan calls than DXVK, which means it will perform worse than Proton: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/08/heart-of-the-machine-from-arcen-games-dropping-native-linux-for-proton/

The final issue with native ports, as I mentioned earlier, is developers abandoning them later. It is apparently not uncommon for developers to update the Windows version but forget about the Mac and Linux versions for weeks. It's not unique to OSes; developers might also not bother to update their builds on GOG but keep their Steam builds up-to-date.

So, if a game is affected by one or more of these issues, Proton is a better option. But Proton isn't perfect. Not every feature has been implemented, and those that are may not be correctly implemented. So you'll run into bugs that impact performance or cause crashes. But on the other hand, Valve are generally quicker to fix bugs than some developers with second-class Linux ports.

Native ports are still better if they are well-maintained and tested, and built in an engine that cares about high performance on Linux. Factorio comes to mind.

But as you said, it isn't about any of that. Nightdive Studios made a promise and they broke it. It's a promise several studios on Kickstarter have made and broken. I don't think "having a native Linux port" is a selling point anymore. "Having a well-maintained and tested Linux version we promise to support for as long as the Windows version, built for performance" is the new bar.

Braid, Anniversary Edition updated to improve Steam Deck OLED support
22 May 2024 at 11:59 am UTC Likes: 3

QuoteBlow has GamingOnLinux blocked on X, so I missed it until it was pointed out.
Any particular reason..?

Nightdive Studios confirm Linux and macOS ports of System Shock are cancelled
22 May 2024 at 11:36 am UTC Likes: 17

Now can I make a snarky comment? I assume no publisher will honor their promise of a Linux version unless they have a proven track record like Revolution with the Broken Sword series.

Previously, Previously, Previously, ...

NVIDIA 555.42.02 Beta driver out bringing Wayland explicit sync
22 May 2024 at 1:00 am UTC Likes: 2

This is probably not going to mean much for most Plasma users until October. As far as I know, explicit sync was implemented in Plasma 6.1 and not backported to 6.0 (?). 6.1 will be out in 2 months, but won't be in most distributions until October. It's in GNOME 46, though, from what I recall.

But, awesome, it's only a week later than anticipated. I don't have time or the bravery to test the 555 Beta, though, so I'll just wait until the stable driver is out.

I'm glad NVIDIA pushed the entire Linux Graphics Stack to implement explicit sync too. It makes all of our desktops better.

Manjaro 24.0 released with KDE Plasma 6, GNOME 46, Linux kernel 6.9
21 May 2024 at 2:15 pm UTC

Quoting: 14
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualLast year, many people found out that Arch does not automatically upgrade GRUB; you need to do that yourself. This became an issue when a new GRUB version wasn't compatible with the old version for [reasons], I forget.
If you got bitten by this, I suggest joining the mailing list. You'll know in advance if manual action is required. It is not noisy either. It is exactly the Latest News RSS feed on the main page: https://archlinux.org/
I didn't, actually. I hadn't updated for a few weeks coincidentally, but I happened to read a post on reddit about it so I knew in advance. I already have the Arch News RSS feed in my reader, but Arch took several days to announce the GRUB issue. I followed the instructions and nothing went wrong on any of my Arch computers.

The mailing list is a good suggestion.

Quoting: sudoerRunning systemd-boot for years and never had a problem, plus its configuration is so simple. Running (the often problematic in the past) GRUB in 2024 makes no sense to me (except you have an old motherboard), when for years most (common) distros use systemd, and you can switch from it to systemd-boot easily.
I only run it because I understand it. GRUB has been (generally) reliable for me and at least when I break it, I know how to fix it. Same reason as Arch, actually. I can't be bothered to learn a new bootloader, basically.

And I know Pop uses Systemd-boot, but Fedora and Ubuntu use GRUB. Linux Mint probably does too. So there must be a reason. I don't know about openSUSE, though.

Manjaro 24.0 released with KDE Plasma 6, GNOME 46, Linux kernel 6.9
21 May 2024 at 8:09 am UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: 14I know you were only poking.
Yeah, the winkie emoji was supposed to be this subtle signal that I was joking around. Too subtle for some, it would seem.
Is it worse if I was also aware it was a joke and took it seriously anyway?

Probably. It's a slow week.