Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Football Manager 2014 Released, Available For Linux

football manager steam

Football Manager 2014 has been released on Steam and, as it was announced a while back, is available for Linux:

"Play on Linux for the first time, plus the inclusion of ‘cloud-save’ technology which means that managers can now pursue a single career from any computer, anywhere in the world. FM14 also includes integration with Steam Workshop making it easy for managers to create and share customized FM content such as photo/logo packs, new and custom competitions and tailor-made challenges using the new Challenge Editor."

Football Manager is a popular football (soccer) management simulation game series developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega that started back in 1992, under the "Championship Manager" name.

The game, released as a beta a couple of weeks ago, is already the 4th most popular game on Steam.

The main features of the game are its player database and match engine - they are so realistic that Football Manager has even been recognized by real-life football clubs as a source for scouting players, being considered by many as more than just a game. According to Wikipedia, Everton FC signed a deal with Sports Interactive allowing them to use the game's database to scout players and opposition.

Here are a few Football Manager 2014 (running in Ubuntu) screenshots:

Football Manager 2014 Ubuntu

Football Manager 2014 Ubuntu

Football Manager 2014 Ubuntu

Football Manager 2014 Ubuntu


Football Manager 2014 Linux system requirements:
  • CPU: 1,8Ghz+
  • Memory: 1GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVidia GeForce 7300 GT, AMD Radeon HD 2400 Pro, Intel HD 3000/4000: 128MB VRAM
  • 3GB of HDD available space

Below you can watch a Football Manager 2014 gameplay video created by Softpedia:


(direct video link)

Buy Football Manager 2014 via Steam or its website (49,99€ / $49,99 / £34.99) or download the demo.

Read more »

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Curse Client Linux Alternatives For Updating World Of Warcraft Addons

Curse Client is an addon management tool for games such as World of Warcraft and others, which unfortunately doesn't work on Linux.

World of Warcraft WoD Ubuntu

Installing a World of Warcraft addon is easy, you must simply extract a zip into the game's AddOns folder however, updating them manually is pretty time-consuming, even if you only use a few addons, because you must check if the addon has a new release, then download the new version, extract the zip - all of this manually and for each addon.

That's why I searched for a Curse Client Linux alternative that works with the latest World of Warcraft (Warlords of Draenor) and I found a couple of such tools which, even though are not perfect, can automatically update all World of Warcraft addons via curse.com, and I though I'd share them with you.

Important notes: both Curse Client Linux alternatives below only support World of Warcraft. Also, they don't support searching the curse.com WoW addons database from the application so to install addons, you must add their URL (lcurse) or short name (jcurse) - that's not required when updating addons though.

I should also mention that WowMatrix is a tool similar to Curse Client (for WoW only) and it works on Linux, but it uses its own database, which lacks many addons (in my test, only one of the 5 addons I use was available via WowMatrix), that's why I searched for Curse-compatible alternatives.


lcurse: a Python "Curse" compatible client for Linux (GUI)


lcurse is a Python "Curse" compatible GUI client for Linux initially developed by ubuntuusers.de's user JörnS and then improved by Thilo Cestonaro.
lcurse Linux Curse.com client

lcurse features:
  • install, remove or update World of Warcraft addons via a GUI; 
  • supports installing beta addon versions;
  • you can install Addons by addon name (with autocomplete) or Curse URL;
  • import/export addon list;
  • configurable World of Warcraft installation path and concurrent threads.

To install lcurse in Ubuntu or Linux Mint (and derivatives), you can use the main failsdownloads PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lcurse
If you don't want to add the PPA, you can download the deb from HERE or grab the source from GitHub.

Installing addons is very easy: the first time you start lcurse, click "Update Catalog" - this gets a list of all the available addons from Curse.com. This can take quite a while but only the first time as it's much faster after that. Then, click "Add addon" and enter either the addon name (this field uses autocomplete so typing just a few letters from the addon name should list the addon you want to install) or the Curse.com addon URL, click OK and that's it:

lcurse Linux Curse.com client


jcurse: a Java "Curse" compatible client for Linux (command line)


jcurse is a command line Java tool to install and update World of Warcraft addons on Linux, via curse.com, developed by ubuntuusers.de's user otakun.

jcurse features:
  • install or update World of Warcraft addons from curse.com via command line;
  • supports installing alpha/beta addon versions (as well as stable releases, of course).

Note that jcurse (unlike lcurse) doesn't detect addons that are already installed so you must reinstall them via jcurse to be able to update them later on.

Because jcurse requires Java 8 and OpenJDK 8 is not available in the Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04 repositories, I didn't package the application.

To install OpenJDK 8 (JRE) in Ubuntu 14.10 or 15.04, use the following commands:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre
For Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04, you can use THIS PPA to install OpenJDK8 (not tested).

Also, for any Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint version, you can use the failsdownloads Oracle Java PPA to install the latest Oracle Java 8:

After installing Java 8, simply download the latest (version 1.0 at the time I'm writing this article) jcurse from HERE and extract it in your home directory. 

