Thanks to the about page on Virtual Programming's official store, we have found out that they are the mystery external porter of Arma 3 that should see a Linux release.
On the about page it says this:
QuoteThe company is responsible for bringing many exciting titles to the Mac and Linux during the past several years, including: Bioshock Infinite (Linux), SpecOps The Line (Mac and Linux), Dirt Showdown (Mac and Linux), Arma 3 (Mac and Linux) and many others.
Facts done, now some thoughts
I have mixed feelings about Virtual Programming ports in general, but I really do want to like them. The problem is even after fixing up their porting technology to perform well, I get crash bugs in all of their games. Performance is one thing, stability is another. BioShock Infinite has crashed for me on every play-through for just one example, and I can't currently bring myself to load it up again and lose progress. I did report the issue here back in April, and no progress since then.
I was also okay with it being older games, when the developer maybe didn't have the time or resources to port it themselves, but this is a game that is still being worked on. The main problem is how graphically intensive the game is, and not to put down the stellar work Virtual Programming has done in bringing performance up a lot in their eON porting tech (really good improvements!), we need all the performance we can squeeze on a rather heavy game like Arma 3. There is an overhead on their wrapper, that is undeniable.
What are your thoughts? Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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metro2033fanboy Aug 1, 2015
Quoting: mulletdeathWindoze "master race" sites. They'd see these games with their inherently inferior experience and it would be a repeat of the sort of thing we've seen for bad Windows ports like the recent Arkham game. Windows gamers are much more sensitive to performance hits of any kind than Linux users, because we don't feel entitled to our releases. eOn ports just offer more ammo for FUD spreading for new users trying these games on Steam machines or whatever. I feel like they don't do us any favors in the long run.
PC LINUX Master RACE
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LinuxGamesTV Aug 1, 2015
Quoting: DissCentI also have mixed feelings about VP. In general, I didn't have any crashes in BioShock so far (but I'm not through the whole game yet). But my critics are that the game has stuttering all the time when loading new areas or when spawning after level loading - that's really annoying. I also fear that companies just give their games to VP to bring them to Linux rather then making a real port which is always more stable and faster in performance (or at least should be, when ported good),
Same here in BioShock.
Yes i have 3 VP Ports:
Witcher 2, Spec Ops and BioShock.
The performance is not the best.
BioShock:
1. See the quote.
2. BioShock crashed my System or the Game self chrashed. Fix for the system crashes: reduce the Graficsettings.
After level changes the game crashed back to desktop.
Spec Ops:
performance problem, but i played not long to say more.
Witcher 2:
Works, but on my settigs not great.
Ok with wine i have the performance problems, too (half FPS on Linux. Exemple: 90 FPS on Win = 45 FPS on Linux)
Thats the reason why i prefer native ports.
Best regards
Peter
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I hate this eON stuff. I bought a Bio Shock 3 bundle (game and all DLC) some time ago but I was not even able to start it. That is on a system with NVidia (Maxwell) and Intel (Haswell) hardware and newest drivers. No response from the developers so after a few days I requested a refund. Still no response to this day so the choice to request a refund was the right one.
It is really a shame that Valve even allows this bullsh*t to be published on Steam.
It is really a shame that Valve even allows this bullsh*t to be published on Steam.
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FFS people, Feral, Aspyr, Icculus and all porters combined they will never bring all the games we want to Linux.
There's a huge (and I mean HUGE) pool of Windows games waiting to be ported and not enough porters to go around.
And here are these VP guys lending a hand and you're pissing all over them.
There's a huge (and I mean HUGE) pool of Windows games waiting to be ported and not enough porters to go around.
And here are these VP guys lending a hand and you're pissing all over them.
3 Likes, Who?
I've not tried playing TW2 recently but did they ever fix the input lag issues? That would be a HUGE problem to have in a game like this. I kept hating TW2 as a game because I was struggling really bad at hand to hand combat and could never figure out why I just thought it was me. I then played it on "that other platform" and had NO problem. Even after beating the game and therefor being pretty good with the controls I went back and tried to play it in Linux again and found the same problem with controls that I originally did. The only conclusion I could come to was input lag since the game was running well and I had the controls setup the same.
Also isn't this game extremely hard on hardware in windows? I can't imagine adding a translation layer is going to help things. Just to be clear I'm not in the against VP "ports" crowd, there are tons of games that we probably would never see otherwise that they have or may bring us.
