Saints Row 2 Linux port report, not good

Now that I've had a chance to play some Saints Row 2 on Linux (purchased personally), here are some thoughts on the performance.

Warning: May have spoilers.

Linux performance
Performance wise, it's really not all that great. I've been testing it only at 1080p (1920x1080) and the performance is all over the place.

On a 980ti I saw drops down to 20FPS with major stutter when it loads in new sections. The specifications do state:

QuoteDue to issues surrounding the original engine, some stuttering may be observed during gameplay. These types of streaming issues may be improved with faster HDD units.

They are at least warning people, and this was an issue on Windows too, but even so it's still pretty bad. Some of the stutter brings the game right down for a momentary crawl, and it really does detract from the experience. If you're running the game from an SSD, you will probably see better performance.

For the first section right up to when you get on the boat my 980ti was struggling to stay at even 40FPS. I don't normally care about the FPS counter, but you could feel it and see it struggling.

Once I got to the city, it got even worse. Sometimes struggling to stay even around 30FPS. Some games I can handle that, but a 3rd person shooter? No way.

It makes fire-fights a bit of a nuisance, but the worst thing is driving around. The stuttering and sluggishness of it loading in the resources really kills the game and my enthusiasm for it.

To be frank, the performance is terrible. It's not entirely Virtual Programming's fault, they have their own overhead on top of an originally poor console port, it was never going to be a pretty scene. I'm not surprised they didn't reply to my request for a key, like they didn't for the other Saints Row games.

General issues
The first give-away that it was originally a console port is no mouse support in the main menu or when setting up your character, annoying, but not a major issue. That's true on Windows too.

When you hold down Q to change weapon, it shows a gamepad stick for where you're moving the mouse, and it's really fiddly to select what you want. Also another give-away about it being a console port originally.

Is it worth it?
I'm not really sure. The main point about gaming is "are you having fun?". It's a pretty decent game as far as gameplay goes, but the overall performance and the repeating stuttering is a major issue. An issue that is badly noticeable too. For the sale price it's not bad, but I'm not sure how long I can personally put up with this performance.

You can find Saints Row 2 on Steam.

I will look to cover Saints Row: The Third soon too, possibly today or tomorrow. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.