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Saints Row IV now available on SteamOS and Linux

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Oh baby! Saints Row IV is now available on SteamOS and Linux, and I can't wait to give this insane game a go. It's part of a very small selection of open world games available on Linux, so I hope it does well.

We will have thoughts up on it later, as we had no advanced warning or access.

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It's another port from Virtual Programming using their eON technology. I know that's still a taboo for some people, so that's worth mentioning right away. For me, I don't care who or what ports it any more, as long as it's playable and doesn't crash.

In the ~1 hour I've put into it so far, I haven't had a single crash, so that's really great news.

It seems to work fine with the Steam Controller, but the default mapping for the right pad is horrible. I can't stand the right pad acting as a joystick, it doesn't feel natural at all. I switched it to act as a mouse, and it still seems to work fine so far! Some games don't like using the right thumbpad as mouse, but SRIV seems fine with it.

Nvidia 980ti at 2560x1440 on Ultra
40-60FPS, It seems mostly smooth, I've seen maybe 2-3 minor stutters in my testing of it. It hovered mostly around 50 and just under with these settings after playing the entire prologue.

Nvidia 980ti at 1920x1080 on Ultra
I've seen it go up to 80FPS, but it's still hovering between 50-60 when the action is going on. Driving around the main city is giving me between 40-60 FPS.

Nvidia 980ti at 1920x1080 on High
I've now seen it max out around 130FPS, but it does again dip to 40-60FPS during action.

Nvidia 980ti at 1920x1080 on Medium
Seems to hold a much more respectable performance setting when at Medium. I'm seeing at least 60FPS now, but that's quite concerning given how powerful my GPU is.

After testing it on all settings, there is momentary stutter no matter what settings you have. Not sure of the cause, but it doesn't get in the way too much anyway.

It feels like it has a pretty small FOV, so it feels a lot like Mordor where you can't really see all that much.

I haven't been able to play a lot of it for obvious reasons, but I think the most time I have spent on a single part of it was creating my damn character. I love being able to adjust build, colour, sex appeal, eye-shadow...wait what? Yeah, my character looks a bit...funky. You can also adjust the pitch of their voice, hilarious.

Final notes/thoughts: I think their minimum listed specifications are far too low. The port needs work to iron out the random stutter, and you will probably need a pretty good GPU to go Medium or above on the settings even at 1080p.

I am quite disappointed with the performance. I mean it's perfectly playable for me, but I have a monster of a computer right now. It wouldn't be as bad if the random stutter was fixed, then in all honesty if you turned off the FPS counter you probably wouldn't be able to tell much.

As for the game itself, it does seem like a game that I will put some time into and enjoy it, so overall I am personally happy with it. I love these types of games, and I have a great PC so it's okay for me, but I do worry about performance for those on a weaker GPU.

The main thing is as always: Are you having fun? I am.

It also went on a big sale right after I purchased it *sigh*.

If you can do so, list your PC specs in the comments along with how it runs for you. I would like to see the bigger picture and know your thoughts.

About the game (Official)
The US President must save the Earth from alien overlord Zinyak using an arsenal of superpowers and strange weapons in the wildest open world game ever.

The epic conclusion to the game that changed all the rules! The Saints have gone from the crackhouse to the White House—but the Earth has been invaded and it’s up to you to free the world from Overlord Zinyak and his alien empire. With homies new and old by your side, and an arsenal of superpowers and strange weapons, you must save the world in the wildest open world game ever!

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Action, Steam
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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76 comments
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hummer010 Dec 21, 2015
Is Game of the Century Edition the same but full of DLCs?


Are any of the DLC actually worth it? Or are they all just skins and guns?
Liam Dawe Dec 21, 2015
If you can, please do list your specs, along with your average FPS you can gauge from gameplay. It doesn't seem to have a benchmark mode, so I want to see how it runs for you guys compared to me.
serjor Dec 21, 2015
Ubuntu 15.10 x64
Nvidia 650ti 358.??
16gb ram
1920x1080 at medium about 25 fps.

Just played the first mission and honestly, I didn't experienced any issues, just the gamepad feeling it's a little bit... "slow", even with controller sensitivity at max.
Liam Dawe Dec 21, 2015
Ubuntu 15.10 x64
Nvidia 650ti 358.??
16gb ram
1920x1080 at medium about 25 fps.

Just played the first mission and honestly, I didn't experienced any issues, just the gamepad feeling it's a little bit... "slow", even with controller sensitivity at max.

That performance still says to me the store specs are set too low if a 650ti at medium only gives 25FPS. If you're enjoying it that's good, but seems quite low.
Xpander Dec 21, 2015
View video on youtube.com

Doesnt run super well though. 1080p all maxed, at first the story missons are nicely 50+ FPS, when reaching to the town however fps in action around 30 fps.. with drops to even at 25... driving around 30-50fps, inside buildings 70+ fps.
now turning off AA makes it a lot smoother..doesnt help with overall framerate though.

