The popular kart racing game SuperTuxKart 1.3 now release candidate is out!
After a year of development, the game now is ported to Switch though you need to have Homebrew installed. So the 3D open-source arcade racer now works on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS (beta), and Nintendo Switch.
photo via erik mclean (edited)
Thanks to SDL2 and Mary, there’s an option to enable force feedback. You can find it in ‘Options -> Controls’ if you have a controller that support the feature.
The graphics settings now provides “render resolution” option. With it, the resolution can be lowered by up to 50% to get better frame rates.
Real-time strategy video game 0 A.D. released version Alpha 25 a day ago. Code name is “Yaunã”.
0 A.D. (pronounced “zero ey-dee”) is a free and open-source RTS game under development by Wildfire Games, that works on Windows, Linux, and MAC. It is a historically-based war/economy game that allows players to relive or rewrite the history of Western civilizations, focusing on the years between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D.
“Yaunã” comes with the twenty-fifth alpha version that initially implements Single Player Campaigns, along with other big ones including:
Improved Pathfinding, Performance And Reduced Game Lag.
Push new orders to the front Of their production queues.
Improved Unit AI.
New Biomes incorporating wew 2k textures and normal/specular maps.
GUI improvements.
Extended Graphics options.
Improved Mod support and game filtering in the multiplayer lobby.
Ongoing civilization balancing.
Various other game stability bug fixes and speedups.
See video about 0 A.D. Alpha 25:
How to Install 0 A.D in Ubuntu:
The game package is available in Ubuntu repository but always old! To get the latest version, keep an eye on this Ubuntu PPA while the official one is not being updated for long time.
Usually, maintainers update the latest software packages a few days after the release note. For beginners, you can follow this tutorial to add the PPA and install 0 A.D. once the new package published.
Want to get better performance when playing games in Linux? Try GameMode!
GameMode is a free open-source Linux project allows games to request a set of optimizations be temporarily applied to the host and/or game process.
The project was originally designed as a stop-gap solution to problems with Intel and AMD CPU powersave or ondemand governors. But now GameMode supports for optimizations including:
CPU governor
I/O priority
Process niceness
Kernel scheduler
Screensaver inhibiting
GPU performance mode (NVIDIA and AMD), GPU overclocking (NVIDIA)
Custom scripts
1. How to Install GameMode in Ubuntu Linux:
The package is available in Ubuntu as well as most other Linux repositories.
Firstly open terminal by either searching from ‘Activities’ overview screen, or pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When terminal opens, run command to install it:
sudo apt install gamemode
For Fedora and CentOS Linux, you can install it via command:
sudo dnf install gamemode
(Optional) Install GameMode indicator:
For choice, you can install an indicator applet that shows the current status of GameMode. It’s an extension for the default Gnome desktop.
a.) Open terminal and run command to make sure chrome-gnome-shell browser integration is installed:
If you don’t see the toggle icon, click the “click here to install browser extension” link to install browser extension and reload the page.
Finally, search for and open ‘Gnome Extensions App’ from start menu. And click on the gear button to configure the status indicator.
2. How to Run Game in GameMode:
Some games and platforms have integrated GameMode support. Which means you don’t have to do anything to activate it. They are:
DiRT 4
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Total War: WARHAMMER II
ATLauncher Minecraft launcher
Lutris
For other games, you can now run the executable command by adding gamemoderun at the beginning. For example, run SuperTux2 in GameMode via:
gamemoderun supertux2
For steam, you can simply add gamemoderun %command% as launch option.
And without launching game every time from command line, write the rule into app shortcut file. They are .desktop files generally locate in “/usr/share/applications” directory.
For example, edit SuperTux 2 app shortcut via command:
When the file opens, add gamemoderun before executable command in Exec line.
For Hybrid GPU users, the GameMode supports environment variable via GAMEMODERUNEXEC. So you can run GameMode while using dedicated gpu for rendering game which will be displayed using the integrated card. For example:
The game offers official Snap package, which can be easily installed from Ubuntu Software:
Don’t like the containerized software package? For Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Linux Mint 19/20, and based systems, grab the classic DEB package from the link below:
This quick tutorial shows you how to install the latest Battle for Wesnoth 1.14.3 in Ubuntu 18.04, and/or Ubuntu 16.04.
Battle for Wesnoth is an open source, turn-based strategy game with a high fantasy theme. It features both singleplayer and online/hotseat multiplayer combat.
While all current Ubuntu releases offer Wesnoth 1.12 in the main repositories, the latest version has reached 1.14.3.
Install Battle for Wesnoth 1.14 via PPA:
There’s an unofficial PPA that contains the game packages for Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04 so far.
1. Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching for ‘terminal’ from software launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vincent-c/wesnoth
Type your password (no asterisks feedback) when it prompts and hit Enter.
2. Then run 2 commands one by one to check updates and install the game:
