Other News about gaming on Linux
PSVR is running on Linux with OpenHMD and OpenHMD-SteamVR
Tags: Virtual Reality
A reader emailed in to show off that they've been able to get the PSVR headset working on Linux with Steam using OpenHMD and OpenHMD-SteamVR.
James Carthew said they did this using X.org 1.20 compiled from source, with the NVIDIA 396.24 driver along with Kernel 4.17.0-rc3-amd64 on Debian Buster (the current Debian testing distribution). Along with this, they also said to "Use arandr to disable the HDMI output to the VR headset.".
Here's a video test they did:
Watch video on YouTube.com
They also showed it off with Dota 2:
Watch video on YouTube.com
Pretty impressive stuff, especially considering the PSVR headset is a lot cheaper than the Vive.
Thanks for the email, James!
Rifter, a tough-as-nails acrobatic platformer announced with Linux support and it looks awesome
Tags: Action, Platformer, Indie Game, Steam
Rifter is promising some tough-as-nails acrobatic platforming that's utterly drenched in neon and it will come with an intense 80’s synthwave soundtrack.
Much like the rather excellent Remnants of Naezith, it features the use of a grappling hook and it looks equally as awesome. The developer, IMakeGames, emailed it in directly to note that it will have full Linux support at release in July.
Check out the reveal trailer:
Watch video on YouTube.com
Features:
- Lightning-fast, action-packed acrobatic platformer
- Run, swing, smash and dash and feel exhilarating freedom of movement
- Driven by a pumping 80s synthwave soundtrack and neon-drenched visuals
- Rift through over 90 levels
- Unlock 30 upgrades and new skills to fit your playstyle
- Challenge a large variety of enemy types and hard-as-nails boss fights
- Discover secrets, unlock multiple endings and perfect your stage ratings
You can wishlist it now on Steam. At launch, it will be priced around $10 with a probable sale during the launch week.
DXVK for running Direct3D 11 with Vulkan in Wine updated again
Tags: Wine, Vulkan
DXVK [GitHub], the exciting Wine project to run Direct3D 11 games and applications with Vulkan was updated yesterday.
Version 0.52 has these changes:
Improvements
- Initial support for DXGI 1.2. Fixes crash in Bioshock 2 Remastered (#121) and Frostpunk (#385).
- Optimized rendering on deferred contexts. Improves performance significantly in Diablo 3.
Bug fixes
- Fallout 4: Fixed freeze during the loading screen (#348)
- Fixed potential performance issue with MSAA
As usual, I'm constantly amazed by this project. At some point, I will have to try this myself but there's just so many good native games I rarely feel the need to play one of my older Windows-only games left in my library. Even so, it's always great for anyone wanting to play games on Linux they wouldn't otherwise be able to.
Poly Towns, a 'small town builder' just added Linux support
Tags: Steam, Indie Game, Strategy, City Builder
If you like your city builders to be a little different and challenging, Poly Towns might be worth a look. It just had a major update yesterday, with tons of tweaks and upgrades and along with that the developer decided to release a Linux version too.
It's a little odd, with the map split up into zones, as you progress you expand to have more zones to build inside which gives it quite a unique style. It's an unforgiving game too, with you needing to keep everyone happy otherwise you will fail and have to start again.
Have a look at the trailer:
Watch video on YouTube.com
You can find Poly Towns on Steam for £3.99.
A point & click adventure game Unforeseen Incidents released
RADV graphical glitches on Dolphin Emulator finally fixed
titles requests for feral
Dear https://www.reddit.com/u/speedcat_feral i want to post my personal title requests for you to analyze (anyone should do the same), focusing on REALLY possible ports (friend swhouses, multiplatform engines, high sale potential...)
-Codemaster's ONRUSH (incoming)
-THQ's BIOMUTANT (incoming)
-Square enix's NIER AUTOMATA (recent, high sales).
Please can you port at least ONE of this? ;)
N.B. i'm proud to be a tux-only gamer.
submitted by /u/dragonfly-lover[link] [comments]
Vkd3d 1.0 released
vkd3d for Direct3D 12 to Vulkan in Wine has released the first stable version
Tags: Wine, Vulkan
Today, the Wine developers officially announced that vkd3d for translating Direct3D 12 to Vulkan in Wine has reached 1.0.
Here's what they said in the release announcement:
This is the first release of vkd3d. A lot of Direct3D 12 features are still missing and bugs are expected. The current version was tested mainly with demo applications. A number of features that are being worked on have been deferred to the next development cycle. This includes in particular geometry and tessellation shaders support, various shader translation improvements, as well as various improvements for core Direct3D 12 methods.
vkd3d includes libvkd3d, which is the main component. It's the 3D graphics library built on top of Vulkan and they say it has an "API very similar to Direct3D 12". They've already implemented a lot of Direct3D 12 features including Graphics and compute pipelines, Command lists, command allocators and command queues, Descriptors and descriptor heaps and so on.
It also includes libvkd3d-shader, a library which will do the translation of shader model 4 and 5 bytecode to SPIR-V. They say the API for it is not yet set in stone. Again, plenty of work has been done and a lot is already supported, but they do specifically mention that Shader model 5.1 is not yet supported.
It also includes libvkd3d-utils, which they say has simple implementations of many functions which could be useful for source ports of Direct3D 12 applications.
So many fun things going on with Wine right now it's hard to keep track of it all.
You can see their release announcement here.
Phoenix Point is a dark, difficult and exciting strategy game that's very XCOM
Need help installing Linux OS on new hardware.
