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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.
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Alright, so I've just purchased IV. I've already got the Third from a Humble Bundle at some point, but I've never played it. Rumour has it that the Third is also coming to Linux. Should I wait for the Third to come to Linux and play them in order, or does it matter?
Last edited by hummer010 on 21 December 2015 at 11:32 pm UTC
Last edited by hummer010 on 21 December 2015 at 11:32 pm UTC
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i5-3350P 3.10 GHz
Nvidia GTX 970
8 GB of RAM
Installed on SSD
I get 150 FPS or so on the ship (hope that's not a spoiler), 50 to 65 when walking around in Steelport. When I jump or sprint, it can dip as low as 33.
Keep in mind, this is a game that can get a constant 60 FPS on Windows with a midrange card like a GTX 660 and almost everything maxed out.
Also, I don't think it's very helpful when people post "works great for me" but don't include any actually stats. What's "great" for you might not be for others. So please tell us your frames per second.
Nvidia GTX 970
8 GB of RAM
Installed on SSD
I get 150 FPS or so on the ship (hope that's not a spoiler), 50 to 65 when walking around in Steelport. When I jump or sprint, it can dip as low as 33.
Keep in mind, this is a game that can get a constant 60 FPS on Windows with a midrange card like a GTX 660 and almost everything maxed out.
Also, I don't think it's very helpful when people post "works great for me" but don't include any actually stats. What's "great" for you might not be for others. So please tell us your frames per second.
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MurderousMincePie Dec 22, 2015
Quoting: hummer010Alright, so I've just purchased IV. I've already got the Third from a Humble Bundle at some point, but I've never played it. Rumour has it that the Third is also coming to Linux. Should I wait for the Third to come to Linux and play them in order, or does it matter?
The Saints Row games don't really tie together in terms of story so you could play them in any order really. Saints Row 2 is also coming too (hopefully). However looking at the performance right now I'd say wait a little bit to see if the performance improves a bit because I'm getting quite a bit of stuttering (although these games are nortorious for poor PC optimisation in general so it's probobly not all down to the port).
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ElectricPrism Dec 22, 2015
I have to admit I would have never bought this if it never came to SteamOS/Linux.
Maybe I always ignored it because it was Win only, hopefully I can have some fun crashing cars and civilians. This sale is gonna hurt :( lol.
Maybe I always ignored it because it was Win only, hopefully I can have some fun crashing cars and civilians. This sale is gonna hurt :( lol.
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Played a little more than an hour.
i5-3350P (3.10Ghz)
GTX 650 Ti BOOST (nvidia driver 358.16)
8GB DDR3
Ubuntu Gnome 15.10
Average FPS: 60 - 70 on "middle"
i5-3350P (3.10Ghz)
GTX 650 Ti BOOST (nvidia driver 358.16)
8GB DDR3
Ubuntu Gnome 15.10
Average FPS: 60 - 70 on "middle"
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Quoting: LeerdeckPlayed a little more than an hour.
i5-3350P (3.10Ghz)
GTX 650 Ti BOOST (nvidia driver 358.16)
8GB DDR3
Ubuntu Gnome 15.10
Average FPS: 60 - 70 on "middle"
That's a good average, but what is the lowest it goes? Are there any significant drops in framerate?
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Quoting: nIQnutnhow do you get the framerate ?You can enable an ingame FPS counter in the Steam client settings (menu In-Game).
I'm on a C2Q [email protected] with a nVidia GTX 670 and 8 GB RAM (DDR2 :P). Running on detected medium settings at 1680x1050. I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with proprietary divers version 358.16
In the cutscenes I have ~30FPS (not below) and ingame between 30 and 50. Mostly about 40 FPS. Feels smooth all the time, no stuttering. It's very well playable. I'm satisfied with the performance so far.
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Quoting: melkemindThat's a good average, but what is the lowest it goes? Are there any significant drops in framerate?
The lowest drop, that I noticed, was to 48 fps in a fight with many enemies and explosions. But I wouldn't notice that if I hadn't the fps counter on. Sometimes the game stutters for a second while I drive (not that often). Most of the time the game feels really smooth.
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PublicNuisance Dec 22, 2015
I got a free copy of SR4 last year. Been putting off playing it hoping for this day.
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just had a chance to test this out, I already owned the game from a couple of years back. The game loaded up perfectly fine with no issues, I ran the game on Ultra settings. It loaded my old save from 2013 back when I had a windows partition, it took awhile for the game to load the save game. could be due to conversion not sure. initially the game was a little bit sluggish but after 2 or 3 minutes of play it seemed the game was able to create the needed cache to play on and everything ran very smoothly after that. I had sync refresh on to smooth out the gameplay.
