Linux gaming's march toward being a real, actual thing has taken serious strides lately, due in large part to Valve's Proton-powered Steam Play efforts. Being Linux, there are still some quirks to figure out. One of them involves games trying to make use of Intel's upscaling tools.
Intel's ARC series GPUs are interesting, in many senses of the word. They offer the best implementation of Intel's image reconstruction system, XeSS, similar to Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR. XeSS, like its counterparts, utilizes machine learning to fill in the pixel gaps on anti-aliased objects and scenes. The results are sometimes clear, sometimes a bit fuzzy if you pay close attention. In our review of Intel's A770 and A750 GPUs in late 2022, we noted that cross-compatibility between all three systems could be in the works.
That kind of easy-swap function is not the case when a game is running on a customized version of the WINE Windows-on-Linux, translating Direct3D graphics calls to Vulkan and prodding to see whether it, too, can make use of Intel's graphics boost. As noted by Phoronix, Intel developers contributing to the open source Mesa graphics project added the ability to hide an Intel GPU from the Vulkan Linux driver.
[...] Relying on upscaling to bolster performance, especially at lower resolutions, may be unwise. But nearly every major game release brings with it news of which vendor's upscaling system is included or preferred. It's still impressive how many games simply run at all on an OS for which they were never built, but it might never stop being a tricky challenge.
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After much anticipation, many delays, and an anticipatory apology tour for its software quality, Intel launched its first Arc GPUs at the end of 2022. There were things to like about the A770 and A750, but buggy drivers, poor performance in older games, and relatively high power use made them difficult to recommend. They were more notable as curiosities than as consumer graphics cards.
[...]
The new Arc B580 card, the first dedicated GPU based on the new "Battlemage" architecture, launches into the exact same "sub-$300 value-for-money" graphics card segment that the A770 and A750 are already stuck in. But it's a major improvement over those cards in just about every way, and Intel has gone a long way toward fixing drivers and other issues that plagued the first Arc cards at launch. If nothing else, the B580 suggests that Intel has some staying power and that the B700-series GPUs could be genuinely exciting if Intel can get one out relatively soon.
[...]
As with the Arc A-series cards, Intel emphatically recommends that resizable BAR be enabled for your motherboard to get optimal performance. This is sometimes called Smart Access Memory or SAM, depending on your board; most AMD AM4 and 8th-gen Intel Core systems should support it after a BIOS update, and newer PCs should mostly have it on by default. Our test system had it enabled for the B580 and for all the other GPUs we tested.
[...]
Intel is explicitly targeting Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 with the Arc B580, a role it fills well for a low starting price. But the B580 is perhaps more damaging to AMD, which positions both of its 7600-series cards (and the remaining 6600-series stuff that's hanging around) in the same cheaper-than-Nvidia-with-caveats niche.
[...]
All of that said, Intel is putting out a great competitor to the RTX 4060 and RX 7600 a year and a half after those cards both launched—and within just a few months of a possible RTX 5060. Intel is selling mid-2023's midrange GPU performance in late 2024. There are actually good arguments for building a budget gaming PC right this minute, before potential Trump-administration tariffs can affect prices or supply chains, but assuming the tech industry can maintain its normal patterns, it would be smartest to wait and see what Nvidia does next.
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There was so much packed into Apple's WWDC presentation Monday that it's hard to believe there are still major pieces of it left to uncover. And yet, as part of a developer presentation, Apple has quietly announced what could be major news for PC games on Mac hardware—its own SteamOS-like Windows compatibility initiative, but for millions of Apple Silicon Macs instead of Steam Decks.
"Bring your game to Mac" is laid out over three videos covering a game controller guide, a Game Porting Toolkit (Apple developers only), and a converter for making games' shaders work with Apple's Metal hardware acceleration API. Apple claims you "have everything you need to deliver an amazing gaming experience" with Apple-Silicon-based Macs and that its toolkit provides "an emulation environment to run your existing, unmodified Windows game."
[...]
At the core of Apple's Game Porting Toolkit is CodeWeavers' open source code for CrossOver. CodeWeavers writes on its site that the company is "ecstatic" that Apple "is recognizing that Wine is a fantastic solution for running Windows games on MacOS." CodeWeavers "did not work with Apple on this tool, but we would be delighted to work with any game developers" who want to work with the company's PortJump team to refine their Windows-to-Mac translation.
The Steam Link was a little box ahead of its time.
[...] Valve quietly discontinued the Steam Link gear in November 2018, but it didn't give up. These days, a Steam Link app can be found on most platforms, and Valve's sustained effort to move Linux-based (i.e., non-Windows-controlled) gaming forward has paid real dividends.
[...] As detailed in the Raspberry Pi blog, there were previously means of getting Steam Link working on Raspberry Pi devices
[...] Sam Lantinga from Valve worked with the Raspberry Pi team on optimizing for the Raspberry Pi 5 hardware. As of Steam Link 1.3.13 for the little board, Raspberry Pi 5 units could support up to 1080p at 144 frames per second (FPS) on the H.264 protocol and 4k at 60 FPS or 1080p at 240 FPS, presuming your primary gaming computer and network can support that.
[...] I have a documented preference for a Moonlight/Sunshine game streaming setup over Steam Link because I have better luck getting games streaming at their best on it. But it's hard to beat Steam Link for ease of setup
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2023, @09:33PM (2 children)
You should be running games on TempleOS.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Tork on Saturday August 12 2023, @10:54PM (1 child)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday August 13 2023, @05:21PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Informative) by r1348 on Saturday August 12 2023, @10:13PM (5 children)
All of this is necessary only because Intel hasn't yet implemented XeSS in their linux drivers.
DLSS and FSR work out of the box when using Proton.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Sunday August 13 2023, @11:50AM (4 children)
Is Intel even capable of powering any decent games?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2023, @01:08PM
Intel's latest iGPUs can play Cyberpunk 2077 at around 1280x720 30 FPS. Their new dGPUs could likely play everything at acceptable resolutions, if it weren't for driver issues.
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Sunday August 13 2023, @08:05PM (2 children)
The Arc A750 and A770 have gaming performance comparable to current mid-range GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, but they're much more power hungry for the same performance.
So yes, there are Intel cards capable of decent gaming, but they're behind in terms of efficiency.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Monday August 14 2023, @03:17PM (1 child)
I haven't been following along, so that's a stunning revelation to me.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday August 14 2023, @09:57PM
It's a very new thing, but yeah, they've been a thing for the last year or so. Intel doesn't work as well, is much more buggy, etc. Thus, I wouldn't exactly call it a competitor or even a reasonable choice, yet. There's also the huge question mark with regards to whether they will continue to put up a product that is definitively worse than their competitors. I would love to have an actual 3rd choice, but their commitment is yet to be proven.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimios on Sunday August 13 2023, @06:47AM
Considering how XeSS uses intel hardware, on other GPUs it falls back to a lower quality/performance algorithm.
Details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pFCd76eV0U [youtube.com]