The first thing you need to do to be able to use jcurse is to set the World of Warcraft installation path:
cd ~/jcurse*
./jcurse --set-wow "/path/to/World of Warcraft"
(the first command above navigates to the jcurse folder and it assumes you've extracted jcurse in your home directory)

For example, to set the path to the default World of Warcraft installation folder, use:
./jcurse --set-wow ~/.wine/drive_c/"Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft"
(add quotes if there are spaces or precede the spaces with "\")

You can now proceed to installing/updating WoW addons. To install an addon, use the following command:
./jcurse add ADDON_SHORT_NAME
where "ADDON_SHORT_NAME" is the addon short name which comes after "/wow/" in the curse.com addon URL. For instance, if the curse.com addon URL is http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/deadly-boss-mods, for the command above you'd have to use "deadly-boss-mods" (without the quotes).

To update all the addons, use:
./jcurse update all

To see all the available options, simply use the command below:
./jcurse

Also see: How To Install World Of Warcraft In Ubuntu Or Linux Mint (W/ Fixes, FPS Optimizations)
Read more »

Save Up To 80% On Steam Thanks To The Steam Autumn Sale


Quick update for Steam users: Valve has launched the "Steam Autumn Sale" and many games available for Linux (not only, obviously) can be purchased with discounts of up to 80% or maybe even more, depending on the upcoming daily deals and flash sales.

As an example, here's the discount available today for some of the most popular games available for Linux:
  • Metro Last Light: -33%
  • Dark Matter: -50%
  • Arma Tactics: -25%
  • Super Meat Boy: -66%
  • Portal: -75%
  • Euro Truck Simulator 2: -66%
  • Left 4 Dead 2: -75%
  • All Counter Strike games: -50% (note: CS: GO is not yet available for Linux)

The Steam Autumn Sale will end on December 3.
Read more »

Sid Meier`s Civilization V Game Shows Real Signs Of Linux Support

A recent Reddit submission points out that Sid Meier's Civilization V might be coming to Linux soon. 


Sid Meier's Civilization V is a turn-based, strategy video game in which the player is the leader of a nation or ethnic group and must guide its growth over the course of thousands of years. The game is developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games and Aspyr.

The game's steamdb history page shows that Linux was recently added to the config oslist file. Furthermore, the same page also makes a reference to an "Internal Linux Branch":

branches/portland/description: Internal Linux Branch
...........
282300/config/oslist: linux
282300/name: Civ5 BaseContent Linux
282301/config/oslist: linux
282301/name: Civ5 Executable Linux
282302/config/oslist: linux
282302/name: Civ5 BaseContent2 Linux

Here's a screenshot too, in case the page is updated:


Currently, there's no official news about the game's Linux availability, but these are clear signs that the game will most probably be available for Linux. And of course, since there was no official announcement regarding Sid Meier's Civilization V for Linux, I can't give you a release date.

image via gamenews.zeden.net
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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Leadwerks Game Engine Available In Ubuntu Software Center (Native Linux Game Development Software)

Last year, Leadwerks Software ran a Kickstarter campaign to bring their game development software to Linux. The company raised $42,358 (of the $20,000 goal) so Leadwerks Game Engine is now available for Linux and starting today, you can buy it via Ubuntu Software Center.

Leadwerks Ubuntu Software Center

The Leadwerks Engine is a 3D game engine powered by OpenGL 4.0 which made its debut in 2008. The engine makes use of the Newton Game Dynamics SDK 2.0 for physics and OpenAL and EAX for sound and 3D sound effects.

Leadwerks Ubuntu

It features built-in level design tools, an integrated Lua script editor, visual flowgraph and so on. For more information, check out the official feature list.

Josh Klint, the Leadwerks CEO, wrote in an email sent to failsdownloads recently that their software is important for two reasons:

  • Linux users are no longer reliant on games ported from Windows; they can now make and play their own games, without ever leaving Linux.
  • We are opening the door for more games to come to Linux, like "Rogue System" and the other titles featured on our site.

In a press release, Josh Klint also mentions that:

"The PC platform plays to the company’s strengths in graphics and development tools. Linux is where the really exciting developments are happening, on the desktop and in the living room. Leadwerks for Linux is designed to bring user-friendly game development to desktop Linux, and Ubuntu is the leader in this space, so it makes sense to focus our efforts there. Growing a community of Ubuntu game developers is our primary goal over the next 12 months".

Below you can watch a quick video on building games for Ubuntu with Leadwerks:


(direct video link)


Install Leadwerks Game Engine in Ubuntu


Leadwerks Game Engine: Standard Edition is available in the Ubuntu Software Center starting today and it costs US$ 199.99. Click the button below to open it in Ubuntu Software Center:

Available Ubuntu Software Center

Or, search for "Leadwerks" in Ubuntu Software Center.

A Leadwerks Game Engine demo is also available, HERE.
Read more »

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Portal 2 Released On Steam For Linux (Beta)

Portal 2, a popular first-person puzzle game developed by Valve, is now available on Steam for Linux, as beta.

Portal 2 Ubuntu

The game, released in April 2011, can be played in single-player campaign or in cooperative campaign (multiplayer) and consists of exploring the Aperture Science Laboratory, a complicated, mechanized maze, and interacting with the environment.

