Fascinated with stuff related to free software, modularity/decentralization, gaming, pixel art, sci-fi, cooking, anti-car-dependency, hardcore techno and breakcore

Mastodon: @basxto@chaos.social

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • Yes, “just”. DXVK as well as WineD3D try to support any game, even those who have native Linux versions. There were games in the past who dropped their Linux port (Rocket League), so it makes somewhat sense. There are/were also games who did not have cross platform multiplayer and you’d need to play the Windows version if you wanted to play with Windows gamers. Generally WineD3D (OpenGL, Vulkan) and DXVK (Vulkan) aren’t a Linux specific things, they just translate from Direct3D to OpenGL/Vulkan running on Wine, but that would work on Windows/ReactOS as well. Windows has OpenGL/Vulkan support. There are already Windows gamers who use such translation layers to play older games if it works better than Windows’ built-in backward compatibility. Even if OpenGL gets dropped by GPU drivers and even though Vulkan isn’t backwards compatible to OpenGL, it’s possible to write general OpenGL drivers who use Vulkan instead of implementing it per GPU. But another possibility would be to play a game that just has Direct3D/OpenGL support on Vulkan-only device with a translation layer like DXVK. Another factor would be games who have incomplete ports or simply games who have buggy ports.



  • Question is if they can even see that. Such things are usually optimized for our eyes. It’s faster than our eye can handle and we blur it together, but I wouldn’t be surprised if (some) birds can see fast motions better than we do, after all they naturally travel at far higher speeds than we do.


  • The most direct tools the EU has is an European Citizens’ Initiative. With that citizens can directly propose a directive or regulation to the European Commission. If that goes well, citizens will meet EU officials, have a public hearing at the European Parliament to explain their initiative. Within half a year the commission has to reply, but they always can reject the proposal. It requires 1 million valid signatures and they have to be from at minimum 7 EU countries. That’s 0.2% of the voters and 25% of the member states.

    That indeed differs from how a popular initiative in Switzerland works. The % of needed signatures is 5 times higher, but if it gets rejected a popular vote would follow. That kind of vote would be hard to transform into EU rules. For this Swiss popular vote a majority of given votes has to be yes, but additionally there has to be a majority in the majority of the Kantons. Switzerland already has some population differences between their Kantons, Jura has less than half the population of Zürich. In EU that is a lot more extreme, Germany has 158 times the population of Malta. In EU half of the members would be 14 countries and the smallest 14 countries only represent 11.5% of the total population.

    EU doesn’t even have a uniform voting system. The elections to the European Parliament already are distorted because the value of a single vote depends on the size country it’s from. Generally it’s proportional voting, but the details differ by country and that includes whether they use open lists, semi-open lists or closed lists and they use different formulas to allocate the seats. In regard to the voting rules that is probably the most diverse vote in the world. Some countries split themselves further into parts, so different regions vote for only a part of their seats. Active (16-18) and passive (18-25) voting ages differ. Belgium has compulsory voting. When you reside in a different country you can either vote their or in your home country. Since the voting age differs, that means some can vote earlier than other citizens from their country. They don’t even vote on the same day, a few vote for longer than just one day. Availability and form of absentee voting differs. Some countries have compulsory voting. A few countries vote with single tranferable vote, some do panachage, but most do open lists.




  • I can’t recommend it for such a use case. There is no way to automatically start it unless somebody found a new workaround since the last time I tried it. (I hijacked the home button via a accessibility until they removed that possibility) Though it depends on your use case. It’s probably okay if you always have internet and never have the situation where you are offline and want to watch material from a USB stick or something like that or stream it from another home server. In that case fire TV would lock you out and tell you to fix your internet, but only settings are available and all apps are hidden.




  • I don’t think decompilation is the best way due to higher risks of git repo takedowns due to copyright violations. And the above mentioned “clean-room reverse engineered decompilations” contradicts itself since it’s either decompiled or clean room.

    But that aside it can be somwhat useful for games with similar engines, but yes they are usually games with a quite active community. As soon as one of the games has a working port basing ports for other games on it is a lot easier than starting from scratch. This can affect not so important games using bigger engines.

    examples:

    • ScummVM supports a lot of engines (90 something) and even more games (325) by now. With few engines (SCUMM, SCI) supporting a lot of games.
    • OpenRCT2 has its original/main focus on Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, but also (works on) supports Rollercoaster Tycoon.
    • Openage has its original/main focus on Age of Empires II, but also (works on) supports Age of Empires and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds.
    • OpenRW has its original/main focus on Grand Theft Auto III, but also (works on) supports Vice City and San Andreas.
    • OpenMW has its original/main focus on The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind , but also (works on) supports Oblivian and Skyrim.
    • FreeHL (based on doom) has its original/main focus on old Half Life and Half-Life: Deathmatch, but the author also works on various mods for it: Counter-Strike 1.5, Team Fortress Classic, Scientist Hunt, Gunman Chronicles, Poke646, They Hunger, Opposing Force.
    • OpenRA has its original/main focus on Command & Conquer: Red Alert, but also (works on) supports Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn, Dune 2000, Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2.
    • Julius has its original/main focus on Caesar III, but also (works on) supports Pharaoh.
    • Xoreos has its original/main focus on Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but also (works on) supports Neverwinter Nights, Neverwinter Nights 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Jade Empire, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, The Witcher, Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II.
    • GemRB implements Infinity Engine and no idea if it ever was focuse on a single game, but they (works on) supports Baldur’s Gate 1, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale 1, Baldur’s Gate 2 and Icewind Dale 2.


  • Do installs of the same game by the same user across multiple devices count as different installs?

    We treat different devices as different installs. We don’t want to track identity across different devices.

    Is collecting the install data GDPR and CCPA compliant?

    The method we are using to calculate installs is currently derived from aggregated data from various sources collected in compliance with all privacy laws and used to build a confidence around our estimate. If anything changes, we will provide you with notice and compliance mechanisms to assure all parties remain in compliance with applicable laws. Please note we will always work with our customers to ensure accurate billing.

    Will games made with Unity phone-home to track installs?

    We will refine how we collect install data over time with a goal of accurately understanding the number of times the Unity runtime is distributed. Any install data will be collected in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable privacy laws.

    https://unity.com/pricing-updates#unity-runtime-fee

    They likely don’t track identities because that would be personal information, which is what GDPR protects.