Linux Gaming News Archives

OpenRazer as the community-driven, open-source project providing driver support for Razer peripherals on Linux is out with a new feature release.

Lutris 0.5.14 is out today as the newest feature update to this Python-written open-source solution for managing your games on Linux whether they be native titles or via Steam Play / Wine as well as integrating into popular gaming services like Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle, and EA App. With Lutris 0.5.14 this centralized Linux game launcher has picked up some additional capabilities.

The PXN V900 gaming racing wheel is supported now by the mainline Linux kernel as of last night with the latest merged changes for the v6.6 kernel.

Back in July of last year the Open 3D Engine (O3DE) engine launched as part of the Open 3D Foundation and initially was a spin-out of Amazon's Lumberyard game engine. Out this week is O3DE 23.10 as the newest half-year update to this project.

Polychromatic continues evolving as the open-source management software for Razer peripherals on Linux that makes use of the independently-developed OpenRazer kernel drivers for improving the customization experience around Razer mice, keyboards, and other devices on Linux.

A new version of FEX-Emu has been released, the open-source project aiming to be "the greatest x86/x86_64 emulator on Linux" that includes the ability to run Steam and Steam Play Windows games on AArch64 Linux systems.

After Steam on Linux usage topped to nearly 2% in July with the phenomenal success of the Steam Deck and with greater marketshare than Apple macOS, in August it took a dip and now the September numbers are out and points to a second consecutive month of the Linux percentage receding.

A new version of the sdl12-compat library is now available, which serves as an SDL2 portability layer for allowing old SDL 1.2.x games and applications work on modern SDL2 systems.

With the AMD performance uplift on the Linux 6.6 kernel due to the EEVDF scheduler code, the workqueue enhancements for chiplet-based processor designs, and other improvements, many Phoronix readers have speculated over AMD Linux gaming performance improvements with this in-development kernel.

The sdl12-compat project is an interesting effort to allow for aging software and games targeting the SDL 1.2 APIs to work atop this compatibility layer so it in turn runs atop the SDL2 libraries. With the sdl12-compat 1.2.66 release more games and other software are now successfully working on this library.

There are new and improved gaming controller and peripheral support to find with the in-development Linux 6.6 kernel.

A new release of Box64 is now available, the Linux x86_64 emulator for running programs and games on non-x86_64 architectures like ARM/AArch64 and RISC-V.

While many Linux gamers are all-set these days by making use of Steam and leveraging Valve's Steam Play for enjoying Windows games on Linux, for those running macOS or also wishing to enjoy more office/application-oriented Windows software on Linux support, CodeWeavers is out today with CrossOver 23 as the newest release of their commercial Wine-based software.

Following the release of Godot 4.0 earlier this year, Godot 4.1 has been released today as an incremental update to this incredibly powerful, open-source game engine.

For Linux gamers running the lightweight Openbox X11 window manager, the newest Steam beta update brings a new option to fix problems with Steam's dropdown menus being unclickable.

The visually-stunning Unigine Engine that these days is most commonly used in commercial simulation applications recently published Unigine 2.17 where they have finally made their Vulkan and Direct3D 12 renderers production-ready.

Xonotic 0.8.6 is out as the latest update to this long-running, open-source first person shooter game.

Ahead of the Linux 6.5 merge window expected to open up next week, a patch providing sound quirks for the ASUS ROG Ally's CS35l41 audio is now queued in the sound subsystem's for-next branch.

With today's release of SDL 2.28 it also marks the SDL2 library entering maintenance mode for this open-source software that's relied upon by Valve and many cross-platform games.

Building off the huge Godot 4.0 release from March, the first beta of the Godot 4.1 game engine is now available for testing as another step forward for this open-source, cross-platform game engine.

Following the recent sdl12-compat test release, sdl-compat v1.2.64 has been released as the newest version of this library implementing the SDL 1.2 API/ABI atop SDL 2.x interfaces for enhancing game compatibility on modern Linux environments.

Hans-Kristian Arntzen of Valve's Linux team has just released VKD3D-Proton 2.9 as the latest major update to this Direct3D 12 on Vulkan API implementation that is used by Steam Play (Proton) for running modern Windows games on Linux.

The sdl12-compat project that implements the SDL 1.2 API/ABI atop SDL 2.x interfaces for better game compatibility on modern Linux systems is out today with a new pre-release.

Lutris 0.5.13 is now available as the newest feature release for this open-source game manager.

While DXVK is used by Steam Play for implementing Direct3D 9/10/11 APIs atop Vulkan and there is also VKD3D-Proton for Direct3D 12 on Vulkan, D8VK's aim is for the aging Microsoft Direct3D 8 API atop Vulkan for enhancing the experience of older games on Linux.

It's been just under two years since Amazon's Lumberyard game engine was spun into the Open 3D Engine and the Open 3D Foundation established under the Linux Foundation. Today the project is celebrating its newest open-source game engine update with Open 3D Engine 23.05.