The player must solve puzzles by creating portals connecting two surfaces and the characters can use these portals to move between rooms or to "throw" objects or themselves across a distance.

Below you can watch a Portal 2 Trailer video:


(direct video link)

To install Portal 2 in Steam for Linux, firstly buy the game if you haven't already:

Note that the Steam game product page doesn't yet say the game supports Linux, but it does.

Then, right click the game in Steam for Linux, select Properties and on the BETAS tab, under "Select the beta you would like to opt into" select beta:

Portal 2 Ubuntu

Valve hasn't published the Linux system requirements for Portal 2 yet but I've tested it using Intel HD 3000 graphics and it worked pretty well (Ubuntu 14.04). However, you can get an idea on the system requirements by taking a look at the Windows and Mac specifications @ Steam Store.

Portal 2 Beta is available for Linux on Steam and costs 14.99€ to 19.99€ (depends on country) / £14.99 / $19.99.

If you encounter bugs, report them @ GitHub.

via G+
Read more »

Steam Machines: Valve Announces New Living-Room Hardware That Runs SteamOS

Valve has announced a new category of living-room hardware today, that will be running Steam OS and will be available in multiple configurations. Only 300 of these boxes will ship this year though, for testing purposes.

Steam machines

While in testing, the new "Steam machines" will be free of charge for 300 lucky Steam users that are eligible to get one. For this, you must complete a quest before October 25: join the Steam Universe community group, agree to the Steam Hardware Beta Terms and Conditions, make 10 Steam friends, create a public Steam Community profile and play a game using a gamepad in Big Picture mode. Once you complete these steps, you'll be awarded a special badge and be among the pool of people that can be chosen to test the new hardware.

According to Valve, the new Steam machines will be "completely upgradable and open" and starting next year, there will be multiple machines to choose from, made by different manufacturers. There are no hardware specifications at this time.

For more information, see the official announcement.
Read more »

LGOGDownloader: Command Line GOG.com Game Downloader For Linux [Ubuntu PPA]

LGOGDownloader is an open source command line GOG.com game downloader for Linux, which uses the same API as the official GOGDownloader (which unfortunately is not available for Linux). 

The tool can download GOG.com games (including language-specific installers if available), list / download updated files, resume unfinished downloads, repair downloaded installers, download extras such as artwork or manuals and more.

lgogdownloader

GOG.com is a computer game sale and distribution service which delivers DRM-free video games. Linux support was added on July 25th, 2014.

LGOGDownloader features:
  • List available games (simple and detailed list);
  • Batch downloading;
  • Repair downloaded installers/extras;
  • Resume unfinished downloads;
  • Cover downloading;
  • Perl regular expressions for filtering games;
  • Download speed limiting;
  • Checking for update notifications;
  • List/download updated files;
  • Check for orphaned files;
  • Check file status;
  • Blacklist files.


Install LGOGDownloader


The LGOGDownloader Ubuntu PPA is outdated, so I uploaded LGOGDownloader in the main failsdownloads PPA for Ubuntu 14.10 and 14.04 (it can't be built on older Ubuntu versions).

Ubuntu 14.04 or 14.10 (and Linux Mint 17, etc.) users can install LGOGDownloader by using the main failsdownloads PPA. To add the PPA and install the tool, use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lgogdownloader

If you don't want to add the PPA, you can grab the deb from HERE.

LGOGDownloader for other Linux distributions:


Using LGOGDownloader


The first thing you need to do after installing LGOGDownloader is to login. To do this, run the command below:
lgogdownloader --login
Then enter your GOG.com email and password.

After logging in successfully, a configuration file called "config.cfg" is created under ~/.config/lgogdownloader/ You may want to change a few things from this configuration file, so open it with a text editor - using the command below, the config.cfg file will be loaded in Gedit:
gedit ~/.config/lgogdownloader/config.cfg

In this file, you can change the platform, language, choose if you want to download tar.gz files ("no-targz") and/or deb files ("no-deb"), limit the download speed and so on, so change any options you want, then save the file. For instance, to only download the Linux binaries, change "platform" from "5" to 4".

Then, list your GOG.com games by using the following command:
lgogdownloader --list

To download a game (in the current directory), use the command below:
lgogdownloader --download --game GAMENAME
(where GAMENAME is the game name as displayed by the "lgogdownloader --list" command).

Some more LGOGDownloader usage examples can be found HERE.

To view all the available LGOGDownloader options, run:
lgogdownloader --help

Report any LGOGDownloader issues you may find @ GitHub.
Read more »

Friday, October 23, 2015

Valve Reveals SteamOS, A Linux-Based Operating System

Valve has announced SteamOS today, a free, Linux-based operating system "designed for the TV and the living room".

SteamOS

This is the first of the 3 announcements Valve will make this week, all related to bringing Steam into living rooms, with the next one to follow in 48 hours, as THIS page points out.

SteamOS will feature:
  • in-home streaming: the SteamOS machine can stream the games over your home network to your TV;
  • music, TV and movies;
  • family sharing: share the games you purchase with your friends and family - this allows you to take turns playing one another’s games while earning your own Steam achievements and saving your individual game progress to the Steam cloud;
  • family options: you'll be able to control what titles get seen and by whom.

