The Gaming Scene on Linux - Let's Talk About It!

daniel.m.tripp · February 22, 2021, 1:07am

Doh and double doh!

Decided to do an elimination test, i…e try booting / POST with just one of those DIMMs - and it powered up and POSTed successfully, so tried adding another DIMM - yep!

So I’ve got a Ryzen 7 (8 cores 16 threads - shows 16 virtual CPU) with 8 GB of RAM, 4 GB RAM GTX1650 “super” and 1 TB M2 NVME.

Installed Ubuntu 18.04, updated to 18.04.5 latest, install checkpoint VPN client, do-release-upgrade and now got 20.04.2…

So I thought - “what the hey?” - let’s try all 4 of those DIMMs again - and sure enough, they’re all good and it boots just fine (and AWFUL quick!) with 16 GB, I reckon I must have installed one of those DIMMs not seated properly - doh!

Took me about 4-6 hours - but got everything setup the way I llike (including cloud sync all my data and music files) and here I am WFH on a Monday morning “cooking with gas” on a new Ubuntu PC build (let all my steam games install overnight). Forced Cossacks 3 to install the Windows version via SteamPlay/Proton and it’s still flaky - what steaming pile of crap it is! I’ll have to see how the Linux native version runs on different hardware…

Later on this week will be running 40 GB of RAM…

daniel.m.tripp · February 23, 2021, 12:57pm

And what a steaming piece of crap that MSI motherboard is - the manual is shit compared to Asus motherboards… and the BIOS? It looks like it was put together by a bunch of minecraft players…

Today I tried to fired up a VM in virtual box - and would only let me do 32 bit VMs! WTF?

Fired up that UGLY “clickety-click” BIOS (you can’t really use it with a keyboard) - several times - but had to watch a f–king Youtube video to figure out how deep they’d buried the virtualisation “feature” (buried several layers deep in CPU settings in “expert” settings)… seriously F*CK you American Megatrends and MSI… Some things like Windows 10 Pro EXPECT to find a hypervisor to use…

Ute · March 24, 2021, 2:20pm

Of course I sent you an I’m a couple of times with a friendship request but perhaps you are getting capped?

Ute · March 29, 2021, 4:00pm

Daniel did you try second Life? It’s a very steep learning curve but when you know the basics it’s great fun!

Ute · March 29, 2021, 9:31pm

There seem to be a few people that would like to know a bit more about inworld life…so I took a couple of screenshots that should give you a rough idea of what it is like.

This a place to meet and dance

My Photostudio that I use to take profile pics

A Nepalese village

Basecamp on Mount Everest

A balloon ride with a friend

One of my favourite sunsets

A shop that sells hair

A SIM showing the Grand Canyon

Hope the pics explain in world life!

Mina · March 30, 2021, 7:34am

Lovely screenshots @Ute!

I haven’t been much inworld in the last couple of years, but I have always been amazed by the creative work of so many people. Though, I have to say: What I really like the most, are the personal relationships with other residents (habitants, players).

daniel.m.tripp · April 3, 2021, 7:13am

I just read - NVidia have enabled GPU passthrough for their consumer grade GPU’s on Linux… previously only available on their pro (PROhibitively expensive) “workstation” glass GPU’s…

i.e. you can run a Windows VM in Linux and dedicated one GPU to Windows… I probably won’t try this - but it sounds interesting… don’t really have a spare GPU, but would be interesting to try for the lolz and and the shits and the giggles (euphemism for lots of swearing and frustration).

I’m guessing you have to go KVM (i.e. not an option for Oracle Virtualbox) if you want this feature…

Ute · July 25, 2021, 6:46am

New look

daniel.m.tripp · July 25, 2021, 8:36am

Just spent most of the afternoon playing Borderlands 2 on my Linux desktop (Ryzen 7, 40 GB RAM, GTX1650 “super” 4 GB DDR5, Ubuntu 20.04.2 460 series NVideo proprietary drivers)… Recently got sick of having to remap my keyboard so I can play left handed (i.e. fine motor control with the mouse in my left hand) EVERY time I install a game - so I got one of those “dedicated” gaming keyboards with WASD for me to use with my right hand (yeah I guess I could just slide over my main keyboard and use that)…

Anyway - played about 4 hours and stopped, there’s an annoying glitch which has plagued users on ALL platforms since the game launched 6 years ago - it just stops responding to anything keystrokes, or sometimes e.g. if you’re running, you just keep running until the glitch finishes itself and restores control… Grrr… you’d a thunk they’d a fixed this… I’ve seen all “PC” platforms report this symptom, i.e. Windows, Mac and Linux - and the glitch kept happening every 5-10 minutes so I gave up in frustration… time to tweak some settings here and there I reckon…

daniel.m.tripp · July 27, 2021, 2:40am

How dumb must I be?

