Every article tag can be clicked to get a list of all articles in that category. Every article tag also has an RSS feed! You can customize an RSS feed too!
Latest Comments by STiAT
Obsidian: Developing For Linux Was Not Worth It
31 August 2015 at 10:29 am UTC

I bought the whole Withe March series expansion pass, so they better keep supporting it

What we know from humble, Linux-Players usually pay more than Windows-Gamers. I, in example, had a 130 € pledge for Pillars of Eternity.

@Cheeseness I'm running with the steamspy data (Owners: 509,875 ± 18,537, http://steamspy.com/app/291650), so we're running towards 500.000 copies instead of 400.000. Humble bundle did show off that linux gamers usually pay more than windows gamers (would be interesting what linux gamers pledged on kickstarter, I was in with € 130 for two copies, making one copy worth 65 €). Interestingly, if I calculate with 500.000 instead of 400.000 and 1.5 % of the userbase, 70 % after-tax and paying 45 € I get to 236.250 € as you do with 400.000 - typo?

But I certainly agree, if the port was not complicated like hell, 236k certainly sounds like a profit to me.

Vulkan Looks Impressive Against OpenGL In A New Intel Demo
31 August 2015 at 9:51 am UTC

Quoting: Creak
Quoting: PeciskSony being with Khronos isn't rumor and I don't see them any reason why they would have to deny low level API implementation. They aren't Nintendo.
Sony is indeed part of the Vulkan team, but I think it will take some time before the new API gets its way to their PS4. First because they need to test it thoroughly in order to make it as stable as their previous API (a derivative of OpenGL) and also because it's most probable that they will wait for their console sales to go down before introducing the new API that will make their machine faster (most players don't know about Vulkan, heck I even know game devs that doesn't know about it).

Sony being there could have different reasons. Sony recently ported games to Linux as well, so they might be interested in Vulkan from that angle.

We shouldn't forget that the PS4 API is still even lower level than DX12 or Vulkan, which can only be since you only have one CPU/GPU to support. So they might support Vulkan additionally to their API, but I'm sure they won't consider replacing their own API for the reason of performance optimization. If Sony supports it in the PlayStation, the game developers would still need to port it to the XBox one. For PC, it wouldn't matter if DX12 or Vulkan (Linux share isn't a gamebreaker, and Apple probably won't support it on their OS due to their Metal API). I see it the way that the game developers will adopt DX12 for XBox and PC (Windows), PS4 API will remain being used (because you can optimize even more than with Vulkan) and Metal for OSX. At least for AAA titles.

For the mobile world we'll probably see higher adoption. Engines support it due ot Android adopting it. That wouldn't help us in any case, except for the point that a lot of developers will be familiar with the Vulkan API, but hey - that are not the AAA developers.

Mabye some developers (due to the engines supporting Linux/Vulkan) will release for Linux. But most consider the additional development (you still need a complete seperate code-path for the draw calls), support and QA required not worth the trouble.

The only thing which really matters and is a strong PRO vor Vulkan is, that it will support older Windows versions, and my guess is that Win7 will have a significant market share for some time to come.

Company Of Heroes 2 Released For Linux, Port Report & Thoughts Included
28 August 2015 at 10:50 pm UTC

Quoting: grenadecx
Quoting: grenadecxDecided to test the port out since it's free for a couple of days.

So my specs are:
OS: Ubuntu 15.04 ( with Unity/Compiz with "Undirect fullscreen" )
Graphic card: Nvidia GTX 780 with 352.30 drivers
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz
RAM: 16GB
Resolution: 1920x1080

I should be able to run this game on medium settings without AA with quite a good performance. While I can't compare it with Windows version, this is what I believe.

Anyways, I turned everything to LOW or OFF. And decided to start the campaign. I get somewhere around 20-50 fps, usually around 25-30, with some micro stuttering. Sure, I didn't play for long but why would I when I have that horrible performance.

Horrible.

FYI I just tried the game from Windows 10. With everything set to High, Vsync off and AA off - This game runs about 120-150 fps.

I'm amazed that this game runs so poor on Linux. This port is for sure quite epic. Feral, you might have had a good track record, but you just wiped it out.

