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Welcome back to Formula 1! Feral Interactive have given Linux gaming another great title, with the release of F1 2017 today.

Disclosure: My key was provided by Feral Interactive.

This is the first title from Feral Interactive that is Vulkan only, hopefully this means all future ports will use Vulkan so they can continue to refine their Vulkan work and keep improving the performance.

Here’s a little look at the Linux version in video form. This took far too many takes, more than I would care to admit, and I still didn't manage to win. Let's say it's just to show off how well it runs and ignore my complete lack of skill, shall we?

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I actually thought I did okay until one of those last corners—dammit!

Port report & Benchmarks

The game has a built in benchmark mode, to access it simply go into the main settings, then to graphics options and you will see the entry there. This has made testing it rather easy, especially with the nice output it gives at the end.

In terms of the actual performance, it performs pretty damn well. I decided to dust off the Windows 10 drive to make a proper comparison for this one.

System specifications for testing: Ubuntu 17.10 (Gnome)/Windows 10, Intel i7-5960X 3GHZ, Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti (387.22), 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1080p. All benchmarks had AA and AFx16 on.

First up, are the Linux scores. Please note all benchmarks were done on the preview build, but I don't expect the released build to have changed much in terms of performance. Also, the benchmarks were also tested on the 384 driver series, which showed practically no difference.

Update: Benchmarks re-done on the release build, no real difference.

F1 2017, Ubuntu 17.10, 16xAFIntel i7-5960X, Nvidia GTX 980 Ti (387.22), 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1080p Ultra High 80Ultra HighHigh 108HighMedium 123MediumLow 126Low Ultra High 80Min: 62 | Max: 96High 108Min: 78 | Max: 136Medium 123Min: 94 | Max: 158Low 126Min: 94 | Max: 165 80108123126 0265278104130 Average FPS

As you can see, even on the highest setting it hits above 60FPS at a minimum, making it super smooth and responsive to play.

For comparison, here are the Linux (Vulkan) vs Windows (DirectX) scores:

Linux Windows F1 2017 Linux - Ubuntu 17.10 vs Windows 10Intel i7-5960X, Nvidia GTX 980 Ti, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1080p Ultra HighHighMediumLow Linux 80Min: 62 | Max: 96Windows 115Min: 100 | Max: 138Linux 108Min: 78 | Max: 136Windows 176Min: 146 | Max: 209Linux 123Min: 94 | Max: 158Windows 198Min: 165 | Max: 237Linux 126Min: 94 | Max: 165Windows 212Min: 162 | Max: 253 80115108176123198126212 04386129172215 Average FPS

See also: Samsai took a look at the performance with an AMD GPU.

While it’s another Linux port that doesn’t perform to Windows levels, I’m more than happy that on max settings it will stay above 60FPS resulting in a fantastic experience all around. Even so, it’s hard to ignore the difference in performance here which is pretty big. Much bigger difference than what I was personally expecting.

Of course, benchmarks only tell a tiny part of the story. I personally never put too much faith in benchmarks, considering you need to have the exact same hardware and software setup to see my scores. The question is, how does the game actually feel to play? Hopefully I will answer that and more below!

As usual, the Feral launcher looks awesome. Customized for F1 2017 with all the usual bits and bobs I’ve come to appreciate like monitor and resolution picking:

An interesting feature that I’ve never seen before, is the launcher giving an option of sending a crash report to Feral directly. It allows you to enter an email address too, so that they can get in touch—handy! I should note that was a driver issue my end, nothing to do with the game itself.

The game will tell you if your CPU is not in high performance mode, which their FAQ shows to run this command:

echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

With this to set it back into power saving mode:

echo powersave | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Run them at your own risk, I am simply copying them from the Feral FAQ to make it simple. For me, I haven’t had any issues using them.

The Linux version does seem to have at least one graphical difference with the Windows version. On Windows, Ambient Occlusion seems to have On/Off, ASSAO and HBAO+, but on Linux we don’t get HBAO+.

