Following on from the news earlier that NVIDIA has released the RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti for laptops , their new stable driver 460.80 is out for Linux.

As always for NVIDIA, they push out a new driver right away to get Linux support for their GPUs hooked up day and date with the release. The 460.80 driver adds support for:

• GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU
• GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU
• T600 Laptop GPU
• T1200 Laptop GPU
• RTX A5000 Laptop GPU
• RTX A4000 Laptop GPU
• RTX A3000 Laptop GPU
• RTX A2000 Laptop GPU

It also includes some bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that could cause AddressSanitizer to report a heap-buffer-overflow during initialization of the OpenGL and Vulkan libraries.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent a system from resuming from suspend when DisplayPort activity occurred while the system was suspended.
• Fixed a regression that prevented eglQueryDevicesEXT from correctly enumerating GPUs on systems with multiple GPUs where access to the GPU device files was restricted for some GPUs.
• Fixed a regression that could cause system hangs when changing display resolution on SLI Mosaic configurations.
• Fixed a bug that could result in blank displays when driving multiple displays at the same resolution using active DisplayPort dongles.

This is part of their "Production Branch", so it's good for everyone to upgrade. See the driver release page .

It's not just Intel announcing new hardware today, as NVIDIA have now joined in with the RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti for laptops. Currently, no desktop models have been announced as their focus is solely on mobile form factor. However, it's highly likely they will appear eventually.

"The latest wave of laptops provides the perfect opportunity to upgrade, particularly for gamers and creators with older laptops who want to experience the magic of RTX,” said Mark Aevermann, director of product management for laptops at NVIDIA. “There are now five times more RTX 30 Series gaming laptops that are thinner than 18mm compared with previous-generation RTX systems, delivering groundbreaking performance with very sleek and portable designs."

Pricing will start at $799 with no UK/EU pricing being given yet, we'll have to see what system builders come up with. NVIDIA claim this is targetting the "most mainstream audience" to offer 60FPS at 1080p in some quite demanding games with Ray Tracing on.

Here's a specs comparison based on the press details sent:

NVIDIA also showed it off a little but as usual, it's Windows-focused:

Also, NVIDIA also recently announced back in April that they expect GPU shortages to continue until at least 2022.

We're expected a new NVIDIA driver release today too, as usual when new hardware is announced.

Do you think you'll be looking to get one? Let us know in the comments.

Today Intel has formally announced and released the 11th Gen Core H-series mobile processors, for some next-gen performance in a smaller form factor for laptop users.

"11th Gen Intel Core H-series processors take mobile gaming, content creation and commercial workstation systems to new heights. These new H-series processors are an exciting extension of our 11th Gen mobile family with double-digit single core and multi-core performance improvements, leading gameplay, direct attached storage and 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes for true enthusiast-level platform bandwidth. 11th Gen H-series is the industry’s most performant mobile processor that empowers users to game, create and connect with leadership performance at any enthusiast form factor." — Chris Walker, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the Mobile Client Platforms Group

Some of the features:

• 20 PCIe Gen 4.0 lanes with Intel® Rapid Storage Technology bootable in Raid 0 — and up to 44 total PCIe lanes that include 24 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes from a dedicated platform controller hub.
• Memory support up to DDR4-3200.
• Thunderbolt™ 4 with transfer speeds up to 40Gbps.
• Discrete Intel® Killer™ Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+).
• Dual Embedded Display Port integrated for power optimized companion display.

More features can be seen in the below image:

Intel also launched their Intel vPro® H-series processors for businesses today.

As for availability, Intel said to expect "more than 80 enthusiast laptop designs" across various fields through this year. No exact dates were given as it largely depends on the manufacturers of each laptop to put them out. With the Xe graphics, they should be nice gaming units.

Love flying drones? LuGus Studios, developer of the highly rated Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing have announced Liftoff: Micro Drones as their next racing and drone flying sim. While Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing focused on big drones, Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing as the name suggest shrinks things down with any indoor area becoming an exciting aerial playground thanks to the focus on tiny drones.

