Signal has been a good option because you can get “normal” people to use it, which hasn’t been true for many of the alternatives (except Telegram, but that’s a mess).

Young lady, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

FlyDigi Vader 4 Pro now working for me. A few things that are needed:

• Controller must be in PC/Dinput mode, blue led (hold O + A to switch)
• Don’t enable the built in gyro mode in the Windows app as it might cause problems
• Udev rule:

KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04b4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2412", MODE="0666"

(get the idVendor and idProduct from lsusb if you have a different controller)

• Some (patched) versions of xpad/xpadneo might conflict with it. If you’re using the stock versions it should be okay.
• Your user might need to be in the input group.

One last thing that may or may not be needed is that I installed the SpaceStation app on Windows to test some things. It started working after that but I can’t recall if I force reloaded the udev rule so it might have just been the reboot that fixed it.

Anyway, now I have gyro + all extra buttons working with Steam Input.

See here for further discussion: https://github.com/paroj/xpad/pull/268

Maybe they are planning to take back that spectrum they gave to Boost/Dish on a pinky-promise that they’d actually become a competitive network, during the Sprint and T-Mobile antitrust case.

Which would fit with the FCC’s increasingly mob-like behaviour under Trump.

I think this is Homer’s Enemy. Frank Grimes (or Grimey, as he liked to be called) tricks Homer into entering a contest for children to build a model power plant. Homer is hard at work building his masterpiece behind the door.

Just having VSync on can introduce frame pacing issues. It’s just not an issue if you can maintain the monitor refresh rate consistently, of course. And you can turn it off altogether if you can tolerate tearing.

But that’s the main benefit of VRR for me which is frame pacing at sub monitor refresh rate, rather than latency reduction compared to the various types of VSync.

Triple buffering. Needs to be implemented by the game, not by the OS. Provides maximum frame rate and no tearing with minimal latency.

Vulkan mailbox mode is pretty much this and doesn’t require game support (can be forced on with environment variables if it’s not already being used). And since almost everything is Vulkan on Linux these days, one way or another, that covers most games (might be compatibility issues in rare cases).

Plasma wayland has an automatic mode which should at least turn off VRR during desktop usage, as long as the application window isn’t fullscreen. A hacky way that can help when VRR is active is to increase the minimum frequency and kick into LFC more readily, by creating a custom EDID (you can also do a sysfs edit historically but I think that’s AMD only).

That’s only really viable if you have a high refresh rate monitor with a large range. I’ve found that 120hz may not be enough (since you may end up with gaps where VRR doesn’t work if the range is too narrow), which is of course the most common OLED TV refresh rate. In my experience a minimum of >=54hz minimises the flicker, but that may vary with the display.

There’s also an issue with cursors where moving the mouse can make the refresh jump to the maximum. It only affects desktop usage and some games (RTS and the like, not usually FPS camera usage). There are fixes coming for this with Plasma I believe, but I’m not sure about Gnome. Forcing a software cursor may help, as others have indicated.

Some users are reporting gyro working for some of the controllers. It’s early days anyway (I tested it and it’s all broken for me on the Vader 4 Pro).

Well, I did say “maybe with a real d-pad”, it’s just the thumbsticks that aren’t necessary.

I actually did play with the Steam Controller for years using the trackpad as d-pad. It was more of a comfort thing that made it less than ideal which was due to the shape/texture of the original SC, but I could live without it personally if it’s done right.

I’ve even played shmups with it, with the right settings, but I get there is a learning curve and its easier to use a physical d-pad.

I have the Vader 4 and there are some reports of gyro working too. It’s no replacement for my steam controller(s) due to the lack of touchpads, but it’s probably the highest quality conventional controller I’ve owned in terms of build quality, so good to see support.

I understand the trackpads somewhat since they take up space, but the lack of back buttons is inexcusable.

Personally though, I’d buy a trackpad only deck (maybe with a real d-pad) but I know I’m in the minority on that one.

Are you using the handheld/deck image? If so, see if you can replicate the issue in desktop mode as it might be a game mode specific issue. I’d also test a different keyboard and gamepad, if you have easy access to those.

It’s just saying it’s not supported, not that it doesn’t work. Depending on your country, I doubt that warranty voiding claim is enforceable either.

Also, if you get one of their units that has an ARM chip inside instead of an intel one, there is basically no chance you’re ever going to be able to use anything other than the software that they have by default.

Their x86 models are fine as you imply, just avoid ARM and you can install any OS you want.

The ZOTAC handheld looks interesting, and while it’s nice to see decently sized touchpads, they are very low on the device and it seems like that would be uncomfortable to use.

A bunch of back buttons would have mitigated the issue a little, but it seems like there is only two, which is a shame.

It’s a bit of both, along with the Linux AMD drivers being superior in many cases to the Windows drivers.

I’ll add for completeness that vkd3d-proton handles DX12 titles, and of course OGL and Vulkan are supported natively.

For me, it’s not the steam machine itself but the peripherals like the steam controller that would come with it. There still isn’t a proper replacement for the original SC that has: trackpads, gyro, back buttons, and full steam input support.

Everything else is missing trackpads and aimed at emulating a console controller, so you get weird situations where one mode supports gyro because it emulates a switch controller but doesn’t support the back buttons and analog triggers, and another supports the back buttons and analog triggers but not gyro.

Funnily enough, the steam deck itself is the best option as a controller if you want all of these features.

Of course, a new steam machine wouldn’t be required for a new SC to happen, but it makes sense to pair them, as they did originally.

Maude eh?