"As we’ve been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we’ve come to the conclusion that the environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself. SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen. It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines." mentions the announcement. The Steam Box should be one of these "living room machines" so will Valve finally announce it in one of the two remaining announcements? We should find out later this week.

SteamOS will be available soon (the exact date is not yet known) as a free download for users and "as a freely licensable operating system for manufacturers".

For more information, see the SteamOS announcement.
Read more »

Counter Strike: Global Offensive Available For Linux

Valve finally released Counter Strike: Global Offensive for Linux.

Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is  an objective-based multiplayer first-person shooter in which players join either the Terrorist or Counter-Terrorist team. CS:GO uses the Source engine and it was initially released in August, 2012, as the fourth game in the Counter-Strike franchise.

Counter Strike: Global Offensive Linux

Compared to the previous games in the series, CS:GO includes ranked match-making, extra weapons and equipment, new and revamped maps along with extra modes (Arms Race, Arsenal: Demolition - which combines Defuse and Arms Race, and Deathmatch) and more.

In my short test under Ubuntu 14.10, I didn't encounter any major issues while playing CS:GO, even with my laptop's integrated Intel graphics. However, since the game was just released for Linux, expect to find some bugs (check out this Reddit thread for some potential issues) - if you encounter bugs, report them @ GitHub.

Note that game Steam page wasn't updated to show the newly added Linux support so it won't show up in the Linux section yet, but this should change soon.

Buy Counter Strike: Global Offensive via Steam (£11.99 / $14.99)

via Reddit
Read more »

Thursday, October 22, 2015

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Game Available On Linux Via Steam

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, is available starting today for Linux users, via Steam (and SteamOS, obviously).

The Witcher 2 Steam for Linux

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is a popular action role-playing hack and slash video game developed by CD Projekt RED. According to Wikipedia, more than 1.7 million units were sold as of May 2012.

Critics praised the game for its combat mechanics, customisation, graphics, environments, immersion, and storytelling, winning two awards: Best European Game (by European Games Awards) and 2011 Game of the Year (by Shacknews).

Below you can watch the official game launch trailer:


(direct video link)

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings has the following system requirements under Linux:
  • Minimum:
    • Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: GeForce 9800 GT 512MB (1280x720, low), Radeon graphics cards are not supported, Intel integrated graphics chipsets are not supported
    • Hard Drive: 25 GB HD space
  • Recommended:
    • Processor: Quad Core Intel
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: GeForce GT 640 1GB (1440x900, medium)
    • Hard Drive: 25 GB HD space

The game normally costs 19.99€ / £14.99 / $19.99 but there's a special -80% off promotion right now so hurry up and buy the game if you haven't already: web link | Steam app link.

Update: according to Phoronix, The Witcher 2 uses an eON wrapper layer. eON provides a "fully native implementation of essential Windows technologies (such as Direct3D)", so at least in theory, it should be better than using Wine. Still, that's basically the reason why the game currently only runs on Nvidia hardware. 

via Reddit
Read more »

Monday, October 19, 2015

Wasteland 2 Officially Released

After 2,5 years of development, Wasteland 2, a single player post-apocalyptic RPG developed and published by inXile Entertainment, was released today and is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X on GOG.com, Steam or Humble Bundle Store.

Wasteland 2

Wasteland 2 is the direct sequel to 1988's Wasteland RPG, which is considered to be the inspiration behind the Fallout series, and it was developed thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign which received almost $3,000,000 in funding.

Below you can watch the Wasteland 2 Combat Trailer as well as the launch trailer, to get an idea on what the game is about:


(direct video link)


(direct video link)

Wasteland 2 is a turn-based tactical combat game set in an alternate history timeline, in which a nuclear holocaust took place in 1998. The game features hundreds of characters, thousands of variations on your Rangers' appearance along with over 150 weapons, dozens of skills and more. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

On Linux, Wasteland 2 has the following minimum system requirements:
  • Processor: 2.4ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 or Radeon HD 4850 (512 MB VRAM)
  • Hard Drive: 30 GB available space


Buy Wasteland 2


Buy Wasteland 2 ($39.99 for the classic edition and $59.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition*)

If you buy the game via GOG.com, you can download it using lgogdownloader, a tool which supports resuming unfinished downloads along with other useful features.

* The Deluxe Edition comes with free copies of Wasteland 1 and The Bard's Tale games)

via Reddit
Read more »

Gamepad Keyboard/Mouse Mapping App `AntiMicro` Sees New Release

AntiMicro 2.6 was released recently, getting two new turbo modes, an option to invoke the Game Controller mapping window from command line as well as experimental uinput support.

AntiMicro

For those not familiar with AntiMicro, this is an application that can be used to map keyboard and mouse buttons to gamepad buttons, useful for playing games with no gamepad or poor gamepad support.

AntiMicro is written in C++ using Qt for the graphical framework and it was created as a replacement for QJoyPad, which unfortunately is no longer being maintained. The application features controller stick support, 8-way controls, virtual Dpad support, profiles that can be loaded via command line and more.

The latest AntiMicro 2.6 includes the following changes:
  • added two new Turbo modes:
    • Gradient mode, which is used to change the key press time depending on the position of an axis (useful for racing games);
    • Pulse mode is used to change how many times a key press is invoked depending on the position of an axis (scrolling in a web browser using arrow keys).
  • fixed profile resetting in a couple of places;
  • added option to invoke Game Controller mapping window from command line. The final mapping string will be printed to stdout. This is useful for saving a SDL_GAMECONTROLLERCONFIG for your controller that can be used system wide. Any SDL 2 game can then be set up to use that mapping and it can be changed if needed;
  • profiles now use a unique .amgp file extension. Older xml profiles will continue to be supported;
  • fixed spring mouse mode so that it uses proper axis distance values;
  • set changing has been fixed for analog sticks and virtual dpads;
  • experimental uinput support has been added to the source code. Binary Linux packages will continue to utilize XTest for event generation for the time being. If you would like to test uinput integration then you will have to compile the program using -DWITH_UINPUT=ON and -DWITH_XTEST=OFF when running cmake. Playing Warsow 1.5.1 in Linux using antimicro requires using uinput integration. Also, keys can now be pressed in a tty.

Also, since our previous article on AntiMicro, the application has received an extensive number of new features and improvements, like spring mouse mode, joystick hotplugging support, Enhanced Precision mouse curve, various Steam OS optimizations (this is now default) and also, AntiMicro was ported to Windows. For more information, check out the AntiMicro changelog.

For more information on AntiMicro as well as a quick usage guide, see our previous article: Map Keyboard/Mouse Input To Your Gamepad With AntiMicro


Install AntiMicro in Ubuntu 14.04 / Linux Mint 17 via PPA


The AntiMicro developer created an Ubuntu PPA recently, which you can use to install the latest AntiMicro in Ubuntu 14.04 / Linux Mint 17 and derivatives. To add the PPA and install AntiMicro, use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ryochan7/antimicro
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install antimicro


Download AntiMicro


Download AntiMicro - packages available for Debian, Ubuntu and Windows, as well as souce code

Arch Linux users can install AntiMicro via AUR.

Note that the binaries aren't built with uinput support yet. To enable uinput, you need to compile the application yourself using -DWITH_UINPUT=ON and -DWITH_XTEST=OFF when running cmake.

Also see: Get Xbox Gamepads Properly Configured In Ubuntu With ubuntu-xboxdrv
Read more »

Twitch.tv Indicator Lets You Know When The Channels You Follow Go Live

Twitch Indicator is, like its name suggests, a www.twitch.tv appindicator. In case you're not familiar with Twitch, this is a popular live streaming video platform that primarily focuses on video gaming.

Twitch indicator

The purpose of Twitch Indicator is to track the channels you follow and notify you when they go live. Besides notifications, which can be turned off from the indicator settings, the list of live channels is displayed in the indicator menu and clicking on any channel will open its Twitch page in your default web browser.

The channel status is checked each time the indicator starts and every 5 minutes - this interval is configurable and you can also manually force a check by selecting "Check now" from the indicator menu.

Since this is the first Twitch Indicator release, you may find bugs - if you do, report them @ GitHub. Note that the app only ships with a light monochrome icon (for dark panels)!


Install Twitch Indicator in Ubuntu


To make it easier to install, I've uploaded Twitch Indicator to the main failsdownloads PPA. Add the PPA and install Twitch Indicator in Ubuntu 15.04, 14.10 or 14.04 and derivatives (that support AppIndicators) using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install twitch-indicator
If you don't want to add the PPA, you can download the deb from HERE or grab the source code from GitHub.

Twitch Indicator didn't work under Ubuntu 12.04 in my test, that's why there aren't any packages for this Ubuntu version.

If you want Twitch Indicator to start automatically when you login, open Startup Applications, click "Add" and add "twitch-indicator" as the command and whatever you want under "name".

For more indicators, browse our AppIndicator tag.
Read more »

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Map Keyboard/Mouse Input To Your Gamepad With AntiMicro

AntiMicro is an application that can be used to map keyboard and mouse keys to gamepad buttons, useful for playing games with no gamepad support.

The application, written in C++ using Qt for the graphical framework, has been created as a replacement for QJoyPad which unfortunately is no longer being maintained.



AntiMicro features controller stick support, 8-way controls, virtual Dpad support, profiles that can be loaded via command line and more.

Compared to QJoyPad, the application comes with some extra features like assigning multiple keys to one controller button (for example Shift+Tab to bring up the Steam overlay interface in a game), macros for button presses which lets you add conditional actions, change button configurations on the fly and there's also a tray icon that works under Unity. Furthermore, AntiMicro has better mouse movement support.


Basic usage


To assign a keyboard or mouse key to gamepad buttons, press a button on your gamepad and the corresponding button in the AntiMicro user interface should be highlighted:

AntiMicro

Then, click the highlighted button from the AntiMicro user interface and assign it to a keyboard or mouse key:

AntiMicro

AntiMicro

You can also click the "Quick set" button at the bottom of the AntiMicro window, then press a button or move an axis on the joystick and a window will show up allowing you to assign it a key.

