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You know since yesterday with our massive SteamOS news post that Torchlight II is now on Linux, but since the dust is settling we have had some time to check out the port, here’s how it runs.

My thoughts
I played through a fair bit of the first Torchlight and loved it, so I am extremely pleased to see Torchlight II on Linux. We don’t have many high quality Diablo-like RPG games on Linux, so this should help fill a big void.

I’m very happy to report, that we do actually have characters heads and faces this time around. For those that don’t know, the original port of Torchlight had a bug where characters heads disappeared.

I’ve been testing out Torchlight II for a little while now, and I’m pleased to say for me the port works really, really well. Take into account that I am on an Nvidia 970, but even with everything set to High I haven’t seen the game dip below 70FPS even when tons of action is going on.

I haven’t noticed any bugs myself yet, but I’ve seen a few Linux specific bugs on the Steam forum like this one, and it seems it’s an issue with AMD Catalyst drivers, and this one too, which also seems to be on AMD GPU’s.

I haven't yet had a chance to try anything other the single player, so I can't say if the co-op works or not.

You can see an unedited video of my game-play below, and you can see the FPS in the corner. Please note that recording does affect the performance, but not by a lot in this case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtObxjJwmQg

Final Verdict: Buy it if you're on Nvidia, works fantastic for me. Everything seems smooth, and it’s fun to play. If you're on AMD you may want to wait until it's fixed up, or AMD release a new driver if it's driver related.

It’s also on sale, and it’s extremely cheap (£2.99!). Check out Torchlight II on Steam now.

About the game (Official)
The award-winning action RPG is back, bigger and better than ever! Torchlight II takes you back into the quirky, fast-paced world of bloodthirsty monsters, bountiful treasures, and sinister secrets - and, once again, the fate of the world is in your hands!

Torchlight II captures all the flavor and excitement of the original game - while expanding the world and adding the features players wanted most, including online and LAN co-op multiplayer. Torchlight II is fast, fun, and filled to the brim with action and loot. Adventure solo or online with your friends! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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38 comments
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crackhash Mar 5, 2015
Got the game last night. Great game indeed. Already played the windows version (pirated). But this time I buy the games because of the Linux version to count it as a Linux sale.
kon14 Mar 5, 2015
The game plays without issues on radeonsi. There's no obvious bug to be found. Performance is more than playable.
Has anyone compared windows / linux performance?
doctorx Mar 5, 2015
runs great on my nvidia titan. I was having issue with vsync though... it was acting like it was off when on. Turning it off was much worse. So not sure if real bug or not.
Tom4hawk Mar 5, 2015
Is there any chance that we will get Linux version of first Torchlight on Steam? Any update on this matter?
fabertawe Mar 5, 2015
Not the type of game I'd normally buy but really liked the look of it and at a bargain price! Unfortunately I was getting no audio. As I posted on the Steam forum...

I'm assuming the game assumes pulseaudio only as I get no audio when running this game on Arch Linux. I'm not using any DE and my audio output is via ALSA.

The solution in my case is to use the incredibly useful apulse which I'm already using for Skype. It's available from the AUR for Arch or from source.

Simply go to 'Properties -> General -> Set Launch Options' and enter the following...

APULSE_PLAYBACK_DEVICE=plughw:0,0 /usr/bin/apulse %command%

You will have to change the 0,0 part after plughw: to the sound device you use for output, if it differs. Note there is also a /usr/bin/apulse32 command for 32bit applications.

Am I the only person to experience no sound in this game?
fableman Mar 6, 2015
Quoting: Xpanderliam did you change graphics settings or all was default?
cause i maxed everything except bloom and i get dips down to 35 even in places.
mostly its around 50-60 fps though.

what i saw was that the damn game was using 1 core only..so that might be my problem..since AMD perf sucks in singlethread.. didnt test __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATION=1 yet.

View video on youtube.com

I can confirm. I get about 65 fps on GTX 970 on Linux and about 120 in Windows. Shadows seem to be the main culprit of low performance. Haven't tried threaded optimization as well.
STiAT Mar 6, 2015
On my NV card after playing a while, the game sometimes stops responding for like 1-2 secs. Except for that it runs smooth.
fabertawe Mar 6, 2015
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: fabertaweI'm assuming the game assumes pulseaudio only as I get no audio when running this game on Arch Linux. I'm not using any DE and my audio output is via ALSA.
Works for me under Arch with ALSA. That, or systemd installed pulseaudio without asking me.

Very odd... it would account for why nobody else has mentioned it. I definitely get no audio unless I emulate pulseaudio though apulse though Thanks for replying Stan.

EDIT: yes, you guessed it... it's working now Can I blame the Gremlins on this or should I blame the berk in front of the keyboard? :P

p.s. the game's lovely but a little complicated for me at the moment... I'm getting there though!
EKRboi Mar 6, 2015
I fired it up and played for a couple of hours last night. I enjoy the hack-n-slash type RPG genre a lot. It can be hard for me to get into a turn based game. I am so far finding it enjoyable, although maybe a little too easy? I leveled my character to 7 with the difficulty set to normal I believe, and I don't know if it is just normally "easy" or what. I'm going to give it a little more time before starting over on a higher difficulty.

On the performance side of things I give them an A+. Even though Linux will only make use of one of my 970's I'm still able to play this @ 5760x1080 with pretty damn rock solid 60fps even in battles with quite a few enemies. I'm stoked to have another game to play in Linux that I'm not forced to windows to play due to lack of real multi gpu support in Linux. It is a pretty game but it is not exactly pushing a ton of polygons though.
fableman Mar 6, 2015
Quoting: Xpanderliam did you change graphics settings or all was default?
cause i maxed everything except bloom and i get dips down to 35 even in places.
mostly its around 50-60 fps though.

what i saw was that the damn game was using 1 core only..so that might be my problem..since AMD perf sucks in singlethread.. didnt test __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATION=1 yet.


Just tried with __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATION=1 on GTX 970 -- even slower.
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