Also isn't this game extremely hard on hardware in windows? I can't imagine adding a translation layer is going to help things. Just to be clear I'm not in the against VP "ports" crowd, there are tons of games that we probably would never see otherwise that they have or may bring us.
1 Likes, Who?
I played Arma2 like 10 Minutes, and I really got slammed a door on my fore- and nose-faceful head: the BOB, can't I possibly turn that off? My eyes are not glued into my eyeholes, so they move, and the bob is not present, even when I _exhaustively_ run. Maybe I am not a standard soldier, but please... this is a simulation, and I am not an armys Terminator (do they have bob?).... Any hints to adjust to "my bob" , and I will surely buy it. VP, or not. (no VP games, so far)
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Quoting: dubigrasuFFS people, Feral, Aspyr, Icculus and all porters combined they will never bring all the games we want to Linux.
There's a huge (and I mean HUGE) pool of Windows games waiting to be ported and not enough porters to go around.
And here are these VP guys lending a hand and you're pissing all over them.
I don't hate them, but they should REALLY stick to porting games that aren't as graphic intensive. Linux certainly doesn't need games that run worse than their there Linux counterparts on the modern hardware. At least for games like Infinite and The Line modern hardware can run those games at 60 fps no matter what.
Last edited by BillNyeTheBlackGuy on 1 August 2015 at 11:11 pm UTC
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Quoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuyAt this point even our beloved Aspyr and Feral are delivering ports that are performing worse than in Windows.Quoting: dubigrasuFFS people, Feral, Aspyr, Icculus and all porters combined they will never bring all the games we want to Linux.
There's a huge (and I mean HUGE) pool of Windows games waiting to be ported and not enough porters to go around.
And here are these VP guys lending a hand and you're pissing all over them.
I don't hate them, but they should REALLY stick to porting games that aren't as graphic intensive. Linux certainly doesn't need games that run worse than their there Linux counterparts on the modern hardware. At least for games like Infinite and The Line modern hardware can run those games at 60 fps no matter what.
Would you prefer them to stick to only less graphic intensive games?
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Quoting: dubigrasuQuoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuyAt this point even our beloved Aspyr and Feral are delivering ports that are performing worse than in Windows.Quoting: dubigrasuFFS people, Feral, Aspyr, Icculus and all porters combined they will never bring all the games we want to Linux.
There's a huge (and I mean HUGE) pool of Windows games waiting to be ported and not enough porters to go around.
And here are these VP guys lending a hand and you're pissing all over them.
I don't hate them, but they should REALLY stick to porting games that aren't as graphic intensive. Linux certainly doesn't need games that run worse than their there Linux counterparts on the modern hardware. At least for games like Infinite and The Line modern hardware can run those games at 60 fps no matter what.
Would you prefer them to stick to only less graphic intensive games?
Simple. Since they are native ports, they can be optimized further down the road. There are many native games on Linux that have the same performance on windows. Wrappers like eON, on the other hand, always have a performance loss. This is a known fact.
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Yes, there is a loss of performance for eON ports and there is a loss of performance observed on Feral/Aspyr ports, which is also a known fact. At the same time Eon ports can also be improved further like was the case for Witcher 2.
When a native subpar port is released we're more forgiving (ahem, Dying Light), but when VP delivers a wrapped port we go berserk even if the game works.
All these three major porters have delivered subpar ports in terms of performance compared with Windows and that's not good advertising for us indeed.
But they do advertise that Linux can become a gaming platform and VP delivered at least three awesome games next to those delivered by Aspyr /Feral.
A loss of performance from an eON port is preferable to a zero performance from a non existing port.
Last edited by dubigrasu on 2 August 2015 at 8:43 am UTC
When a native subpar port is released we're more forgiving (ahem, Dying Light), but when VP delivers a wrapped port we go berserk even if the game works.
All these three major porters have delivered subpar ports in terms of performance compared with Windows and that's not good advertising for us indeed.
But they do advertise that Linux can become a gaming platform and VP delivered at least three awesome games next to those delivered by Aspyr /Feral.
A loss of performance from an eON port is preferable to a zero performance from a non existing port.
Last edited by dubigrasu on 2 August 2015 at 8:43 am UTC
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