When assigning a key, you can select to use turbo or toggle modes:
  • turbo: when the button is pressed on the joystick, the corresponding key acts as if the button was pressed multiple times. The delay/rate can be set under Advanced;
  • toggle: a simple press of the Joystick button leaves it virtually pressed. Pressing it again stops it.

Below you can watch an AntiMicro demo with Left 4 Dead 2, recorded by its developer:


(direct video link)


Download AntiMicro


Download AntiMicro (alternative download link) - there are packages available for Ubuntu/Debian, Arch Linux and Gentoo as well as the source code.

Report any bugs you may find @ GitHub.

via Reddit
Read more »

Get Xbox Gamepads Properly Configured In Ubuntu With ubuntu-xboxdrv

You can use Xbox/Xbox360 gamepads in Linux by using the xboxdrv driver, and configure it using the jstest-gtk tool however, the package below fixes a few things related to xboxdrv.

failsdownloads reader Rael has created a PPA for getting xboxdrv properly configured and running in Ubuntu: his package creates a start daemon for xboxdrv, cleans up old broken configurations, marks xpad as conflict (and stop it if necessary) and adds the "Joysticks" (jstest-gtk) entry into System Settings.


He notes:

I know that for some people, the wired version, and some Logitech versions too, all will work fine.

But I saw a lot of people facing problems, sometimes the joystick wasn't working properly, sometimes there are crazy blinking leds, and other problems (in my case, my transceiver got recognized as first joystick).

With reason, a good voted question in AskUbuntu is http://askubuntu.com/questions/165210/how-do-i-get-an-xbox-360-controller-working

So, after I saw all these problems, I thought about the average user: why not create a proper package to get this working, and additionally create a "Joysticks" entry into System Settings?


I don't have an Xbox gamepad so I couldn't test this, but here are some screenshots from Rael (the PPA maintainer):




To add the PPA and install the ubuntu-xboxdrv package, use the following commands:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:rael-gc/ubuntu-xboxdrv
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-xboxdrv
Installing ubuntu-xbobxdrv also installs xboxdrv and jstest-gtk, required to get your Xbox gamepad working and configured in Ubuntu.

Report any bugs you may find related to the ubuntu-xboxdrv package @ GitHub.
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How To Stream To Twitch From Linux Using OBS Studio

OBS Studio is a free, open source application which allows video recording and live streaming. The app can be used to stream to various popular websites such as Twitch.tv, YouTube, Hitbox.tv, Vaughn Live / iNSTAGIB.tv, DailyMotion, Connectcast.tv, GoodGame.ru, CyberGame.tv, CashPlay.tv along with custom streaming servers.

OBS Studio Ubuntu

The original Open Broadcaster Software was rewritten, with the main goal of being multiplatform, along with a more powerful API and a more thorough feature set. The new multiplatform OBS Studio is currently in alpha and is available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

OBS features:
  • Encoding using H264 (x264) and AAC;
  • Unlimited number of scenes and sources;
  • Live RTMP streaming to Twitch, YouTube, DailyMotion, Hitbox and more;
  • File output to MP4 or FLV;
  • GPU-based game capture for high performance game streaming;
  • webcams, capture cards, etc. device support;
  • bilinear, bicubic or lanczos3 resampling;
  • configurable hotkeys, multiple audio tracks support and more.
In Linux, OBS allows recording a window or a monitor, on top of which you can add various overlays such as an image, text, webcam or media source and of course, audio input (microphone) and output (the game, a music player, etc.), with various options.

Below I'll try to make a quick start guide for streaming to Twitch.tv via OBS running under Linux (Ubuntu in my case). But before that, you can see a quick test I've done earlier with OBS Studio (0.10.1) streaming World of Warcraft to Twitch from Ubuntu 15.04 (there are no video quality settings unfortunately because that's only available for Twitch partners).


Install OBS Studio (Multiplatform) in Ubuntu or Linux Mint


1. Install FFmpeg.

For Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10 / Linux Mint 17.x / elementary OS Freya and so on, you'll need to add a FFmpeg PPA because these Ubuntu versions don't provide FFmpeg. Add the PPA and install FFmpeg using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kirillshkrogalev/ffmpeg-next
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
These FFmpeg packages are backported from Ubuntu 15.04 and they don't overwrite libav so they won't break anything.

For Ubuntu 15.04, FFmpeg is available in the official repositories so to install it, use the following command:
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

2. Install OBS Studio.

To add the official OBS Studio PPA and install the app in Ubuntu 15.04, 14.10 or 14.04 / Linux Mint 17.x / elementary OS Freya and so on, use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:obsproject/obs-studio
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install obs-studio

OBS Studio for other Linux distributions (unofficial packages): Arch Linux (AUR - git version), openSUSE and Gentoo.

For other Linux distributions, you'll need to build it from source.


Setting up OBS Studio for streaming to Twitch.tv


1. Add your Twitch Stream Key to OBS


The first thing you'll need to do to be able to stream to Twitch.tv using OBS is to get your Twitch Stream Key from HERE - copy the key and in OBS select "Settings" and on the Stream tab, select "Twitch" under "Service", then paste the key you just copied under "Stream key":

OBS Studio Ubuntu

Here you should also select the Twitch server that's closest to you.