Check out their teaser:

Watch video on YouTube.com

"The new simulator will be released via Steam’s Early Access program: even before the official release, fans of the series can get an early look and can be involved in shaping the future of the project. Liftoff: FPV Drone Racing went through a similar process, to great success. Based on community input, over 100 updates helped shape the game exactly into what its players wanted, giving the team at LuGus Studios confidence in continuing that approach. Future updates for Micro Drones will bring a track editor, Steam Workshop integration, extra game modes, and new frames and environments to explore."

Liftoff: Micro Drones is planned to be released in Early Access on Steam for Linux, macOS and Windows in late 2021.

You can follow it on Steam .

Set in the Tangledeep universe and featuring a unique puzzle-battle system, Impact Gameworks have now properly revealed their new JRPG-inspired adventure Flowstone Saga.

Technically, it was already revealed under the name of Puzzle Explorers: A Tangledeep Story but sadly they had a failed crowdfunding attempt for it. So they went back, continued expanding it and providing free Alpha builds to anyone from their official site. Now it's back, bigger and better under the name Flowstone Saga. Check out the trailer below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

"Flowstone Saga is a 16-bit, JRPG-inspired adventure featuring an epic story, charming characters, stunning pixel art, and a unique puzzle battle system! Like our first title Tangledeep, we're combining everything we love about the finest SNES & PlayStation-era RPGs, and infusing it with modern sensibilities in a captivating, original world."

You can actually try it out right now, with Impact Gameworks continuing their full Linux support. Given how beautifully Tangledeep worked on Linux, and Linux builds of this game have been available for a while - we expect it to do quite well overall for Linux fans.

Features:

• Battle monsters in a truly unique puzzle-based arena! Using the power of falling blocks, you can attack, defend, and trigger magic effects to thwart everything from lowly Beewis and Cookie Ferrets to Craggans and Giant Axolotls.
• Immerse yourself in a grand story that begins with the discovery of an ancient power, and grows to encompass a continent-wide conflict
• Explore the islands of Ocean's End, search for treasure, gather resources, solve ancient puzzles, and unravel mysteries across dozens of handcrafted maps and dungeons
• Befriend charming characters, helping them to build the town of New Riverstone, learning their stories, and even buddying up for extra battle effects
• Customize your experience with multiple difficulty settings; enjoy a more relaxed, story-driven playthrough, OR push your puzzle & tactical skills to their limits
• Feast your eyes on lush, stunningly-detailed pixel art including huge monster sprites, gorgeous backgrounds, and expressive animations
• Rock out to an epic, adventurous soundtrack with over 50 songs, featuring live performances by world-class musicians

It's crowdfunding on Kickstarter with demo links, and against the $20,000 goal they've already managed nearly $7K in one day pledged - so it looks like it's going on to be a success.

Inspired by the Werewolf/Mafia genre and similar games, Untrusted from developer evolvedlabs has now left Early Access and it seems it has done quite well.

"In Untrusted (or “Untrusted – Web of Cybercrime”), hackers from the fictional NETSEC group are tasked in hacking a specific server on a computer network. NETSEC members must use their skills and wits to outsmart the undercover AGENTs that will try each night to perform arrests or have other players become snitches for them."

Watch video on YouTube.com

Features:

• Hacking themed game focused on social interactions.
• Hack into computers and analyze their log to find out who is telling the truth
• Keep your personal log and cross-reference data to find out who are the undercover agents
• An amazing, friendly community ready to welcome you
• Multiple winning conditions for both factions: hack or murder your way to victory.
• 2 Factions and many neutral classes
• 23 Unique classes
• More than 80 unique skills
• Unlock avatars and badges as you win
• No bogus IP addresses! All IP addresses are from RFC 5737, for all of us IT people :3
• Discord integration

For a niche experience given the interface and gameplay, it's managed to gain a nice following. With a few hundred user reviews on Steam giving it a Very Positive rating and it regularly sees a few hundred players online at any one time so for a game with no marketing it's doing okay.

Also, you can claim an exclusive GamingOnLinux avatar! See our previous article for the link, you need to be logged in on GOL to claim the redeem code.

Check it out on itch.io and Steam . It's free to play.