I'm not aware of an in-game setting to show FPS or I would have tested that as well. I'm at the point in the game where I have the tech suit and i'm able to run very fast on foot and it ran very smooth for the couple hours I was able to play.
i'm running a gtx 780 ti on a i5-3570K running at 3.8ghz, 16GB DDR3. drivers are the 358.xx series for nvidia, i'm also on Arch with the latest kernel.
edit: after installing and running GLXOSD along with the game I turned vsync off to test overall fps, I was getting 35 to 52 fps during heavy action and ~65 while setting idle.
Last edited by neowiz73 on 22 December 2015 at 9:16 am UTC
I'm not aware of an in-game setting to show FPS or I would have tested that as well. I'm at the point in the game where I have the tech suit and i'm able to run very fast on foot and it ran very smooth for the couple hours I was able to play.
i'm running a gtx 780 ti on a i5-3570K running at 3.8ghz, 16GB DDR3. drivers are the 358.xx series for nvidia, i'm also on Arch with the latest kernel.
edit: after installing and running GLXOSD along with the game I turned vsync off to test overall fps, I was getting 35 to 52 fps during heavy action and ~65 while setting idle.
Last edited by neowiz73 on 22 December 2015 at 9:16 am UTC
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mostly between 30 < FPS < 40
cpu: i5 2500k
gpu: gtx 660
ram: 8gb
driver: 352.55
1920x1080
ultra settings
the game is smooth for me.
cpu: i5 2500k
gpu: gtx 660
ram: 8gb
driver: 352.55
1920x1080
ultra settings
the game is smooth for me.
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Dec 22, 2015
I am using a Alienware Steam Machine with i5-4590T, 8GB RAM and crappy Harddrive. I didn't want to give out more cash yet for a SSD but I might do that later in the hope it improves game play..
Last night the game played like shit no matter what I changed in the settings, even going lower than 1080p to 720p made it even worse.
This morning for some strange reason, booted it up and the game was actually playable all on HIGH settings but I do have AA off. It still stutters sometimes and the right pad sucks, thanks for the tip with the mouse, ill try that out. It seems if you have issues, change your settings and completely restart the game.
In comparison, Mordor runs actually very well on my Steam Machine. So, I do hope they fine tune this game for better performance.
I don't know the FPS because I really don't care, all I want is to run nice.
All in all, the port is ok. just needs a little tweaking.
Last edited by scujas on 22 December 2015 at 9:58 am UTC
Last night the game played like shit no matter what I changed in the settings, even going lower than 1080p to 720p made it even worse.
This morning for some strange reason, booted it up and the game was actually playable all on HIGH settings but I do have AA off. It still stutters sometimes and the right pad sucks, thanks for the tip with the mouse, ill try that out. It seems if you have issues, change your settings and completely restart the game.
In comparison, Mordor runs actually very well on my Steam Machine. So, I do hope they fine tune this game for better performance.
I don't know the FPS because I really don't care, all I want is to run nice.
All in all, the port is ok. just needs a little tweaking.
Last edited by scujas on 22 December 2015 at 9:58 am UTC
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Is it just me or is eON/VP-ported stuff looking differently than the windows games?
Despite the lower graphical settings required (because the ports are usually not performing well on my AMD setup), the output looks like it is actually rendered at a lower resolution and then upscaled afterwards.
Hard to explain but the output is blocky beyond what to expect from the resolution and this seems to be consistently the case for all eON games I have - Witcher 2, Dirt Showdown and Saints Row IV.
Can anybody confirm this or is it just my imagination?
Edit: Or maybe this could be a Volkswagen-like AMD-specific code path to make it playable on those GPUs at all? #conspiracy
Edit2: Too much paranoia. Game looks perfectly the same on windows. But there it runs perfectly smooth at least.
Last edited by sub on 22 December 2015 at 11:42 am UTC
Despite the lower graphical settings required (because the ports are usually not performing well on my AMD setup), the output looks like it is actually rendered at a lower resolution and then upscaled afterwards.
Hard to explain but the output is blocky beyond what to expect from the resolution and this seems to be consistently the case for all eON games I have - Witcher 2, Dirt Showdown and Saints Row IV.
Can anybody confirm this or is it just my imagination?
Edit: Or maybe this could be a Volkswagen-like AMD-specific code path to make it playable on those GPUs at all? #conspiracy
Edit2: Too much paranoia. Game looks perfectly the same on windows. But there it runs perfectly smooth at least.