The first load of the game can take a while, for me it was around three minutes. Likely doing shader compiling, but every run after that took seconds. Don’t be alarmed if your first load time is rather long.

I haven't had a single freeze or crash, not once. I think this might actually be the most stable Linux port I've had from Feral Interactive. Really pleased with that.

Some thoughts

Following on from the Linux release of F1 2015, what we have here is a completely different world in terms of content and how the game feels as a whole. Since we didn’t get F1 2016, for Linux gamers it is such a huge difference it’s nuts.

I’m not someone who generally keeps up with F1 nowadays, so I won’t go into details on how it’s faithful to the sport or anything like that. I’m taking it as it is, with it being a rather great racing game to have on Linux.

Honestly, the way the career mode feels it's almost like a racing-RPG. There’s a fair bit of customization on offer, starting with actually creating a character, instead of choosing a famous driver while you also pick your team, helmet style and so on. I think it really helps with the sense of satisfaction in a racing game such as this, if I'm racing under my own name with my own style it makes me more excited to be a proper part of it.

I tend to fall out with racing games pretty quickly, as they end up being a dull experience once you’ve gone from race to race and nothing really changes. With F1 2017, it gives you plenty to do thanks to features like the R&D system, engine management and more. Seriously, it feels like I’m levelling up my car in some sort of RPG when I’m using my points.

You get Resource Points from completing practice sessions, winning races and so on. You can then spend those in the R&D Tree. Here, you can tweak your vehicle by adjusting the Chasis, Aerodynamics, Powertrain and Durability.

The downside of the career mode are the character models when you’re speaking to someone, as they’re a bit naff. Not the worst I’ve seen, but not amazing either. I’m not all that fussed about them though, considering the main point of the game is the racing.

The inclusion of some classic cars from the last 30 years is also a really nice touch, for those who love the classic designs it’s quite exciting to be able to drive them. They look absolutely gorgeous too. In fact, all the cars both modern and classic look highly polished and realistic. During the career mode, you will get invited to some events to drive these classic cars, but you can also choose to use them in races outside of the career mode if you desire. The events themselves are always different as well, some of which can be really quite challenging.

The rivalry system was also a good bit of fun, with you being given a rival over a period of multiple racing weekends. You gain access to a few statistics and winning the rivalry awards you “kudos” with your team. Throughout the rivalry, it will update you on how you’re doing, to give you that little bit extra to work towards and it’s yet another feature that really helped me get invested in the whole experience.

Two things I did notice is that the voice over work was far too quiet against the rest of the game and, along with that, the subtitles are done really weirdly. The subtitles tend to advance too quickly, which was a bit odd. Not a major issue, just weirdly timed.

What makes the driving experience great in F1 2017 is that the cars don’t suddenly go into an uncontrollable mess as soon as a wheel touches the dirt like a lot of racing games. I do that a lot too, because I’m an awful driver. Please don’t ever let me drive a real car, let alone an F1 car. On top of that, when you’re going full-throttle, it still feels like you have a good amount of control over the vehicle.

The driving experience is truly engaging, with your team chatting in your ear if you do an illegal move, warning you to cede that position or get a penalty. Something I heard rather a lot! Still unsure as to the exact rules, since at times I'm sure I've not been penalized for the same manoeuvrers. If you’ve got some damage, they will ask if you want to change your strategy with a little display in the right corner of the screen and show you what is damaged and how badly.

I'll be honest, racing in F1 2017 does feel like a bit of a tiring experience. Considering how long some of the races are, it's not going to be a game for everyone. For me it's especially difficult with my permanent hand injury, but I've enjoyed it so much I've tried powering through the pain for this. The game has made me sweat in fear as I swing around corners, as I move my body uncontrollably left and right with the turns, it's just such an awesome feeling.

Also, the game can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. There’s plenty of options for driving assists like braking assistance, anti-lock brakes, dynamic racing line (all the time, or corners only), pit assist and so on. You can also choose the difficulty of the AI, so there’s a lot of options to enable people of all skill to enjoy it.