I realised I’m running Synergy (server) while playing - stop Synergy and problem goes away!

I saw some post on social media by Symless (makers of Synergy Pro) showing someone gaming using it and espousing it as a possible “Gaming Solution” - I always used to turn it off - but they reckoned they’d made improvements - MY ARSE they have - and they keep paying lip service to getting their product running under Wayland - which they’ve half-arsed promised since TWENTY F–KING FOURTEEN! They were first pinged about this in 2014 - that’s SEVEN years ago, and back then they said “in a future release” - HEY Symless the FUTURE is now !

The minute I find some alternative to Synergy that runs cross platform and supports Wayland - hey Symless :

(Note - I paid for a Pro license for this product - seems like yesterday - but it was 2018, and really didn’t care about Wayland - if I hadn’t paid for it - I’d shut the f–k up )…

Now Wayland is on my radar - Gnome runs much more snappily on RPi4 B under Wayland than X11, so I’d REALLY like to see it and feel it on my other x86 Linux desktops - and - I’d like to start using touch “gestures” which Wayland offers out of the box - and I really couldn’t be arsed hacking some libinput sh!te to make something “work” that should work already… My favourite gesture? On Mac? three finger sideways swipe for virtual desktop switching… I got rid of one piece of software that was stopping me going Wayland : Plank Dock - now only Synergy is blocking me…

daniel.m.tripp · August 4, 2021, 4:12am

We hit the magical 1% marker again…

1% might seem like a drop in the ocean, pissing into the wind…

But 1% of 120,000,000 is over a MILLION users! Linux users! Of Steam! Over 1,000,000 desktop linux users who game, on, Linux!
– edit –
Also someone earlier mentioned Stadia… valid point, but what really pisses me off about Stadia is F-CKING two years later it’s still not available in Australia - I suspect it’s 'cause of our shonky government’s 19th century idea of “broadband” (i.e. “let’s use copper…”).

And now? What jacks me off even more? Steam are launching the LINUX powered amd64 handheld “SteamDeck” - worldwide EXCEPT for F–KING Australia (BTW - SteamDeck uses Arch, BTW - it probably YELLS that out loud when it boots!)

Sure - there are shonky VPN hacky ways of defeating this ANTI-CAPITALISTIC thing of ‘geo-blocking’ shite (it’s worse than tarrifs and other shonky “communistic” policies implemented by so-called “free market economies”)…

Akito · August 4, 2021, 8:46am

Those are one of the major reasons I probably won’t move to Australia. Otherwise, I like the country by what I already know about it, which isn’t too much, but also isn’t nothing.

This is actually a funny thing in my situation. About 2 years ago (?) I have seen a video from LTT about how the Nintendo Switch Lite, is pretty much useless, because it’s always worth more to buy the full version, even if you barely use the TV. Thing is, I don’t have a TV.
Secondly, even if I paid for a Nintendo Switch, I would never ever support Nintendo by buying ANYTHING from their NIntendo Online Shop or buying a real disc, which also gives them money. Never.
So, I kind of wanted to have the principle of a Nintendo Switch Lite, but without the Nintendo shit and all those “We are Nintendo, so fuck you, you don’t own anything” attitudes Nintendo always spits in the customer’s face.

The release of Steam Deck was the cathartic salvific answer to my desires. It’s exactly what I wanted.
A Switch-like console, that does NOT screw me over!

Now, all that means, I immediately pre-ordered, right?
Sadly, no.

I really like handheld gaming, like e.g. PSP, PS Vita, Nintendo 3DS XL, etc…
But I don’t really use them a lot. I just lack the time and motivation to play with them for enough amount of time to justify any bigger purchase.

