Saints Row: The Third Linux port report, better than SR2, but still needs improvement

With the Saints Row 2 report out of the way and performing terribly, I have also taken some time to look at Saints Row: The Third.

Note: May contain spoilers.

A much nicer start up than Saints Row 2, it has proper mouse support! Looks like when it was originally created they put at least a little more thought into the PC version.

The game has probably one of the most annoying DLC introductions I've ever seen. I purchased the big pack on Steam, so once I got out of the introduction section it presented me with a screen I had to press enter on for every pack I purchased. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

Linux performance
Tested at 1080p (1920x1080) on High settings. Pairing an Intel i7 with an Nvidia 980ti.

The game was stuttering in the initial intro sequence video, which didn't exactly set things up very well for me.

During the first section it was actually running okay, there was a bit of stutter here and there but not at all that much. FPS wise it was still all over the place, with it bouncing between 70 and 100FPS. It was playable though, much more than Saints Row 2 was. When you get further into this section, shooting down helicopters and seeing many more police teams come in the game then starts to get a little on the ugly side. It dips down to 40FPS and stutters a bit more.

Once you're on the plane the FPS is much better, but you're in a pretty enclosed space so that's not really surprising. It was hitting 110FPS max in the corridoors. Once you get outside, and you're free-falling the FPS will once again bounce around. It wasn't actually too bad at all, only one dip down to 40FPS when a car exploded, but it soon stabilized. This section was actually quite nice performance wise and gameplay wise it was quite fun.

Once you're in the city the FPS becomes much lower overall. It will generally hover between 40-70FPS. For a 980ti, this is again, really not very impressive. It will stutter at times, and become a little sluggish, but I was able to at least enjoy what I was playing with Saints Row: The Third.

I can accept lower performance in games where it's not directly needed (Like XCOM 2), but in a 3rd person action-heavy shooter like Saints Row: The Third it's not great.

Overall, the game looks far better than Saints Row 2, and performs quite a bit better, but overall still quite poor. I couldn't imagine playing this with a worse CPU and GPU than mine, and mine are top-end, so I wouldn't want to try it on something lower.

You can find Saints Row: The Third on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.