Looks like Total War: Rome II might not be coming to Linux & SteamOS now

Quoting: maodzedunWith the terrible performance of Attila - is it even worth it?

Well, the benchmark results certainly were appalling, but there's a few things to consider.

Firstly, a lot of Windows users are also complaining about appalling performance (the greatest issues probably are related to certain hardware, I've seen Windows users with better hardware than mine claiming the game is unplayable). I'd actually say it's a pretty good port considering, We tend not to get games with cutting-edge graphics so you might not even notice if the performance was truly awful in relation to Windows version while Attila is one of those demanding games where you DO. The performance on Linux is worse (barring some of those isolated cases that I mentioned) but it's not THAT much worse.

Secondly, and the point that actually matters in terms of playing the game: benchmark isn't the whole story. The benchmark scene contains both large forces and zooming in to view the units up close and this isn't a realistic gameplay scenario (as with large armies you don't have time to zoom in). I have GTX760/i5 4670 and with the recommended "quality" (in more common terms I'd suppose it'd be high) settings with AA and army size turned to max, in actual play I've been getting stable ~30fps even with the maximum of 80 units on the field (~10k soldiers), which I think is an acceptable FPS for a game of this type as long as it's stable. That's playable and the game looks good. Don't get me wrong, a game that looks like Attila should be expected to run better on both Linux and Windows (you don't even have to look outside the series or even engine for comparisons, Shogun 2 ran better), but it's not unplayable or anything, at least in my experience.

It's worth noting that Intel/AMD cards aren't officially supported, though, and some Windows users are experiencing far lower performance than others (an effect that might translate to Linux as well) so be prepared to take advantage of Steam refund policy in case you're one of the unlucky.


Last edited by KimmoKM on 6 January 2016 at 8:01 pm UTC

Quoting: KimmoKM

Quoting: maodzedunWith the terrible performance of Attila - is it even worth it?

...
Secondly, and the point that actually matters in terms of playing the game: benchmark isn't the whole story. The benchmark scene contains both large forces and zooming in to view the units up close and this isn't a realistic gameplay scenario (as with large armies you don't have time to zoom in). I have GTX760/i5 4670 and with the recommended "quality" (in more common terms I'd suppose it'd be high) settings with AA and army size turned to max, in actual play I've been getting stable ~30fps even with the maximum of 80 units on the field (~10k soldiers), which I think is an acceptable FPS for a game of this type as long as it's stable. That's playable and the game looks good.
....

I agree I have gtx960 & i5-4590s and it works just fine. the performance of Total War games is generally not that great in FPS terms - windows or other operation systems.

so rather than listen to the moan by Michael on Phoronix about the FPS, Zoom out and Fight!

Well, Attila runs better in DirectX mode on Windows, but when it comes to the OpenGL mode the performance is pretty much the same on both systems (while using a Nvidia card).
Surprisingly, on my AMD card (R9 280X) the game actually performs better on Linux than Windows (again, in OpenGL mode).

Well said!. I have the same rig, and Attila plays fine! I'm over the moon

I also agree that the earlier period of Rome Total War 2 would have been better. Unfortunately, Rome 2 is a bit of a mess...

Now for the jewel in the crown: Total War Shogun 2!

it doesn't seem to me that it's dropped from those 2 tweets. seems like a PR person that doesn't seem to have much of a clue on what's going on. I'm sure there were some games put on the back burner for TW: Atilla. We'll just have to wait and see.

Wasn't Rome II pushed out a bit early and had major issues? Has that changed? or was that another Rome game.

Quoting: ElectricPrismWasn't Rome II pushed out a bit early and had major issues? Has that changed? or was that another Rome game.

Rome 2 had gamebreaking bugs and outrageous glitches at launch (be it missing textures, ships starting on land, utter retardation from AI or what have you), in addition to awful balance, scrapping a lot of features from previous total war games (like family trees and city governors) and other faults.

Nowadays Rome 2 "works" but fixes are limited to bugs and some balance changes: the controversial (if not outright bad) designs and lack of polish are still there. And more importantly, Attila fixes a lot of those issues or executes them in tolerable fashion while being a more polished game that introduces a number of other improvements. Once the Ancient Empires mod for Attila is released, Rome 2 could be considered utterly obsolete.


Last edited by KimmoKM on 7 January 2016 at 1:33 am UTC

Quoting: AsavarTzethI want it because they promised it and I payed for it during their SteamOS pre-orders.

It's a good reason to want it, but promising something for Linux and delivering it is not always a foregone conclusion. I wish people would STOP with the damn pre-ordering already. It literally gets you nowhere, and you'll be lucky to get a refund for it now that you're way past the 2-week window.

Everything I've read indicates that Rome II is still a mess even after a dozen patches, so I suppose it's no great loss if it doesn't come to Linux. I'm perfectly happy with Empire, which seems to be where the series peaked anyway.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 7 January 2016 at 3:17 am UTC

Sad news, Total War: Rome II was one of the title that was used for the Stean Machine Marketing campain.
Any news about the Steam Machines sails?