2. Add sources

Next, you'll want to add some sources. The first source should be the video (game) source so click the "+" icon under "Sources" and select "Window capture (Xcomposite)", click OK and select the game window:

OBS Studio Ubuntu

You can use "Screen capture (XSHM)" instead of "Window capture", but I recommend capturing the window because you'll be able to have other windows on top of the game without them showing up in your live stream.

Then, add any other sources you'd like, like "Video Capture Device" (webcam), "Audio Input Capture" (microphone), "Audio Output Capture" (the sound you hear through the speakers - it can be the game sound, a music player, etc.), text, an image and so on.

Note that the source order is important. For instance, if you're playing a fullscreen game and the webcam source ("Video Capture Device") is under the "Window capture" or "Screen capture" source, it won't show up, so you'll need to move it using the up/down arrows so that the webcam source is above the capture source. The same goes for text and image overlays, etc.

3. Optional configuration tweaks

a) if your video colors are incorrect, select the source from the "Sources" list, click "Properties" (it's the third button under "Sources") and enable "Swap red and blue":

OBS Studio Ubuntu

b) if your computer has a slow CPU and you're getting a low quality / fps live stream, you can try changing the x264 CPU preset to "superfast" or "ultrafast" (default is "veryfast"):

OBS Studio Ubuntu

This can be done via Settings > Output > select "Advanced" for the "Output Mode" from the dropdown > on the Streaming tab scroll down and you'll find an option called "CPU Usage Preset".

If the performance is still bad, you can try setting a lower video resolution and bitrate (these settings can be found in the same "Streaming" tab as the "CPU Usage Preset" - see above).

c) if you have an old computer and/or a bad Internet connection, you may want to decrease the frame rate (default is 30) or, if you have a good computer and Internet connection and you play something like Arena/PvP, you my want to increase it.

The FPS settings can be found in OBS Settings > Video (you can switch to "Integer FPS value" to use a custom value instead of those predefined under "Common FPS Values"):

OBS Studio Ubuntu


You may also want to read the official OBS quick start and overview guides (but note that they are for the old OBS version so the UI looks different and some settings maybe not be available any more, etc.).

Report any bugs you may encounter with OBS, HERE.

Also see: Twitch.tv Indicator Lets You Know When The Channels You Follow Go Live
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Saturday, October 17, 2015

Free Ancient Warfare Game `0 A.D.` Alpha 16 Released

Wildfire Games has released the sixteenth alpha version of 0 A.D., an open source, historical real-time strategy game which features excellent graphics and sound. The new alpha brings an improved AI, a new GUI along with big changes under the hood and more.

0 ad alpha 16


Improvements in 0 A.D. alpha 16 "Patañjali":
  • New GUI, new font: The new GUI style seen in the multiplayer lobby in Alpha 15 is now used nearly everywhere. The GUI font has also been changed to Biolinum, a free font created by the Libertine Open Fonts Project;
  • New AI - Petra: Petra features more aggressive expansion and combat and builds defence towers and fortresses as a human would. Petra manages resources better in late game than the previous AI, Aegis, and is more robust to external conditions. It will also trade over land with allied markets, if there are any;
  • A Multiplayer "Ready" button was added: In a multiplayer game, all users must confirm game settings before host can start game. When the host changes a setting, players are set to “not ready” again. This is to avoid sneaky behaviour amongst some hosts, who would change the settings right before starting;
  • Formation Updates: The Testudo formation (for Roman melee infantry) and the Syntagma formation (for Macedonian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid pikemen) have received new animations, and their movement has improved further over the previous version. The formations are also more moddable, which sets the stage for further developments in formations;
  • Town Bell: Click on the new "town bell" button to sound an alarm and make your citizens garrison in the nearest structure until the enemy is gone. Once you sound the bell again, your units will ungarrison and go back to work;
  • New Global Resource Trading Settings: You now set the chance a trader will trade a certain resource, rather than selecting it per trader. This gives you a better overview of your trade, and makes it easier to manage;
  • The "Wonder" Victory Condition was added: If you set "Wonder" as victory condition, a counter counting down 5 minutes appears after you build a wonder. If the enemy can’t destroy the wonder in this time, you win;
  • New "Explored Map" game setting, in which the entire map is covered with the Fog of War. This is an option that gives something between the "revealed map", where there are no secrets, and the default "dark map";
  • New art assets: Animated flying hawks, Ptolemaic ships, Eurasian Wolf, Nile Crocodile, Ptolemaic buildings: Military settlement, Docks, Market, and quite a few new animations, e.g. a new seeding animation for farming units;
  • New music track: "Water’s Edge";
  • A new version of the JavaScript engine "SpiderMonkey" was implemented;
  • 0 A.D. is now available by default in 12 different languages: Catalan, Czech, Dutch, English (United Kingdom), French, Galician, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Scottish Gaelic, and Spanish (Spain). Japanese is also available but its available as a separate downloadable mod due to large font files.

Check out these changes in the 0 A.D. alpha 16 video below:


(direct video link)


If you can contribute to 0 A.D. (programming, art, sound, documentation and more), see the programmers getting started page and join #0ad-dev on QuakeNet on IRC.


Download 0 A.D.


