Moe Long

Time for a history lesson of open source.

From Geanny and Greenfoot to Thonny and Adafruit WebIDE, these are the best Raspberry Pi IDEs for all languages!

From Ubuntu and Pop!_OS to Arch, Manjaro, and everything in-between, these are the best Linux distros for developers and programmers!

Learn about the AI bot Alice from The Mad Botter, which is a means to allow distributed teams to automate and communicate with ease.

RetroPie is great for your retro gaming needs, but unfortunately, N64 ROM performance is decidedly hit or miss. The Runcommand Launch allows emulator-switching, for selection of the best emulator for a specific ROM. Check out how to install additional emulators, boot into the Runcommand menu, and see a user-aggregated list of ROM performance.

Havok has joined Microsoft, which could mean more cloud gaming.

While many female developers have been target and discriminated against, they're not alone. Sexism is all too prevalent in video gaming and development as a whole.

Calling all HTML5 game developers! The 2015 js13kGames competition is set to kick off, Think you can make an awesome HTML5 game in just 13kb? Test your mettle here.

CryTek just released its CryEngine 3.8.1, an update packed with features. The CryEngine website dubs this the heftiest upgrade since debuting their Engine-as-a-Service in May. Among the many new features is virtual reality (VR) support, OpenGL compatibility, and Linux support. One of the biggest trends in gaming is VR, and CryEngine 3.8.1 adds VR support. Initially, it’s limited to the Oculus Rift, but chances are as more headsets emerge and see adoption among both developers and gamers, compatibility will expand to support these as well. Epic Games’ Unreal Engine also added VR support, along with Unity3D’s most recent release. There’s a neat VR demo on the CryTek website, which developers will surely want to check out. Another significant change is the addition of Linux support. While Wine and Playonlinux have both helped many games to run on a variety of Linux-based operating systems (OSes). However, native Linux support means easier use for developers. As more games add Linux compatibility, spearheaded by Steam’s SteamOS, the CryEngine itself can now be run on Linux. This latest update means that the CryEngine will join Unity3D, the Unreal Engine, and Source as a powerful game development engine with Linux and VR support. Virtual reality is seeing widespread adoption among the developer community, and Linux compatibility in gaming is a huge trend. While CryEngine 3.8.1’s ability to run on Linux won’t necessarily mean games developed will be compatible on the popular open source OS, it certainly makes it easier to ensure Linux support. There’s also OpenGL support, which will also aid cross-platform development. The CryEngine has been used to create many games known for their gorgeous eye-candy. Notably, the CryTek’s aptly names Crysis series is built with the CryEngine, as is Ryse: Son of Rome, State of Decay, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

AMD and Intel have competed for years in the performance arena, and a recently announced CPU-GPU combo could make AMD the frontrunner. The high-performance CPU-GPU megachip will reportedly be able to deliver teraflops of performance. While AMD and Intel have sparred for supreme champion on the performance circuit, Intel’s flagship i7 5960x is supposedly the most powerful CPU available. Forbes contributor Jason Evangelho posted benchmarks of AMD’s R9 390 GPU compared to Nvidia’s GTX 980 Ti, and according to his research, the 390 beat the 980. So AMD appears to be dominating graphics performance. Lately, AMD has concentrated on delivering energy efficient components, and surprisingly hefty performance. I’m still amazed at the recent games my laptop, equipped with an AMD A10-4600k and Radeon 7660g integrated graphics, can run on high detail on a 1080p display. However, the forthcoming and yet unnamed CPU-GPU megachip won’t be aimed at gamers. Rather, it’s more tailored to workstations requiring beefy computing power, or servers. This doesn’t mean that a gaming variation won’t be available eventually, or that AMD’s megachip can’t be tweaked to fit gaming needs, but it’s made with computation in mind. This is massive news for high-performance PCs, and a migration toward CPU and GPU integration might be the next big advancement in computer hardware.