In addition to its titular wiki of game quirks, fixes and settings (including Linux games), PCGamingWiki also hosts a series of "PC Report" articles which have for the most part focused on the ways in which games have changed (or not changed) as they've been ported from consoles to desktops.
Recently, PCGamingWiki contributor soeb has been comparing the behaviour and performance of Linux ports, starting with Civilization V (take a look at the Gaming On Linux review and gameplay video), a turn based strategy developed by Firaxis and published by 2K Games. The Linux port of Civilization V was done by Aspyr, a well known Mac porting studio who also ported the game to Mac OS in 2010. The report commends Aspyr for providing a good Linux port, but does highlight some discrepancies, such as the lack of anti-aliasing, GPU texture decoding and Steam Workshop in Linux as well as missing languages.
Interestingly, the report notes that the Mac version of Civilization V recently received GPU texture decoding support, which offers hope that we'll see this added to the Linux version in the future, which should improve performance and texture popping when zooming/panning.
Following on from the Civ V report, soeb has investigated XCOM: Enemy Unknown, another turn based strategy title from Firaxis and 2K Games. This time Feral Interactive (be sure to read the recent Gaming On Linux interview with Feral's Head of Production, Edwin Smith as well as our recent gameplay video and review), another prominent Mac porting studio who also delivered the Mac version last year, is responsible for the Linux port. The report for XCOM: EU highlights that the Linux version reproduces its Windows counterpart faithfully in almost all areas, and also mentions the presence of bugs which can be seen on Windows.
Whilst there is a notable performance drop from the Windows version, the report shows that the game is more than playable on most systems. This is interesting in that it brings attention to aspects which may not negatively affect user experiences but are areas for potential improvement (it's also worth noting that Feral have a patch being worked on that includes some performance enhancements, and newer beta drivers may increase performance on Nvidia hardware, so those improvements are already on the way).
As more Linux gamers move away from dual booting and reduce the presence that Windows has in their lives, reports like this can not only help identify which ports have important issues when a first hand comparison is no longer possible. Also of value is the discernment between bugs which appear in games on other platforms which may otherwise be mistaken for Linux specific bugs (which would change how they should be handled/reported).
Though still in their infancy, these articles represent an important type of high level analysis which identifies discrepancies in a way that promotes platform parity. There are still some rough edges (such as a lack of detail regarding video driver versions), and soeb is accepting feedback on these articles to improve future reports, so please consider sharing your thoughts! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Recently, PCGamingWiki contributor soeb has been comparing the behaviour and performance of Linux ports, starting with Civilization V (take a look at the Gaming On Linux review and gameplay video), a turn based strategy developed by Firaxis and published by 2K Games. The Linux port of Civilization V was done by Aspyr, a well known Mac porting studio who also ported the game to Mac OS in 2010. The report commends Aspyr for providing a good Linux port, but does highlight some discrepancies, such as the lack of anti-aliasing, GPU texture decoding and Steam Workshop in Linux as well as missing languages.
Interestingly, the report notes that the Mac version of Civilization V recently received GPU texture decoding support, which offers hope that we'll see this added to the Linux version in the future, which should improve performance and texture popping when zooming/panning.
Following on from the Civ V report, soeb has investigated XCOM: Enemy Unknown, another turn based strategy title from Firaxis and 2K Games. This time Feral Interactive (be sure to read the recent Gaming On Linux interview with Feral's Head of Production, Edwin Smith as well as our recent gameplay video and review), another prominent Mac porting studio who also delivered the Mac version last year, is responsible for the Linux port. The report for XCOM: EU highlights that the Linux version reproduces its Windows counterpart faithfully in almost all areas, and also mentions the presence of bugs which can be seen on Windows.
Whilst there is a notable performance drop from the Windows version, the report shows that the game is more than playable on most systems. This is interesting in that it brings attention to aspects which may not negatively affect user experiences but are areas for potential improvement (it's also worth noting that Feral have a patch being worked on that includes some performance enhancements, and newer beta drivers may increase performance on Nvidia hardware, so those improvements are already on the way).
As more Linux gamers move away from dual booting and reduce the presence that Windows has in their lives, reports like this can not only help identify which ports have important issues when a first hand comparison is no longer possible. Also of value is the discernment between bugs which appear in games on other platforms which may otherwise be mistaken for Linux specific bugs (which would change how they should be handled/reported).
Though still in their infancy, these articles represent an important type of high level analysis which identifies discrepancies in a way that promotes platform parity. There are still some rough edges (such as a lack of detail regarding video driver versions), and soeb is accepting feedback on these articles to improve future reports, so please consider sharing your thoughts! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Good article. It's easy to forget sources like these. Would be good if we can add driver related performance as up to now I just maintain a spreadsheet on the open driver.