Ubuntu users can install  the latest 0 A.D. by using a PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wfg/0ad
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install 0ad

Download 0 A.D. (for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX).
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Install The SteamOS Session In Ubuntu

Valve released SteamOS Beta a few days ago as an early first-look public release. Based on Debian 7, the new operating system comes with a session called SteamOS which is a modified Big Picture mode that uses a custom SteamOS Compositor (based on xcompmgr) optimized for Steam and gaming, and some other tweaks.


If you want to run the official SteamOS session along with the custom SteamOS compositor in Ubuntu, you can easily do so by installing two packages. Once you install these packages, you'll be able to directly log in to the SteamOS session from the LightDM login screen.

This session is useful because it doesn't load a complete desktop environment so more resources are available for both Steam and games. However, since SteamOS is in its early development stages, so is this session, so expect to find bugs!

Here are some observations from my testing (please read!):
  • this session loads Steam in Big Picture mode and from my experience and from what I've read, Big Picture is pretty buggy on Linux so before using this, I suggest trying the Big Picture Mode from the Steam Linux client and see if it works on your hardware/drivers, if games run properly and so on;
  • the SteamOS session doesn't work if multiple monitors are plugged in. That means that even if a monitor is connected but disabled, the SteamOS session won't work and you'll get a black screen! To avoid this, make sure you boot with only one monitor connected or restart LightDM / logout after disconnecting a monitor.
  • to get a "Return to desktop" power menu option in the SteamOS session, in the Steam Big Picture interface settings select Interface > Enable access to the Linux desktop. In my test, selecting "Return to desktop" didn't work with Ubuntu 14.04 and 13.10 but it worked on 12.10 (and it also didn't work with SteamOS running in VirtualBox when logging in to the SteamOS session). So if it doesn't work for you, exit the session either by selecting "Shutdown" or "Restart" from the Steam Big Picture power menu or restart LightDM (press Ctrl + Alt + F1, login and type: "sudo service lightdm restart", then press Ctrl + Alt + F7 to return to the login screen).


Tip: if you only want to run the "SteamOS" mode without having a session for it in the login screen, without the SteamOS compositor and so on, you can simply run the Steam client using the following command: "steam -steamos -tenfoot" and you'll get the SteamOS interface running on your desktop (for this to work, make sure your Steam for Linux client is up to date).



Install SteamOS session in Ubuntu


1. Firstly, install the Steam Linux client if you haven't already (you can install it via Ubuntu Software Center or by downloading the deb from its website). Also, make sure your Steam Linux client is up to date: Steam > Check for Steam Client Updates

2. To be able to use the SteamOS session in Ubuntu, you need two packages:
  • SteamOS Compositor (includes the Compositor obviously and the actual session);
  • SteamOS Modeswitch Inhibitor (even though the SteamOS Compositor deb doesn't depend on this package, it is used in the session file so I suggest you install it.

Using the links above, download and install SteamOS Compositor and SteamOS Modeswitch Inhibitor for your architecture. Then, log out and select "SteamOS" from the login screen:



Removing the SteamOS session


If you want to revert the changes, simply remove the two installed packages:
sudo apt-get remove steamos-compositor steamos-modeswitch-inhibitor
And when you log out, the SteamOS session shouldn't be displayed any more.
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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Workaround For Black / Distorted Battle.net UI On Linux (Wine) With Intel Graphics

Blizzard's Battle.net tool was updated recently, probably in preparation for the upcoming WoW expansion called Warlords of Draenor, resulting in either a black screen or distorted / scrambled graphics on Linux (with Wine) with Intel graphics.

It looks like this is not a Wine or Battle.net bug but an Intel graphic drivers bug, at least that's what the Wine developers suggest.

1. There is a partial workaround that you can use to get Battle.net to work under Linux (Wine) with Intel graphics - launching Battle.net with "LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1".

Unfortunately, using this workaround isn't a solution if you use Battle.net to launch Blizzard's games because they will use software rendering and the performance will be awful. That's why the title says "partial workaround".

This tweak should only be used if you want to install or update Blizzard's games via Battle.net. Of course, if you only want to update games and you've enabled automatic updates, you won't need this, because Battle.net may look broken, but it actually works and it will install the updates (but you won't be able to see the update progress, obviously).

After you've successfully installed a game, you can launch it manually, by double clicking the game executable or via command line - see our World of Warcraft article for how to run WoW using a script (with some performance tweaks).

Here's how Battle.net looks like on my laptop (with Intel graphics) before using this tweak:


And after:



To launch Battle.net with "LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1", use the following command:
LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program*/Battle.net/"Battle.net Launcher.exe"
Note that the command above assumes you've installed Battle.net in the default location (~/.wine/drive_c/...) but if you've used a different location, you need to change the path for the command above.

2 (Update): there is another workaround (thanks to synn89 @ Reddit) that shouldn't affect game performance: appending "-opengl" to the Battle.net launch command, like this:
wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program*/Battle.net/"Battle.net Launcher.exe" -opengl
Just like with the fist workaround, the command above assumes you've installed Battle.net in the default location (~/.wine/drive_c/...) but if you've used a different location, you need to change the path for the command above.

Note: instructions tested with Wine 1.7.28 and World of Warcraft.
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