We've seen better Feral ports for sure, with more quality in the initial release. Still, at least for me (considering myself having "heavy" issues), it's still playable. I'll get my OGL debugger running tomorrow and check what's the real issue, but I'm quite pinned to the theory it's particle calculation at explosions.

We'll see how Feral responds, as far as I know them, they're looking into the issues. For me it seems like they may draw each particle instead of using glDrawArraysInstanced/glVertexAttribDivisor .... in a sane way (which tends to be harder as you'd think combined with physics / physx). It's all about the life-time of particles.... and that could be the reason for the memory issues either. But that's pure speculation, the Feral guys know what they're doing (and I'm sure they do know better than I do, being a hobby OGL developer/porter), and they'll for sure get their debuggers running as I'll do.

Feral may didn't do that port as good as they could. They got the +1 for doing dozens of other ports they just did right, and they delivered this one at least playable, which in my standards isn't enough, but hey - we can play it. And I'm sure in Ferals eyes that's not enough either, considering that they seem to maintain their ports / patch them.

On the other hand, that's a good example for a "not so good native port", for the discussion about DX wrappers / engine "implants" for a DX/GL Layer. It's not all about if you do it really native, it's mostly about how good you do it.

For me, personally, TW2 was as good playable as this one. One being a wrapper, one being a native port.

Company Of Heroes 2 Released For Linux, Port Report & Thoughts Included
28 August 2015 at 10:43 pm UTC

For Feral standards, this port could have been better for sure.
Quoting: Mblackwell
Quoting: STiAT
Quoting: MblackwellThere's definitely something going on with the framerate if you use steam's FPS overlay. You can see that the main menu itself hangs out at 60fps (which, it's a menu so why's that?), and then after running the benchmark its framerate will drop to the 40's and 50's... in the menu. Yep.

I'd guess the menu hangs at 60 fps due to vsync ;-).

Vsync is disabled as specified right below there. :P

Also you don't get 40fps on a 60hz monitor with vsync enabled unless it's also triple buffering (which is also not enabled globally or a game option).

In-game options and menus .. two different things. Also, in example, WMs can prevent even full-screen windows from skipping vsync (KWin tends to do that).

Company Of Heroes 2 Released For Linux, Port Report & Thoughts Included
28 August 2015 at 6:37 pm UTC

Quoting: MblackwellThere's definitely something going on with the framerate if you use steam's FPS overlay. You can see that the main menu itself hangs out at 60fps (which, it's a menu so why's that?), and then after running the benchmark its framerate will drop to the 40's and 50's... in the menu. Yep.

I'd guess the menu hangs at 60 fps due to vsync ;-).

Company Of Heroes 2 Released For Linux, Port Report & Thoughts Included
28 August 2015 at 6:24 pm UTC

I seem to have a few issues too, mainly audio-stuttering and off-sync videos, and a little bit of stutter here and there (video whise). Game is playable though, I'll check now what I can do against it, because it's not fully enjoyable (for now). I realized the high-memory-over-time issue as well (only having 8GB), running it for an hour (campaign) the machine was starting to swap.

At performance tests I get down to minimum FPS of 0.84 FPS (avg of 29.9 FPS). That sounds like an issue, I have an i7 and a GTX760, I doubt it should drop that low.

The engine is bottlenecking at calculating particles at explosions, that's mainly where I drop from ~30-60 fps down to 0-5 FPS, and if a few tanks are tackled by several teams, that's pretty often the case ;-).

Company Of Heroes 2 Released For Linux, Port Report & Thoughts Included
27 August 2015 at 6:09 pm UTC

Just bought it ... excited for getting a rts game in Linux. And that really really cheap.

Pillars Of Eternity: The White March Part I Now Available
26 August 2015 at 12:20 pm UTC

Damn.. somebody will kill me this weekend because it will be spent in front of the PC.

Unity Editor Lands An Experimental Build For Game Developers On Linux
26 August 2015 at 12:05 pm UTC

Ahm... they did show experimental vulkan support at SIGGRAPH 2015 .... so I bet it won't be "in a few years" but quite soon after the Vulkan spec is final...

Shadow of Mordor Nvidia Benchmarks On Linux
13 August 2015 at 10:43 pm UTC

I've bought it now, and it really runs smooth on my i7 with GTX760.

Just having strange freezes here and there which are pretty annoying, but ok.