Hello everyone I am currently trying to install Linux mint on Gaming PC I built recently, all with mostly recent hard except for and old hard drive and ssd. I picked Linux mint the issue is I am trying to install on an SSD through USB and it is like it doesn't recognize It. When try and install It It just recognizes the USB and a message pops up that there is not enough storage.
submitted by /u/NiceSimpingGuy[link] [comments]
Introducing Speedcat (new Feral rep)
Hullo everyone. :]
Just want to introduce the Feral master account — /u/speedcat_feral! Speedcat is here to be Feral’s official representative on Reddit.
Feel free to tag Speedcat in all your Feral-related Linux gaming queries, comments and Skyrim requests.
submitted by /u/ellie_feral[link] [comments]
Steam on Mint 18.3?
Phoenix Point is a dark, difficult and exciting strategy game that's very XCOM
Tags: Strategy, Indie Game, Unity3D, Beta
Now that Phoenix Point [Official Site] from Snapshot Games has a Linux version out, I've managed to put some time into it and as a long time XCOM fan I'm very impressed. Obviously a full review can't be done right now, since it's nowhere near finished so that will be reserved for the final release. However, I do have a few thoughts to share on the general experience.
Note: Personal purchase.
For those who've played XCOM or any similar strategy game, you will feel instantly at home. While it does have its own unique features, it still shares so much of what makes XCOM good. Honestly, it's strikingly similar to XCOM in a lot of ways, like a weird twin-brother it never knew. It's not surprising of course, since Snapshot Games includes Julian Gollop who's known for creating UFO: Enemy Unknown which Firaxis Games later reinvented with XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
The cover system is much the same, the movement feels similar and so on. It does have a few key differences though, like being able to zoom in while targeting an enemy which gives you the ability to pick a specific body part to fire some rounds into.
The actual combat is a little on the different side too. Your bullets aren't just for show (unlike other games), as each of them will follow their own path and inflict damage on anything it hits. As I found out when I had a soldier positioned between another of mine and an enemy, I totally missed and hit my own guy—woops. The picture above show that half my bullets will hit inside the orange circle, while the rest could be anywhere within the red circle, so you can see a bunch of my bullets would likely hit the wall. There's also a difference between actual damage, possible damage and the ability to disable body parts and carried equipment. I've had a soldier have their weapon destroyed and their armed disabled, while enemies where chasing them down.
That alone makes it feel quite fresh, but it's certainly not the only difference. While moving your mouse around, you will also see either white or red lines pointing towards a box of items or enemies you will be able to target—very useful.
You can just about make out the red line pointing to the enemy here.
It's all about the small changes. The developers already clearly know what worked before, so it's not exactly a huge evolutionary leap in terms of mechanics and the interface, but more about how they can tweak it in various ways to make all of it feel better.
The action point system is also quite different, you can generally do whatever you want as long as you have the points available on each character, which is defined by the bar at the bottom of the screen. There are still some limits, like movement within a blue or yellow zone where staying inside the blue zone would allow you to use your selected item at least once. It's an interesting system, certainly makes it have a different feel.
There's also the Will Points system, which allows you to perform special actions like Jet Jump. You can choose to rest a character for a turn to recover some, with other ways to earn them per-character like opening a resource crate.
Honestly, it's difficult too. I haven't been able to win, not even once. Thanks either running out of ammo or to the Crab Queen who can literally smash through buildings to get at you.
While there isn't a lot of content right now, what's there is quite easy to play through many times. They have a single main mission along with random maps, which I've already put numerous hours into and it's a delight. While it's early days yet, their new release schedule of a build every two months (the next build likely late in July, should be a nice birthday present for me) should bring us some interesting content each time.
In terms of performance, it's not great. Currently, you only get a choice between Potato quality and Fantastic, with no room in between. Fantastic quality gives me between 20-30FPS, while Potato does give me a near-constant 60FPS.
I'm not going to say it's going to dethrone XCOM 2 for me (which is fantastic), but it could with enough polish as it feels pretty good already. I will need to see a lot more of the game before I can make a decent judgement on it. However, I can say one thing for certain, I do love the instant access to the combat modes that it offers right now, so I do hope they keep them in at release.
I'm very pleased Snapshot Games not only said they would support Linux but actually put out a build as they said they would during development.
If you wish to pick up a copy and get access to the development builds, you can do so here.
how is Expeditions: Conquistador?
I am going for an interview at the company who created Expeditions: Conquistador. Wondering if anyone has played it. It flew under my radar. Could you recommend it?
submitted by /u/beer118[link] [comments]
The Humble Store Spring Sale ends tomorrow, here's some last Linux picks
Tags: Game Sale, Humble Store
With the Humble Store Spring Sale ending tomorrow, here's a reminder and a look at some more choice picks for Linux gamers.
- Galak-Z 80% off - An extremely satisfying modern space shooter.
- F1 2017 70% off - Feral did a great job on the port of this one, great choice for racing fans.
- XCOM 2 67% off - Still to this day, it remains one of my favourite strategy games.
- Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration 67% off - Only recently came to Linux, good chance to grab it if you haven't still.
- Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth 50% off - Pretty essential for fans of the books. Even if you don't know the books, it's quite an experience.
- Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun 50% off - With the performance patch that was released recently, it's even better than before.
- Marooners 50% off - A mix of party games from the developer of Verdun.
- Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic 50% off - It's a bit of a strange one, but I enjoyed it.
- Slime Rancher 40% off - Probably one of the sweetest games around. The slimes are so adorable!
You can find the full list of Linux games on sale right here.
Also, while not game related, for those interested there's the The Humble Book Bundle: Web Design & Development currently going.
Have you picked up anything good recently? Let us know.