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This is great to hear, can't wait for more games to covered this way!
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Personally I couldn't care less about pretty textures in Civ5, as I spend 100% of the game in strategic view, but these are fine articles and I'm looking forward to read more of the series. :-)
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leillo1975 3 Jul 2014
I would like to see more games ported by Feral and Aspyr. I'm very impressed with this ports. Now I want to buy DLC's!
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The performance drop for XCOM is big. Several people in linux_gaming subreddit wrote that they get only half of the framerate of Windows version.
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/29kyxg/pc_report_xcom_enemy_unknown_on_linux_43_drop_in/
One guy posted screenshots comparing Windows (124 fps) and Linux (43 fps).
http://imgur.com/a/44sRZ
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/29kyxg/pc_report_xcom_enemy_unknown_on_linux_43_drop_in/
One guy posted screenshots comparing Windows (124 fps) and Linux (43 fps).
http://imgur.com/a/44sRZ
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rustybroomhandle 3 Jul 2014
The performance drop for XCOM is big. Several people in linux_gaming subreddit wrote that they get only half of the framerate of Windows version.
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/29kyxg/pc_report_xcom_enemy_unknown_on_linux_43_drop_in/
One guy posted screenshots comparing Windows (124 fps) and Linux (43 fps).
http://imgur.com/a/44sRZ
For this sort of statement there needs to be more detail. I did originally get a huge performance drop, but now notsomuch. I swapped out lightdm for kdm, which for some weird reason caused a huge increase.
What GPU, what driver, what compositor, what wm, etc. etc.
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edddeduck_feral 3 Jul 2014
The performance drop for XCOM is big. Several people in linux_gaming subreddit wrote that they get only half of the framerate of Windows version.
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/29kyxg/pc_report_xcom_enemy_unknown_on_linux_43_drop_in/
One guy posted screenshots comparing Windows (124 fps) and Linux (43 fps).
http://imgur.com/a/44sRZ
Yes, however the drop could be for many reasons, he could have a strange setup, old drivers, a card with a driver bug on Linux etc etc.
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I'm glad you guys focused on stability over performance though. It has been utterly crash free for me.
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Cheeseness 3 Jul 2014
One guy posted screenshots comparing Windows (124 fps) and Linux (43 fps).
Others have highlighted that this could be an edge case rather than the norm, but even if it wasn't, 43fps is still more than playable, and it's better to view that as being "room for improvement" that we can use to positively encourage further development rather than being unacceptable or a poor job.
I don't know what kind of existing Linux experience Feral Interactive had or brought onboard for the project, but as a first port from the studio, it's pretty positive IMO.
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Others have highlighted that this could be an edge case rather than the norm, but even if it wasn't, 43fps is still more than playable, and it's better to view that as being "room for improvement" that we can use to positively encourage further development rather than being unacceptable or a poor job.
I don't know what kind of existing Linux experience Feral Interactive had or brought onboard for the project, but as a first port from the studio, it's pretty positive IMO.
Well I would say that it is norm. Just today someone posted this on Steam forums:
Just tried the game on windows on the same hardware (i5-3570, gtx660), got ~110 fps at the place where I usually get ~35 on linux.
UPD: nVidia 340.17, linux 3.15.3
That doesn't mean that I consider the port as poor or unacceptable. The port is good, very good but it sure could use some performance boost.
Also the Feral developers are very active and helpful everywhere that I look.
They have a fix in beta patch for crashing after the end of the mission when you are using VPN or ppp0 or other interface which doesn't have MAC address. It only took them two weeks since the first people reported the issue on Steam forums.
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edddeduck_feral 4 Jul 2014
Others have highlighted that this could be an edge case rather than the norm, but even if it wasn't, 43fps is still more than playable, and it's better to view that as being "room for improvement" that we can use to positively encourage further development rather than being unacceptable or a poor job.Well I would say that it is norm. Just today someone posted this on Steam forums:
I don't know what kind of existing Linux experience Feral Interactive had or brought onboard for the project, but as a first port from the studio, it's pretty positive IMO.
Just tried the game on windows on the same hardware (i5-3570, gtx660), got ~110 fps at the place where I usually get ~35 on linux.That doesn't mean that I consider the port as poor or unacceptable. The port is good, very good but it sure could use some performance boost.
UPD: nVidia 340.17, linux 3.15.3
Also the Feral developers are very active and helpful everywhere that I look.