Last edited by sub on 22 December 2015 at 11:42 am UTC
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AMD X3 460
8 DDR3 1600
SSD
650Ti 1Go / 352.63 driver
Elementary OS 0.3.2 64 Bits 4.2 kernel
1920*1080 Medium settings
mostly between 30 < FPS < 40
8 DDR3 1600
SSD
650Ti 1Go / 352.63 driver
Elementary OS 0.3.2 64 Bits 4.2 kernel
1920*1080 Medium settings
mostly between 30 < FPS < 40
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It's a shame. Up until now, VP's ports had been getting better each time with near-Windows performance. This one is seriously low by comparison, almost back to the Witcher 2 levels. Even a GTX 650Ti should be able to maintain 60fps on this game. Remember, this is a "last gen" console game with only a few settings improvements (like better textures) for PC. Very disappointing.
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Citiroller Dec 22, 2015
This may sound strange, but I have no performance problems at all.
The game never goes below 40 fps and up to ~110 fpsat some points. It's smoothly playable all the time.
The port even supports cross platform steam cloud sync and I could play with my end game character and have some fun in Steelport ;)
I have an i5 3.4Ghz and 4 cores, a nVidia 650ti with 1GB of VRAM and the game runs perfectly in Full-HD and medium settings.
Even one weird stutter in Windows when the main menu loads up is gone on Linux. I have no clue why but for me the port seems very good. I only had one hard crash so far (1-2 hours playtime) where my whole computer wouldn't respond to anything and I had to cut the power...
One thing I noticed is that when I run the game in 720p and medium settings, I get some microstutters here and there and worse performance than in 1080p. I'm not 100% sure about this as this was my first impression when I changed the resolution to full-HD... At 1080p it runs just perfectly!
The game never goes below 40 fps and up to ~110 fpsat some points. It's smoothly playable all the time.
The port even supports cross platform steam cloud sync and I could play with my end game character and have some fun in Steelport ;)
I have an i5 3.4Ghz and 4 cores, a nVidia 650ti with 1GB of VRAM and the game runs perfectly in Full-HD and medium settings.
Even one weird stutter in Windows when the main menu loads up is gone on Linux. I have no clue why but for me the port seems very good. I only had one hard crash so far (1-2 hours playtime) where my whole computer wouldn't respond to anything and I had to cut the power...
One thing I noticed is that when I run the game in 720p and medium settings, I get some microstutters here and there and worse performance than in 1080p. I'm not 100% sure about this as this was my first impression when I changed the resolution to full-HD... At 1080p it runs just perfectly!
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Quoting: melkemindIt's a shame. Up until now, VP's ports had been getting better each time with near-Windows performance. This one is seriously low by comparison, almost back to the Witcher 2 levels.Not all D3D code is equally wrapper-friendly. Any inefficient design in the original code is very likely to perform even worse when run through another translation layer. And anything that heavily relies on API-specific quirks or pecularities might force the wrapper to do tons of extra work.
So no matter how well eON or wine perform on select titles, you'll always get disappointments like this to even it all out. Nothing against VP, just pointing out once again that the approach does and always will have its limitations. But it is cost-effective.
Last edited by tuubi on 22 December 2015 at 12:40 pm UTC
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[email protected] Dec 22, 2015
Try to disable antialias and anisotropic filter.
I'm playing @1080p with everything maxed out on a GTX660ti+i5-2300+RAM 8GB (DDR3 CL9 1600Mhz).
I dunno my fps 'cause the FPS counter is disabled by default on SteamOS, but withouth antialias and anisotropic the gameplay is very smooth.
Now i'm trying the same on GTX970 4GB on Ubuntu Desktop.
I'm playing @1080p with everything maxed out on a GTX660ti+i5-2300+RAM 8GB (DDR3 CL9 1600Mhz).
I dunno my fps 'cause the FPS counter is disabled by default on SteamOS, but withouth antialias and anisotropic the gameplay is very smooth.
Now i'm trying the same on GTX970 4GB on Ubuntu Desktop.
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[email protected] Dec 22, 2015
Ok, now there are my settings on gtx970 4gb / i7-3770 / 16gb ddr3 1600mhz cl9.
With all maxed outh i'm between 29 and 70fps, but with my new settings i'm between 60+ and 170fps > https://sc-cdn.scaleengine.net/i/f0e32ecaa4c59ef29fe4c2756cb4b36a.png
Try and tell me if it works.
With all maxed outh i'm between 29 and 70fps, but with my new settings i'm between 60+ and 170fps > https://sc-cdn.scaleengine.net/i/f0e32ecaa4c59ef29fe4c2756cb4b36a.png
Try and tell me if it works.
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legluondunet Dec 22, 2015
And there is still activity on Saint Row 3 Linux depot on SteamDB
https://steamdb.info/depot/55241/history/
https://steamdb.info/depot/55241/history/
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