AMD FX8320@4,4ghz
GTX 970 358.16
16GB DDR3
Arch 64bit
MATE desktop
hidekin Dec 21, 2015
I've an i7 3820 at 3.6GHz with a gtx 770 4GB
On ultra setting around 40-50fps , with ultra settings and i disabled the AA i'm around 60fps.

Could be better but it's fine for me.

Edit:
97% usage on the Gpu
around 40-50% on the cpu


Last edited by hidekin on 21 December 2015 at 9:40 pm UTC
sarmad Dec 21, 2015
Obviously the bottleneck is not the GPU.
Jarno Dec 21, 2015
Have you guys tested if there any difference when you use
__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 %command%
in launch options?
Comandante Ñoñardo Dec 21, 2015
Somebody with a GTX 750ti or a GTX 960?
Blurps Dec 21, 2015
how do you get the framerate ?
Keyrock Dec 21, 2015
Is Game of the Century Edition the same but full of DLCs?


Are any of the DLC actually worth it? Or are they all just skins and guns?
There are a couple of story DLCs, they're short, but hilarious. Enter the Dominatrix has, no hyperbole, quite possibly the greatest ending in a video game ever. I was smiling so hard the whole time that my entire face hurt.
dubigrasu Dec 21, 2015
Have you guys tested if there any difference when you use
__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 %command%
in launch options?
That's already enabled.
Xpander Dec 21, 2015
Have you guys tested if there any difference when you use
__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 %command%
in launch options?

it already has that in the start script, no point enabling it twice
hummer010 Dec 21, 2015
Is Game of the Century Edition the same but full of DLCs?


Are any of the DLC actually worth it? Or are they all just skins and guns?
There are a couple of story DLCs, they're short, but hilarious. Enter the Dominatrix has, no hyperbole, quite possibly the greatest ending in a video game ever. I was smiling so hard the whole time that my entire face hurt.

It's only like $1 more for the Game of the Century, so I guess that's worth it.

Edit: And Purchased.


Last edited by hummer010 on 21 December 2015 at 11:30 pm UTC
Def Dec 21, 2015
I did some more testing and it's really bad.

Core i7 4790k
GTX 770

At 1920x1080 on ultra I get between 30 and 50 fps. I'm playing with my save file at the end of the game with every power unlocked. When I'm moving it's more often close to 30 than 50. It's unplayable by my standards.

On the same computer and with the same configuration and save file I tried the game on Windows 7 and I get 70-100 fps.
Blurps Dec 21, 2015
less than 1hour in high: no pb

cpu: i5 2500k
gpu: gtx 660
ram: 8gb
mao_dze_dun Dec 21, 2015
As somebody who played the game on Windows about an year ago, I want to point out the engine is horrible. I'm sure some of the issues are port related, but the fact is on a 290x I got drops in the 30s at 1080p. It is a very, very badly optimized game to begin with, which is actually true for The Third, as well (considering it's more or less the exact same game, visual wise). So, I'm not surprised - add the normal performance drop from the porting to an already badly running game and... yeah. Still, I wish they'd port SR3 - it's us much more fun than 4. Maybe it's better when you try it without ever having played the previous one, IDK.
Beemer Dec 21, 2015
GTS 450 1g
AMD FX-8350 8 Core
8g ram

I installed and ran the game with the 'medium' settings (no adjustments) - I have not gotten any stuttering that I could see. I've had a blast so far. My only quibble with it so far was the first 15min seemed about 13min of cutscenes/2 min of actual control.

Beemer

Edit: Went back and turned on the FPS counter - I'm getting 40-45fps running around the town doing stuff.


Last edited by Beemer on 22 December 2015 at 9:38 pm UTC
apocalyptech Dec 21, 2015
AMD A8-6500 (quad-core)
GTX 650 Ti (1GB), 355.11
8GB RAM

I just left the settings at the default values, which was "medium" on my end, didn't do any tweaking. I also didn't bother looking at actual FPS rates, 'cause I don't tend to care (so long as a game's getting >= 30fps or so, I honestly don't think I really notice), and the performance has been in general great for me. I do get the stutters which many other folks have mentioned, but it's not bad enough to impact my enjoyment of it. (Though obviously hopefully they'll figure that out and get it patched.) Having a blast!
ElectricPrism Dec 21, 2015
Obviously the bottleneck is not the GPU.

saramad is likely correct as I have a 46 second boot time when I play StarCraft II straight from a SSD and with a GTX 970, The bottleneck in my case is my i7 940 CPU, I really need a 6th gen i7 or Xeon.
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