They have a fix in beta patch for crashing after the end of the mission when you are using VPN or ppp0 or other interface which doesn't have MAC address. It only took them two weeks since the first people reported the issue on Steam forums.
The person reporting this is running on an unsupported card, based on our testing the norm on supported hardware is very similar, we have a Nvidia 650 here in the office with higher performance (by a few frames) than Windows. Older unsupported cards it seems can sometimes hit driver bottlenecks, due to all the different Window Managers and driver combinations that are possible on Linux it's hard to get a general baseline as some Window managers or overrides in the Nvidia settings utility can affect game performance quite dramatically.
However we are monitoring what people have been reporting to see if anything serious or a pattern appears.
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edddeduck_feral 4 Jul 2014
*I think they are on a 500 series Nvidia however I might be wrong as I have spoken to so many people recently :)
If you have any details or feedback please drop our support an email.
If you have any details or feedback please drop our support an email.
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Cheeseness 4 Jul 2014
Well I would say that it is norm. Just today someone posted this on Steam forums:
Two people doesn't make it the norm.
So far as I can tell, there are a lot more people are not having problems than there are those that are. That doesn't mean that things are perfect (though it is great to see Feral being responsive to people who do have problems) - I only highlight it because focusing on edge cases to judge the port on isn't a good idea.
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edddeduck_feral 4 Jul 2014
Well I would say that it is norm. Just today someone posted this on Steam forums:Two people doesn't make it the norm.
So far as I can tell, more people are not having problems than those that are. That doesn't mean that things are perfect (though it is great to see Feral being responsive to people who do have problems) - I only highlight it because focusing on edge cases to judge the port on isn't a good idea.
We have thousands of Linux XCOM players, given the small number of comments on performance I think any major issues are definitely edge cases usually caused by setup. That's not to say they don't exist but people tend to post when things go wrong more than they do when things go right :)
That all said the quest for performance is always never ending as people always want more frames and higher resolutions :)
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The person reporting this is running on an unsupported card, based on our testing the norm on supported hardware is very similar, we have a Nvidia 650 here in the office with higher performance (by a few frames) than Windows. Older unsupported cards it seems can sometimes hit driver bottlenecks, due to all the different Window Managers and driver combinations that are possible on Linux it's hard to get a general baseline as some Window managers or overrides in the Nvidia settings utility can affect game performance quite dramatically.
However we are monitoring what people have been reporting to see if anything serious or a pattern appears.
He uses GTX 660 which is much more powerful than your GTX 650 and it is a card that should be supported.
Also there are definitely more people that report a big performance difference when compared to what they get on Windows. Just look at the comments in that post on linux_gaming subreddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/29kyxg/pc_report_xcom_enemy_unknown_on_linux_43_drop_in/
Most people running the game on Linux didn't make comparison with Windows so they couldn't tell if there is any difference in performance. I also didn't make such comparison because I don't have Windows and i don't use it at all since 2008.
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edddeduck_feral 4 Jul 2014
The person reporting this is running on an unsupported card, based on our testing the norm on supported hardware is very similar, we have a Nvidia 650 here in the office with higher performance (by a few frames) than Windows. Older unsupported cards it seems can sometimes hit driver bottlenecks, due to all the different Window Managers and driver combinations that are possible on Linux it's hard to get a general baseline as some Window managers or overrides in the Nvidia settings utility can affect game performance quite dramatically.He uses GTX 660 which is much more powerful than your GTX 650 and it is a card that should be supported.
However we are monitoring what people have been reporting to see if anything serious or a pattern appears.
Also there are definitely more people that report a big performance difference when compared to what they get on Windows. Just look at the comments in that post on linux_gaming subreddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/29kyxg/pc_report_xcom_enemy_unknown_on_linux_43_drop_in/
Most people running the game on Linux didn't make comparison with Windows so they couldn't tell if there is any difference in performance. I also didn't make such comparison because I don't have Windows and i don't use it at all since 2008.
We have never said there aren't few people with the odd performance issue that much is certain however most people get decent performance and are very happy with the game, the outliers do seem to usually be running on systems that other people with the same setup get decent performance so it's not clear what the cause of the larger drops for some people is.
I am not denying that Windows can be faster than Linux although with the latest patch (in beta)the performance delta on most cards is usually isn't noticeable at all.
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oldrocker99 6 Aug 2014
I had an unrecoverable crash in X-COM (using nVidia 3.04), until I upgraded to 3.40.24, at which point it runs fine. Perhaps it has a lower frame rate than the Windows version, but it certainly is playable for me. I doubt that I can perceive the delta between ~45 fps and ~90 fps. If I had a 750ti instead of a 650ti, I'd get better frame rates, no doubt.
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