This is quite a surprise! Early yesterday we were notified that Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which Feral Interactive ported to Linux in 2015 has gained a Vulkan Beta.
Since companies rarely make much money from older ports like this, it's quite fantastic to see it being given some love. Especially like this, giving it a big boost with a much newer graphics API. This is not long after Feral Interactive confirmed the Linux release date for Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition and also announced Total War Saga: TROY for Linux too.
Without any further rambling, let's take a look at what kind of difference it makes for Shadow of Mordor. Tested on Manjaro Linux with an Intel i7-5960X and an NVIDIA 2080 Ti with the 430.40 driver. All these tests were done at 1080p and the Steam Play Proton version was 4.11-7:
Now let's take a look and see what happens when you do the same tests, with the resolution set to to 200% (4K):
That just goes to show how Linux really can perform well for gaming. The performance difference is absolutely insane when compared with their original OpenGL port. Even next to Steam Play, it seems to show that an optimised Linux release can be highly competitive and worth doing. Absolutely fantastic work from Feral Interactive.
Update: Since it was pointed out in our comments that the Linux version's Ambient Occlusion seems to be lower quality/resolution (apparently it shouldn't be noticeable) than the Windows version, here's some additional 1080p/4K testing with AO off to see what difference it makes between them:
As an additional quick look, here's the same test as done above with AO off with Windows 10 thrown into the mix:
< Min FPS, > Max FPS
If you wish to try it out, it's available without a password in the "linux_vulkan_beta" branch on Steam. To access it, right click on the game in Steam, go to Properties and the Beta tab and then select it from the dropdown box. As shown below:
Keep in mind this is a Beta and issues are to be expected. It may even gain more improvements over time, we will just have to wait and see on that.
Nowadays, all Feral Interactive ports to Linux are done with Vulkan. They seem to be doing the same as they did previously with Mad Max, giving it a Vulkan beta and gathering some feedback while not promoting it to the main supported release. Fair enough, this is a good way to do it to see how it goes.
A couple of their older titles using OpenGL could certainly use this upgrade too. The one that really needs it is the Linux port of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. I would love to play through that one fully again with a Vulkanized performance boost.
You can pick up a copy of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor from the Feral Store, Humble Store and Steam.
Hat tip to dubigrasu.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Arehandoro Oct 17, 2019
time to give it a spin, then. Haven't finished all the DLC's.
Same here.
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Not complaining though since the game's AO is quite inefficient and reducing resolution doesn't seem to have a visual impact. And in the CPU-bound case, the port probably still beats us, so good job.
Last edited by YoRHa-2B on 17 October 2019 at 11:06 am UTC
leillo1975 Oct 17, 2019
And here's why it beats Proton and, in fact, Windows:
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Not complaining though since the game's AO is quite inefficient and reducing resolution doesn't seem to have a visual impact. And in the CPU-bound case, the port probably still beats us, so good job.
Well, if it has no visual impact on the game, using half-precision AO should be considered as an optimisation, right ?
Well, if it has no visual impact on the game, using half-precision AO should be considered as an optimisation, right ?I don't disagree and it's one of those little things that you can get with an official Linux port but not when running the Windows version through Proton. Another example of this is Rise of the Tomb Raider where Feral changed the shadow map fromat from D16 to D32 because D16 used to be slow/broken on RADV (and AMD actually recommends you use D32 over D16 anyway, even if it needs more memory).
FWIW, since someone already attacked me over my comment: The only reason I looked into this in the first place is because DXVK seemed unusually slow in comparison and I obviously wanted to know why, to see if there's maybe something I can improve. I'm not attacking Feral, far from it, I like their work and having officially supported games like this is important.
Last edited by YoRHa-2B on 17 October 2019 at 12:11 pm UTC
Well, if it has no visual impact on the game, using half-precision AO should be considered as an optimisation, right ?I don't disagree and it's one of those little things that you can get with an official Linux port but not when running the Windows version through Proton. Another example of this is Rise of the Tomb Raider where Feral changed the shadow map fromat from D16 to D32 because D16 used to be slow/broken on RADV (and AMD actually recommends you use D32 over D16 anyway, even if it needs more memory).
AO has some problems with RadeonSI and Unity, could this change also be a workaround? (I know it's RADV in this case, but maybe there is a low level relation). https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/issues/1345
Good to see that Feral is still in the Linux business. With the Tomb Raider port coming and giving us here a Vulkan option. <3 Feral!