Overall

Overall, it beats the pants off of F1 2015. A proper career mode, which is exciting to play, drivers that seem to have reasonably good AI and it does look fantastic. Probably the best F1 game I’ve ever played, hell, it’s one of the best racing games I’ve ever played.

As I said before, I haven’t really followed the sport properly for years. As I got older my interest in it just faded away, however, after playing F1 2017 it’s made me excited about it again.

We will be doing a livestream tonight on our Twitch channel, unless something truly terrible happens. It should be a community game, so you will be welcome to join in with us!

You can find F1 2017 for Linux on Steam and the Feral Store.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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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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124 comments
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Alm888 Nov 2, 2017
See message below.

The difference is the Nvidia driver versions. Your video demo, they are using 384.90. Here, Liam was using the newer 387.22.

Feral has made a statement (read it on Phoronix), that the 387 has a regression. So, I would not be taking these numbers here into consideration. The performance is actually much better & closer to Windows.
Hmm…
Much better! That is at least acceptable, albeit Vulkan should be better than DirectX 11 (after all that is what it was invented for) and not worse.
Audi Nov 2, 2017
See message below.

The difference is the Nvidia driver versions. Your video demo, they are using 384.90. Here, Liam was using the newer 387.22.

Feral has made a statement (read it on Phoronix), that the 387 has a regression. So, I would not be taking these numbers here into consideration. The performance is actually much better & closer to Windows.
Hmm…
Much better! That is at least acceptable, albeit Vulkan should be better than DirectX 11 (after all that is what it was invented for) and not worse.

Yes, agreed, Vulkan should be (and is) better. But, this isn't a game and engine, built to run on Vulkan (think Doom), or even Linux. This is a engine, built for Windows and being manipulated and translated to work on Linux. And out the gate, we are seeing decent and what seem to be stable results. More than can be said about Assassins Creed Origins from what I'm seeing.

Between Feral possibly making a few tweaks, and Nvidia maybe making some improvements (on top of fixing their regression of course), that gap will maybe close, but not likely to pass. Especially since, Nvidia, will be able to spend more to make sure that game gets the best FPS on Windows, through improvements to their drivers, than Feral will be able to do on improvements. There is just more money on the Windows side today.

Hopefully, that will change one day.
Xpander Nov 2, 2017
Great Game so far. Runs super smoothly also. Thank you Feral!


Benchmark and Quick Gameplay video:

View video on youtube.com
KrootShaper Nov 2, 2017
Well… Let's pretend for a minute I am using Steam (and in reality nothing short of threats of execution will force me to do that). So, according to the benchmark I am forced to buy twice as expensive hardware (or even make an upgrade in the first place!) compared to Windows version!

This is bad. Like, really bad! Feral should be disallowed from trashing Linux reputation with its "Feral-ports" any further.

Really, I'm on my last leg here trying not to swear. Really. Hope this is the last "port" from this studio. We don't need such piss-poor "ports", ever.

P.S. Sorry for the rant. Hope I didn't insult anyone.
+ Click to view long quote

I did take offense... I feel that you want to return to the state of Linux gaming in the late 90's or something...
Both Feral and Valve are big parts in making Linux Gaming a viable option. So SHUSH and go compile Gentoo.
Liam Dawe Nov 2, 2017
Be aware, Feral also told me about the driver issues, but I was told the driver issues with the 387 were crashes, not performance related.

I also ran the benchmarks on the 384 series, the difference was almost nothing. We're talking 2-4FPS between the driver versions, sometimes better and sometimes worse.

You need to take into account what Distro other benchmarks are using, what exact settings they are using including the track, weather and so on. There's a lot of factors that can change benchmark scores.

The linked benchmark video from airspeedmph uses a completely different track, different camera and completely different system specs. However, do note that in their benchmark, they also show the Windows difference grow larger as the settings are lowered, much like mine does, so I imagine it's due to our CPU more than anything.

Also, if the game is not restarted each time the settings are changed, some of the settings don't completely take effect.