For this holiness of a console, the Steam Deck, I would break my rules a bit and maybe pay 300 bucks. Okay, if I really kick myself in the butt, perhaps I’d pay 400 bucks and then kick myself in the butt again. Then be happy.
But…
A big fat butt…

The full version of the console costs like 800 or 900 bucks!!
That’s too much, I’m out. And I don’t want to buy the lesser version, because when I put something in my mind, I go hard on it.
Even if I would be okay with buying the lesser version – it’s still too expensive in relation to how much I would use it, i.e. how much use I would make of the money spent.

Therefore, because of all that, I really wish that in about 3 years (I’m very patient, when it’s about waiting for game stuff), someone wants to sell their almost brandnew almost never used full versioned Steam Deck for half the price.
Then I’ll be the first and last one to bid for that.

Akito · August 4, 2021, 8:50am

I’ve read the article regarding that now, and I actually initially thought, that it has gone down to 1% again, as in, a negative thing.
I’ts now even more amusing, that 1% is supposed to be a great accomplishment…

Ute · August 6, 2021, 9:47am

I would much rather be a member of a minority group…rather than run with the sheep.

daniel.m.tripp · August 8, 2021, 5:27am

My thoughts, and sentiments, exactly… When I see people sooking about the lack of market share of the Linux desktop, and why can’t it be more? My answer is generally : do you really want more viruses and trojans? Because that’s what greater market penetration [pun intended] would mean, it would mean being penetrated heaps more. But I also kinda like also being a “niche player”.

I’d be kinda happy with a similar level as Mac, maybe slightly less, just enough to encourage more game studios to do Linux native ports… My fear is that the popularity, and stability, of Steamplay / Proton, for Windows games on Linux, will discourage studios from porting to other platforms (but I betcha there’s various studios out there working overtime, to get native M1 ports on the Mac platform)…

matteric · August 14, 2021, 12:15am

that’s the story of my life

Ute · August 14, 2021, 8:22am

Being a member of a minority group?? Well I can think of many things that could be a lot worse… Just imagine you blindly believe a popular politician…

daniel.m.tripp · June 3, 2022, 6:17am

Awakening this ancient thread - yet again - to have a major sook about how shitty MSI motherboards are…

So - I’m thinking - lets see if there’s a BIOS update, and whether or not there were any USB fixes in any BIOS update between now, and the date on my BIOS - and sure - there’s a USB fix listed!

So I download it - powercycle, point the BIOS (surely one of the UGLIEST things I’ve EVER EVER seen - like a Fisher Price toy - not a “Pro” BIOS) at my thumb drive and flash it… man is it slow! Glacial! it’s a 32 mb file and it took literally half an hour to flash! That’s bullshit!

And - when I reboot?

THOSE F–KS at MSI have defaulted it to :

secure UEFI boot ONLY
DISABLED what MSI call “SVM” (AMD/V virtualisation).

WTF? So - thanks MSI - you have TRASHED MY VirtualBox install and I have to re-install it…

So I have to try and find the severely obfuscated location of these obscure “things”, enable SVM and disable secure boot (WHY WOULD YOU SET THAT without asking the owner?). Several reboots later…

Now - I’ve been and done a re-install of virtualbox-dkms, run sudo modprobe vboxdrv…

And it’s STILL BROKEN!

DO NOT BUY MSI Motherboards they’re shit - what was I thinking? I should have stuck with Asus!

Update :
I don’t actually know if Asus have gone down the same path - but - what MORON could possibly think this SHITE :

Is an improvement over something as simple as this :

I wouldn’t mind that ugly convoluted obfuscated eyesore piece of crap looked a bit like MS Windows - but - IT DOESN’T! It looks like no other GUI anywhere!

I had to uninstall, purge, then re-install to get VirtualBox being able to hypervise my VM’s…

4dandl4 · June 3, 2022, 9:17am

Just like W11 is GPT/UEFI only, more and more MOBO,s are being set UEFI only, and some do not
even have a switch to disable secure boot/UEFI. I think it is called progress, I call t a f-------g mess!!!

daniel.m.tripp · June 3, 2022, 10:00am

I use UEFI - all the time - on my Thinkpad and AMD desktops… works perfectly and painlessly with later distros…

But NOT Secure UEFI…

I already encrypt my “/” with LUKS anyway…