Games: Vulkan, Scathe, Steam Deck, Return to Monkey Island, and More
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Intel's Linux Vulkan Driver readying up a 60%+ speed boost "in draw throughput"
Blumenkrantz blogged about it, in their usual funny way, going over some profiling they did on the Intel ANV driver using the vkoverhead tool. Thanks to their investigation the result is two small patches that aren't yet merged into Mesa but once in, should provide a "60%+ improvement in draw throughput on ICL". The fun thing is that the patches only touch a few lines and yet provide such a boost.
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Scathe: Not The Doom You Are Looking For - Boiling Steam
This was going to be a review of Scathe, a new “bullet hell” single-player/online co-op first-person shooter, but I couldn’t bring myself to make it far enough for a full review. So let’s call this “impressions” with a hope that the game will evolve into something to spend many more hours with in the near future.
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There are no plans currently for a Linux version. Scathe should work well on the Steam Deck with its official controller support and lower settings. I never (yet?) got the hang of FPSes with a controller so I didn’t try it, but yes it is on my list of things to do with the Deck.)
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Steam Deck Q3 invites are all out early as Valve beats own production estimates (again)
Again and again Valve has managed to speed up production of the Steam Deck, so much so that for reservations the Q3 era is over. Valve said that everyone who was inside Q3, would have gotten their purchase invite email today and so they're now speeding onwards into the Q4 window.
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Return to Monkey Island is out now, Linux version due soon
It's here at last. Terrible Toybox and Devolver Digital have today released Return to Monkey Island, and for fans of Native Linux ports one is on the way. For the Linux side, developer Ron Gilbert said on Twitter: "Works on Proton and a pure Linux version is coming soon after."
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Steam Mobile App continues adding new features to the Beta
Valve are continuing to roll out big changes to the brand new Steam Mobile App, which is currently in Beta. This will eventually replace the older app, which has been left in the dust for too long.
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The Wandering Village is a clear hit with over 50K copies sold
The Wandering Village, the new city-builder from Stray Fawn Studio has clearly become something of a hit and for good reason. Announced in a Steam post, the developer mentioned how "The Wandering Village has sold 50’000 copies in the first two days" and it also has a Very Positive user rating now too.
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GE-Proton installer ProtonUp-Qt adds support for the Steam Snap
ProtonUp-Qt continues being an incredibly helpful GUI for installing the likes of GE-Proton, Wine-GE, Luxtorpeda and more with a new version out now.
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Valve had the official Steam Deck Docking Station at TGS, plus other TGS bits
While they haven't yet released the official Steam Deck Dock and they haven't really talked about it since the indefinite delay, it's clearly still a thing.