We know how some of you feel about wrappers, but that's an old argument now. The game is here, and the developers are still working on improving it. The Witcher 2 had a new beta a few days ago, and we took a look at just how much of an improvement it is.
I have to say this, but I am shocked at this new beta. The improvement is actually quite staggering! Testing around the same area on 1080p with high settings gives me ~20FPS more and it's astonishing how far Virtual Programming's eON has come.
The announcement (scroll down a bit) is copied below:
You can get into the new beta by selecting it from right click on the game -> properties, beta tab, and selecting it from the drop-down.
One issue to note is that there is a bit of micro-stutter at times, but unless you're trying hard to notice is, you probably won't. It doesn't happen often it seems either in my testing.
This has quite literally changed my views on it, and has made me actually think about properly playing it for the first time ever. Honestly, I would now be surprised if I got much more FPS on Windows now.
You can see screens below of the new beta first, and the old stable last with the FPS counter in the corner showing the improvement at the same place, and it will shock you too:
Once they fix up any remaining issues with the new beta and pop it to the stable branch, we may even recommend people try it out, and we certainly recommend you try the beta if you already own it, wow.
It will be very interesting to see how their next port is received now. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I have to say this, but I am shocked at this new beta. The improvement is actually quite staggering! Testing around the same area on 1080p with high settings gives me ~20FPS more and it's astonishing how far Virtual Programming's eON has come.
The announcement (scroll down a bit) is copied below:
Quote24 Jan 2015 20:50 GMT
Latest Beta - BuildID 503099
A bit of a refresh here. We've worked more on our Direct3D 9 engine since the last beta, so everything we've done there has gone into this patch. Hopefully, that means better performance too!
We've also resolved the constant crashing on exit, removed our dependancy on libcurl, and we now ship a new CrashReporter which, while still using libcurl, should work with a variety of different versions as shipped by the many distro's out there.
We've also added a fix for the crashing caused on kernel 3.17.7 and later, even though the kernel maintainers have already agreed to amend the patch that caused the problem - it is better if our behaviour avoids the issue in the first place :)
Test and let us know how things are...
You can get into the new beta by selecting it from right click on the game -> properties, beta tab, and selecting it from the drop-down.
One issue to note is that there is a bit of micro-stutter at times, but unless you're trying hard to notice is, you probably won't. It doesn't happen often it seems either in my testing.
This has quite literally changed my views on it, and has made me actually think about properly playing it for the first time ever. Honestly, I would now be surprised if I got much more FPS on Windows now.
You can see screens below of the new beta first, and the old stable last with the FPS counter in the corner showing the improvement at the same place, and it will shock you too:
Once they fix up any remaining issues with the new beta and pop it to the stable branch, we may even recommend people try it out, and we certainly recommend you try the beta if you already own it, wow.
It will be very interesting to see how their next port is received now. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Woah, they've definitely made strides since initial release (Granted, I couldn't say exactly since I had a different GPU back then). Even on High settings with my GTX 760 the game rarely even touched 60 FPS, instead residing between 70-130 depending on whether I was inside or outside (I tested this in the "To the Temple" section). Even on Ultra (super sampling enabled) it managed to stay between 40-70 approx (Keep in mind I game at 720p).
Also, I can't confirm this, as this was pretty casual testing, but adding "__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 %command%" to my launch options seemed to benefit my FPS even more. I can't say for sure if it helps, I just remember it working well with BL2.
Speaking of actually playing, does anyone know a good and concise walk-through of the first Witcher's plot? Or if it runs well on WINE? Witcher 2 looks great, but I'm pretty lost in this world.
Also, I can't confirm this, as this was pretty casual testing, but adding "__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 %command%" to my launch options seemed to benefit my FPS even more. I can't say for sure if it helps, I just remember it working well with BL2.
Speaking of actually playing, does anyone know a good and concise walk-through of the first Witcher's plot? Or if it runs well on WINE? Witcher 2 looks great, but I'm pretty lost in this world.
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Avehicle7887 Jan 28, 2015
This is great news, although I can play the game very well on High settings I am interested in the optimizations Virtual Programming is working on.
Never agreed on wrappers but this might very well change my opinion. Most games require less resources than Witcher 2 so they'll run much smoother.
Never agreed on wrappers but this might very well change my opinion. Most games require less resources than Witcher 2 so they'll run much smoother.
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For me the new beta made the game stutter like crazy. If "stuttering" is what you call one second total freezes every couple of seconds. But then I enabled gl threaded optimizations and it all went away. I've only done a few quick tests in the camp area at the very beginning of the game, but seems like it's running quite smoothly now on my i7 and gtx 760, with custom settings somewhere around high @ 1080p if it matters.
Quoting: throghI hope this patch will also be available through GOG.com. :)I'm sure it will be, as long as there's a stable release.
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Say what you want about wrappers but at least these developers are committed to making a quality product.
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Just did a quick try of the new beta, and it was almost unplayable (on i7-4790k at 4.6 GHz and GTX770 4GB). The framerate was good, the stuttering is just really bad. Also, there's considerable lag between mouse input and the camera turning. I played the game during the last beta, some time in August last year, and it ran fairly well, a bit of stutter but not too bad, framerates mostly between 50 and 90 fps. I'll try again tonight, maybe start a new game.
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Quoting: tuubiFor me the new beta made the game stutter like crazy. If "stuttering" is what you call one second total freezes every couple of seconds. But then I enabled gl threaded optimizations and it all went away. I've only done a few quick tests in the camp area at the very beginning of the game, but seems like it's running quite smoothly now on my i7 and gtx 760, with custom settings somewhere around high @ 1080p if it matters.I hope you reported the stuttering on their github, otherwise they can't fix what they don't know about.
Quoting: throghI hope this patch will also be available through GOG.com. :)I'm sure it will be, as long as there's a stable release.
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DamonLinuxPL Jan 28, 2015
@LIAMDAWE,
Can you ask CDPR or VP about possibility a port The Witcher 1 to Linux?
Mac version of The Witcher 1 is no longer a WINE port but few weeks ago VP making a eON ports. So I think is possible, but we need ask for them.
Can you? :)
Can you ask CDPR or VP about possibility a port The Witcher 1 to Linux?
Mac version of The Witcher 1 is no longer a WINE port but few weeks ago VP making a eON ports. So I think is possible, but we need ask for them.
Can you? :)
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I would had wished than the future of gaming wrappers would be on an open source project like WINE and not on something closed-source like eON. I guess money is the factor.
But I hope the devs just don't get lazy and make native ports, thats the way to go.
But I hope the devs just don't get lazy and make native ports, thats the way to go.
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I hope the progress made will entice other games developers to use these wrappers for their older titles so that we can get some of the older games (Skyrim, etc.) on Linux as well. Obviously I don't want this to be a substitute for porting games natively to Linux but I wouldn't mind developers using this as a cheaper alternative for porting their older games to Linux.
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