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.
rustybroomhandle Oct 17, 2019
Quoting: Ham_TaroAo off 1080p min and max for vulkan and opengl are inversed.Good catch! Fixed.
Quoting: MohandevirCould we get a comparison with Win10? I mean not necessarily form you Liam.Why not me? :P Done, added.
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...
Mohandevir Oct 17, 2019
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: MohandevirCould we get a comparison with Win10? I mean not necessarily form you Liam.Why not me? :P Done, added.
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...
Nice! Didn't want to put pressure on you, because I know you are a busy guy. ;)
Quoting: MohandevirThis is your one exception per month allotted :PQuoting: Liam DaweQuoting: MohandevirCould we get a comparison with Win10? I mean not necessarily form you Liam.Why not me? :P Done, added.
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...
Nice! Didn't want to put pressure on you, because I know you are a busy guy. ;)
A while back I made a comparison between Native vs DXVK performance for ROTTR, and the gist of it was that for the benchmark itself (after few dry runs) the results were very similar, almost identical.
However, the actual game-play was rather unpractical on DXVK due to the periodic stuttering and occasional hangs, while the Feral's port was pretty much problem free.
But that was a long time ago (in terms of DXVK development) and I used an old weak card to begin with.
So considering how DXVK improved in the mean time, I'm curious if this is still the case.
For reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9_DX2r_dis
Quoting: YoRHa-2BFWIW, 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.
Thanks for your insights! Sometimes, people tend to hit the messenger, however nice they give their message...
Quoting: dubigrasuSo considering how DXVK improved in the mean time, I'm curious if this is still the case.Yes it is, that's due to the crazy amount of shaders that the game has. The benchmark shows the same stutter if you run it for the first time, subsequent runs only work fine due to the state cache.
Same goes for SotTR, and quite a few other games, although it's less bad with the new ACO compiler.
Quoting: aejsmithThe AO change is described as lower quality in the article but in practice running it at half res makes virtually no noticeable difference to the quality.Agreed (although one could argue that it's technically not the same). In any case, was there any particular reason for the change besides AO being unnecessarily expensive? I'm curious about the thought process behind this decision.
Last edited by YoRHa-2B on 17 October 2019 at 2:22 pm UTC
Quoting: aejsmithThe AO change is described as lower quality in the article but in practice running it at half res makes virtually no noticeable difference to the quality.I've done a wording adjustment to hopefully make it clearer! Not aimed as a dig at Feral or anything, just trying to ensure testing accuracy and make sure it's factually right on the bits.
Quoting: YoRHa-2BWould using "fossilize" improve on that?Quoting: dubigrasuSo considering how DXVK improved in the mean time, I'm curious if this is still the case.Yes it is, that's due to the crazy amount of shaders that the game has. The benchmark shows the same stutter if you run it for the first time, subsequent runs only work fine due to the state cache.
Same goes for SotTR, and quite a few other games, although it's less bad with the new ACO compiler.
Quoting: dubigrasuBut that was a long time ago (in terms of DXVK development) and I used an old weak card to begin with.
...
For reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9_DX2r_dis
Ha, that's a Radeon HD 7970. :D
I still have an old 7950 paired with an ancient Phenom II X4 940 and 8G of ram.
I'm amazed what this combination is still able deliver.
I'm not lying, DOOM (2016) and Wolfenstein 2 run smooth as butter on 1980p
with that rig and it looks great (at least under Windows, haven't tried SteamPlay).
Quoting: aejsmithThe AO change is described as lower quality in the article but in practice running it at half res makes virtually no noticeable difference to the quality.
I assume you're from Feral?
@Liam, didn't you plan on some "marking" of people who's jobs might have brought them here?
I'm happy Feral is here - and aej, thanks for yours and your colleagues work a thousand times! -, it just makes it easier to sort out who's saying what...
Quoting: aejsmithThe AO change is described as lower quality in the article but in practice running it at half res makes virtually no noticeable difference to the quality.
I agree that it's a smart optimization, but would it be possible to include the original options when available for testing, or for people who can power through it regardless?
Quoting: yokem55I'm wondering if this was only possible because Feral already had the Mad Max vukan port available. Given that Shadow of Mordor uses the same engine (I think anyway - they are both WB titles), it may have been pretty easy to make happen.
No. Shadow of Mordor uses LithTech and Mad Max uses the Apex engine (formerly avalanche).
The vulkan work on Mad Max likely didn't hurt though. :)
Last edited by drlamb on 17 October 2019 at 2:35 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestThe only problem with this, is that I have to decide what games to uninstall so as I can try it out. The problems of such limited drive space.
I'll try to update with how this goes for me. Cheers Feral, for the efforts.
That's indeed an issue for me as well. :/
The upcoming RDR2 for PC will require 150 GB of free space.
And AAA games close to 100 GB are not that rare anymore.
Last edited by sub on 17 October 2019 at 2:58 pm UTC
Quoting: subQuoting: dubigrasuBut that was a long time ago (in terms of DXVK development) and I used an old weak card to begin with.
...
For reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9_DX2r_dis
Ha, that's a Radeon HD 7970. :D
I still have an old 7950 paired with an ancient Phenom II X4 940 and 8G of ram.
I'm amazed what this combination is still able deliver.
I'm not lying, DOOM (2016) and Wolfenstein 2 run smooth as butter on 1980p
with that rig and it looks great (at least under Windows, haven't tried SteamPlay).
Similar with my other config: Phenom II X4 955, HD 7970 and 8 GB RAM, yeah, still kicking.
I use it as an external video capture PC and sometimes I stream from it various (problematic on Linux) Windows games. I'm not throwing anything away :)
It's also interesting to see how hard it already seems to be to outbid the performance of DXVK with a native port. They may have used DXVK as a base and only optimized it for SOM?
At the same time I wonder why Feral is working on an old game. Most people might already own the game through one of the countless sales (I do). Of course, Feral is certainly one of those companies with a lot of enthusiasm and passion for their work. But in the end each of us has to earn money.
I wonder if this might have something to do with Stadia, too? The game should now run better under Linux than under Windows. Feral has an exquisite catalogue of Linux games that have not yet been announced for Stadia.
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me