Mohandevir Oct 17, 2019
Its justs that it makes me wonder, since it was said that the original OpenGL port was 40% slower and looking at these benchmarks... It must not be far from the Windows native version's performances...
Last edited by Mohandevir on 17 October 2019 at 12:35 pm UTC
AO has some problems with RadeonSI and Unity, could this change also be a workaround? (I know it's RADV in this case, but maybe there is a low level relation)No, unrelated. The RadeonSI issue is also not really an "AO" issue, it's a DCC bug that just happens to affect the AO implementation of Unity Engine. Reducing the resolution won't fix that either.
Last edited by YoRHa-2B on 17 October 2019 at 12:34 pm UTC
And here's why it beats Proton and, in fact, Windows:Very interesting!
[
Not complaining though since the game's AO is quite inefficient and reducing resolution doesn't seem to have a visual impact. And in the CPU-bound case, the port probably still beats us, so good job.
Since I got curious, I've gone back and done more tests with AO completely off and put a bit up on that too. Thanks for the info!
Also, someone said this on Reddit about my article:
A reddit post linking to an article based on a reddit post based on a reddit comment. Now that's something new.Just to be clear, we were given a tip many hours before Reddit picked it up, by the person thanked at the bottom of the article. This post has nothing to do with Reddit. I waited for personal confirmation from Feral that it was meant to be public, which I got earlier today. It wouldn't have been great to post all this up, if they suddenly made it private again, I was doing my job - not that Reddit cares they just like to make digs.
FWIW, since someone already attacked me over my comment: The only reason I looked into this in the first place is because DXVK seemed unusually slow in comparison and I obviously wanted to know why, to see if there's maybe something I can improve. I'm not attacking Feral, far from it, I like their work and having officially supported games like this is important.I really can't understand how anyone could attack you over something like this, hope you told them where to go :P
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 17 October 2019 at 12:41 pm UTC
Nice. I agree with others here though in that DE:MD is the one that really needs this sort of enhancement.I wouldn't mind to see the same treatment applied to the old GL TR 2013 though, it still has some areas where even on relative newer HW it drops the perf to the floor.
And about this sudden Vulkan build, makes you wonder what else Feral is cooking...
Last edited by vipor29 on 17 October 2019 at 12:47 pm UTC
Nice. I agree with others here though in that DE:MD is the one that really needs this sort of enhancement.
Especially since I have an open bug report with them for missing hair rendering. This is apparently something that changed with later Nvidia drivers, but I can't check far enough back with my GPU.
Enjoy, it's as easy as 1,2,3!
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Edit: It's been redeemed. ^_^
Last edited by drlamb on 17 October 2019 at 1:21 pm UTC
Nice. I agree with others here though in that DE:MD is the one that really needs this sort of enhancement.I wouldn't mind to see the same treatment applied to the old GL TR 2013 though, it still has some areas where even on relative newer HW it drops the perf to the floor.
Is there a chance this significant update for an older game was only suitable with an update of the LithTech engine by Monolith Productions?
Maybe they added Vulkan support to the engine and Feral could leverage large parts, thus, making this update an option at all. Which would be great, btw.
Yet, I wouldn't hold my breath them investing lots of money into a Vulkan backend from scratch on older titles.
And about this sudden Vulkan build, makes you wonder what else Feral is cooking...
Indeed, maybe they are updating the LithTech engine for a Shadow of War release with Vulkan and are porting back that stuff.
Would be even greater. :)
Last edited by sub on 17 October 2019 at 1:00 pm UTC
Well sure, but if we go this way we can hope for all old GL ports to get the Vulkan treatment, like Hitman, which already has or had at one point an incomplete Vulkan build, or even better COH2, which really runs slow.Nice. I agree with others here though in that DE:MD is the one that really needs this sort of enhancement.
yeah and Dirt Rally is another port I would like to see vulkan-enhanced, it runs smoothly mostly but vulkan is much much better in terms of performance and as it stands Dirt 4 runs much faster than Dirt Rally, DR being older and with less graphics features.
To be fair though to other GL ports, some of them run pretty good, Alien Isolation for example.
What I'm trying to say is that the Vulkan treatment comes with a cost for Feral (time/money/personnel), and I don't think is justified for all of their ports.
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