Edit: For those who don't see my more recent comment. Phoronix benchmarks were wrong:
Also note, Phoronix benchmarks were wrong: https://github.com/phoronix-test-suite/test-profiles/pull/7

Feral sent a pull request to fix them. Essentially, a bunch of options were totally wrong.

So, take Phoronix results with a huge bag of salt.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 3 November 2017 at 1:51 pm UTC
jens Nov 2, 2017
  • Supporter
Well… Let's pretend for a minute I am using Steam (and in reality nothing short of threats of execution will force me to do that). So, according to the benchmark I am forced to buy twice as expensive hardware (or even make an upgrade in the first place!) compared to Windows version!

This is bad. Like, really bad! Feral should be disallowed from trashing Linux reputation with its "Feral-ports" any further.

Really, I'm on my last leg here trying not to swear. Really. Hope this is the last "port" from this studio. We don't need such piss-poor "ports", ever.

P.S. Sorry for the rant. Hope I didn't insult anyone.
+ Click to view long quote
Please stop this rant. I guess you even haven't actually played the game, so you are in no position to judge the quality. It is fine for you that you don't like Steam, but please accept that it is really just your own decision that keeps you out of enjoying work from Feral or Aspyr.

Get a beer and take a deep breath! :)


Last edited by jens on 2 November 2017 at 10:55 pm UTC
melkemind Nov 2, 2017
View PC info
  • Supporter
People need to realize that a game that wasn't designed to run on Linux (and Vulkan) will likely never be able to equal or surpass Windows performance unless the developers rewrite the code for Linux themselves. This is a port done by a third party where they let their DX11 to Vulkan translating thingamajig (yeah I know nothing about the code, obviously) do the work.

I'm not saying that's good or bad for Linux, but it's the reality. I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by this since Feral has used the same process for all their games. Is it because the word "Vulkan" is being used? That doesn't change the fact that it's still a DX11 game. If you can't settle for less than DX11 performance, you'll have to play it on Windows.
pete910 Nov 2, 2017
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Arguments aside, Vulkan is awesome.

1440p ultra settings. CPU barely braking a sweat. How it should be on modern CPU's ;)

![](http://downloads.unrealnetworks.co.uk/f1-cpu-usage.png)
jens Nov 2, 2017
  • Supporter
Bought the game, very cool, thanks!
TheRiddick Nov 2, 2017
Seems Vulkan is really just used to redirect the DX rendering pipeline rather then it being actually native. Thus 20-30% translation overhead we see.

Also Vulkan/DX12 is MEANT to offload more work to the CPU/Threads. Per thread usage should be lower then DX11/OGL but CPU usage should be higher overall (if the game needs it). Because DX11/OGL often only thrash the first 3 threads of a CPU and ignore the rest.


Last edited by TheRiddick on 2 November 2017 at 11:37 pm UTC
omer666 Nov 2, 2017
As usual, the Linux port seems to be bottlenecked, which can possibly translate in performances more comparable to Windows with more modest hardware, but it's not always the case.

Well, it depends. Looks like liamdawe runs into a CPU bottleneck at around 120fps when lowering the settings, so a lower end CPU will only make the comparison look worse for the Linux port. A lower end GPU however might favour Linux because the CPU bottleneck becomes less important.

Yes, it does look like it's a CPU bottleneck, but what I meant was that sometimes, things are not that obvious, so we need much more benchmarks to understand the problem.

As for the problem of CPU bottleneck in Linux games in general, that's true most of the time, indeed. That's why I got a Core i7 and "only" buy low/middle range GPUs.
MasterSleort Nov 2, 2017
Really nice port. I am able to play on high settings at 4k res with 60fps on my Fury X.