Vircadia , the open source successor to the former High Fidelity VR project, a 3D virtual world for VR and desktops is now going to be coming to your web browser. The founder and project lead, Kalila Lakeworth, emailed in the very interesting news on how they've teamed up with the Linux Professional Institute to make this happen.

They mentioned how requiring users to download it is a barrier to adoption, and so using the power of WebRTC, they plan to let the whole thing run in a browser tab. Much like you can do with full games already on services like Google Stadia, Amazon Luna and so on. They're calling this "Vircadia Web", the idea is to let people join worlds and events from any device they own - a nice goal worth supporting.

Confused on what Vircadia actually is? They explain how it's "an engine to build virtual worlds on" and "Vircadia can help you make a personal home world that houses an art gallery, movie theater, or games for your friends. The sky is the limit.". It's open source, decentralized and so no one corp controls what to do with it. The sky is effectively the limit.

WebXR support will be coming to allow VR on the web, but their first focus is just getting the thing running in a browser.

Read more about their plans on their blog post .

A reader recently let us know of Sonic Robo Blast 2, a 3D free and open source sonic game built from the open source Doom Legacy game engine.

SRB2 is closely inspired by the original Sonic games from the Sega Genesis, and attempts to recreate the design in 3D. While SRB2 isn't fully completed, it already features tons of levels, enemies, speed, and quite a lot of the fun that the original Sonic games provided.

What they've been able to do with the Doom engine by merging in Sonic is definitely impressive. It's continually updated too, with a brand new version going up recently. SRB2 version 2.2.9 is out with these changes:

• Fixed animated skin colors in OpenGL.
• Fixed an error when loading addons with custom savedata via the command line (notably, when testing from Zone Builder).
• Optimized Lua, plane rendering, and drawing of FOFs.
• Added polyobject support for Lua.
• Added multitag library for Lua, which allows reading and manipulation of tags on mapthings, lines and sectors; also added tag iterator functions.
• Attraction Shield’s homing attack may now be chained.
• The addfile command now supports adding multiple files.
• The player will now smoothly slide across a sloped ceiling.
• Let more graphics lumps be replaced clientside.
• Various bits of progress on UDMF.
• Special text is printed when the player begins the final lap in Circuit mode.
• Ring drain sectors play the ring depletion sound.
• Pausing the game is no longer possible during the score tally screen in Marathon Mode.
• Tons of map fixes from sphere.
• Added acronym keywords to Co-op levels. For use with the map command, so e.g. you can warp to Green Flower 1 with map GFZ1.
• The game now resends the whole gamestate when resyncing a player.
• Fixed an issue with the installer executables where you wouldn’t always be asked where you want to install the game.

Sounds like there's never been a better time to try it out!

Check it out on the official site . Available for Linux on Flathub .

0 A.D. Alpha 25, the very impressive free and open source RTS is closing in on the next release and it's entering a Feature Freeze soon to focus on stability. The last release back in February took a very long time, partly as some major internal upgrades were done so now they're hoping to be a bit more regular.

In June they're proposing to enter Feature Freeze, to then focus on bug fixes. So what to expect from the upcoming 0 A.D. Alpha 25? In a blog post they noted a few new features coming:

• Single Player Campaign Support:
  The ability for 0 A.D modders to create their own single player campaigns will be added. Alpha 25 will only include the base functionality for this with full campaigns scheduled to be added in later iterations.
• Improved Multiplayer Responsiveness
  A technical improvement that players may ‘feel’ rather than see, this is another progressive improvement step to smoothing out multiplayer gameplay and enhancing unit pathfinding. Before commands in multiplayer were processed twice per second, now five times like in single player.
• Ongoing Balancing Changes
  Numerous changes to balance of the game by way of micro adjustments to various civilisations, buildings, and units.

Head over to their wiki and you will see there's quite a bit more including better animal AI behaviour, domestic animals will flee when attacked, structures can be toggled to auto-produce units, improvements to tutorial and random maps text and more.

I actually played a bunch of it recently and wow - it sure has come a very long way. Reminds me of the early days of Age of Empires but free and open source.

Check it out on the official site .