While prominent gaming peripheral manufacturer Razer still is not officially supporting Linux with their vast array of products, thanks to the community-driven OpenRazer project there is unofficial open-source support and can work quite well when paired with the likes of Polychromatic as a nice user interface. Out today is OpenRazer 3.6 in enabling the latest Razer products on Linux.

Following the Lutris 0.5.13 beta from mid-February, a second beta of this open-source game manager is now available.

While the Godot 4.0 open-source game engine only shipped at the start of March, there are already plans underway for some renderer upgrades that will be part of the upcoming Godot 4.1 engine upgrade.

For those Linux gamers making use of Nintendo controllers, a few notable fixes are on the way for the upcoming Linux 6.4 kernel cycle.

Turtle Beach gaming controllers will see support by the widely-used XPad driver with the upcoming Linux 6.4 kernel.

When SDL3 development kicked off last November for this open-source library that is widely used by cross-platform games and other software, QNX support was removed alongside other old targets. Just months later, the QNX platform support is being revived.

Development work on SDL3 continues at full-speed for the next version of this hardware/software abstraction library that is commonly used by cross-platform games. The newest feature merged is support for child pop-up windows.

FEX-Emu 2303 was published today as the newest version of this open-source software for enjoying x86 64-bit Linux software to run gracefully on 64-bit ARM (ARM64 / AArch64) including the likes of Linux games and Valve's Steam client with Steam Play (Proton).

The Godot engine developers are starting off March with a bang... The much anticipated Godot 4.0 engine that has been in development for years has been released as stable!

As written about last year, the Laminar Research developers responsible for the incredible X-Plane flight simulator software have been working to make use of Mesa's Zink for leveraging OpenGL atop Vulkan to thereby avoid vendor OpenGL drivers that can vary in quality across platforms. With X-Plane 12.04b3, that goal is finally realized.

The much anticipated Godot 4.0 open-source, cross-platform game engine release is imminent. Out today is Godot 4.0 RC3 which could end up being the final test release before this big game engine release.

Lutris 0.5.13 Beta is out this weekend as the newest test release for this open-source game manager that makes it easier to install and play video games from multiple game stores, emulators, and integration with other services.

The open-source Godot 4.0 game engine will finally be released soon while being christened today is the initial release candidate.

Unvanquished 0.54 was released overnight as the latest update across the array of many releases going back a decade for this open-source first person shooter game. With Unvanquished 0.54 there continues to be enhancements to its renderer, the project is now providing ARM binaries on Linux to complement their x86/x86_64 builds, user-interface improvements, and gameplay enhancements.

With the Linux 6.2 kernel Sony DualShock 4 controller support was added to the "hid-playstation" driver as the newer open-source driver maintained by Sony and started out originally in supporting the PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers. The DualShock 4 controller was long supported by the "hid-sony" driver while now in the Linux 6.3 kernel that support will be removed.

FEX as the open-source project working on allowing x86_64 software to run atop Linux AArch64 (64-bit Arm) systems -- including games and the likes of Valve's Steam Play (Proton) -- is out with its newest monthly feature release.

It shouldn't be too surprising given the pace of beta releases and planning for post-4.0 releases, but the open-source Godot game engine is planning for its major Godot 4.0 stable release to happen in the "first months" of 2023.

The long-awaited Godot 4 open-source game engine release is getting closer... The developers have already begun drafting plans past Godot 4.0 and they have now moved to weekly development snapshots as this much anticipated release nears.

FEX-Emu is the open-source software project working on speedy x86/x86_64 software emulation on AArch64. FEX-Emu is one of the leading options for running x86 binaries on 64-bit Arm and has matured enough for allowing Linux games and Steam Play titles to run on Arm. FEX 2212 is out as the newest shiny feature update to this promising software.

With SDL 3.0 in development and it taking a more modern focus and doing away with various pieces of old code, one of the latest chunks of code being retired is the OpenGL ES 1.0 2D render path.

DXVK-NVAPI 0.6 is now available as the newest feature release to this open-source project that bridges the DXVK Direct3D-on-Vulkan layer with NVIDIA's proprietary driver NVAPI library for utilizing various NVIDIA-specific features.

The much anticipated Godot 4.0 open-source game engine continues inching closer to release. When that release is finally out, Godot 4.0.x point releases will likely be coming in quick and some plans for Godot 4.1 are already being discussed.

It was just a little more than 24 hours ago that SDL 2.26 released for this widely-used library by cross-platform games and other software for abstracting software/hardware interfaces. With SDL 2.26 released, SDL 3.0 is now in development. One of the first stages of that big Simple DirectMedia Layer update is removing a lot of old platform code and other obsolete targets.

SDL 2.26 has been officially released as the latest version of this widely-used library by cross-platform games and other software wishing to abstract various hardware/software differences between systems. With the release of SDL 2.26 out, SDL 3.0 is now officially under development.