Does Fanatec also work on Linux? The setting for Fanatec LED is available, but I am unsure whether it actually has a function on Linux. I have been considering buying a Fanatec setup and I am interested in whether it works on Linux. From what I have seen, it looks as if it simply acts as a standard HID, but if anyone knows I'd like to hear about it.
cRaZy-bisCuiT Nov 3, 2017
It would be nice to have Mesa cross platform benchmarks with AMD hardware. I wouldn't wonder if it would be closer in terms of performance after all the love that happened to radv.
Grazen Nov 3, 2017
I bought it but frankly after reading this I'm going to run it in Windows. I have a GTX 1060 and based on this report it will run closer to the performance of a GTX 950 in Linux. I see no reason to suffer through horrible framerates and crappy performance just to support Feral's crappy port.
Mountain Man Nov 3, 2017
Always disappointing to see performance lag behind Windows, but that's to be expected with a port, and that won't change until developers start using cross-platform middle-ware.
Grazen Nov 3, 2017
Always disappointing to see performance lag behind Windows, but that's to be expected with a port, and that won't change until developers start using cross-platform middle-ware.

Yup. I bought it on my Linux box, I might wait a few weeks to make sure it registers as a Linux sale before hitting it up on Windows. I'm a Linux enthusiast but not a masochist. Based on this my 1060 would be lucky to hit 30 fps on medium while on Windows it can run at 60fps on very high.
x_wing Nov 3, 2017
Always disappointing to see performance lag behind Windows, but that's to be expected with a port, and that won't change until developers start using cross-platform middle-ware.

Yup. I bought it on my Linux box, I might wait a few weeks to make sure it registers as a Linux sale before hitting it up on Windows. I'm a Linux enthusiast but not a masochist. Based on this my 1060 would be lucky to hit 30 fps on medium while on Windows it can run at 60fps on very high.

Well, Phoronix tests shows a frame rate over 100 with a 1060 + i7 8700k (settings Ultra@1080p). Maybe you should give it a try on Linux...

Phoronix results are quite impressive. In fact, out of the 1080Ti, Linux has better performance than a Windows compared to a bench on guru3d (http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/f1-2017-pc-graphics-performance-benchmark-review,5.html). Maybe there was a performance update after guru 3d test? Or the 8700k is the key? Different test?
skinnyraf Nov 3, 2017
That performance is a joke.

If a Vulkan port came out like that , sorry but all Vulkan hassle from Feral sounds like a selling tool.

What will be the difference when they do that on OpenGL? I think it wouldn't be worse.

And yet the game works perfectly fine. If you have a system like liamdawe's and hook it up to a 60hz monitor you wouldn't even notice the difference compared to Windows when maxing out the settings.

Some of us don't have 980 Ti or 1070+ cards and the game would run well on Windows but probably require medium or even low settings to be enjoyable on Linux. And this port is from Feral, one of more experienced porters.

If you consider buying a new PC, the cost of running Linux is money you'd need to pay for a system 30% more powerful (whatever that means :) ). That's about the difference between 1060 and 1070, which is about $140.

Edit: there's something strange with Liam's results. Dubigrasu and Phoronix report much smaller difference.


Last edited by skinnyraf on 3 November 2017 at 9:33 am UTC
wojtek88 Nov 3, 2017
Vulkan only - means I won't be able even to run it, because I am still on GeForce GT 540m. For me it's sad, but I wish you all good time with the game.
edddeduck_feral Nov 3, 2017
Does Fanatec also work on Linux?
<snip>
if anyone knows I'd like to hear about it.

I have a Fanatec Porsche GT2 wheel with CSR Elite pedals. I haven't yet tested F1 2017, but I managed to get it more-or-less working with Grid Autosport, albeit without any force feedback. I had to fiddle with a lot of the settings on the wheel itself in order to make it useable, since there's no software configurator for (Kubuntu 17.10) Linux.

We worked with Fanatec to get full support for their wheels on Mac and Linux starting with F1 2017, this includes Force Feedback, LED shift support and speed details on the LED display if you have an F1 style wheel. As far as we know we're the only game developer to have full Linux support for these wheels right now so we're pretty excited to see what everyone thinks!

You'll need to enable a few things to get it to work with full features but that is all documented in the game FAQs.

http://support.feralinteractive.com/docs/en/f12017/latest/linux/faqs/#i_steering_wheels_udev_rules


Last edited by edddeduck_feral on 3 November 2017 at 8:49 am UTC
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