Beyond a Steel Sky, the recent big release from Revolution Software that acts as a sequel to the classic point and click adventure Beneath a Steel Sky has a most needed patch.
While an interesting and quite fun game to explore overall, the initial release was, uh—rough. On all sides, not just for Linux and there's been lots of reports about big bugs (some game breaking too). Thankfully, Revolution pushed through to support it and a first major update is out now.
On the Linux side the game should now use the correct GPU if you have a hybrid NVIDIA/Intel device and there's OpenGL support for those that need it. Looking at their launch script, it appears to default to OpenGL for NVIDIA and Intel but Vulkan for AMD. You can switch between using "-opengl" and "-vulkan" as a Steam launch option. On top of that there's "improved" transitions and cut-scenes which should fix some crashes. Speaking about the Linux updates, Revolution said:
Joost (who is so integral to Revolution, he doesn’t have a coherent title) and his old friend from his ScummVM days, TMM have teamed up and brought you these fixes thanks to the thorough feedback we’ve received from all of you!
Wonderful to see Linux dedication there!
Most importantly though, the game-breaking issue for all versions (Windows / Linux) where a certain robot was seemingly fixed to the ground preventing some saved games from continuing has been solved. I've gone back to an older save to verify and yup—works fine now.
They also confirmed Steam Achievements are coming and they're continuing to go over bugs as they come in. They plan to continue supporting it for some time.
You can buy Beyond a Steel Sky on Steam where it's discounted until July 30.
Direct Link
Quoting: TMMThanks! Is there any chance you could test with Nvidia driver version 450.57 (the current latest one) with GL? We haven't seen such a large performance delta on our test machines but we have seen random crashes and some minor display corruption on the vulkan drivers.
Thanks a lot!
Sure, just tried that. For OpenGL it bumped up by about 10 FPS, so in the 30-40s in the city entrance. With both that and Vulkan, I am no longer seeing the corrupted shadows on the ground. I can't tell if Vulkan performance changed since it's still capped at 60 for some reason.
Quoting: RaabenQuoting: TMMThanks! Is there any chance you could test with Nvidia driver version 450.57 (the current latest one) with GL? We haven't seen such a large performance delta on our test machines but we have seen random crashes and some minor display corruption on the vulkan drivers.
Thanks a lot!
Sure, just tried that. For OpenGL it bumped up by about 10 FPS, so in the 30-40s in the city entrance. With both that and Vulkan, I am no longer seeing the corrupted shadows on the ground. I can't tell if Vulkan performance changed since it's still capped at 60 for some reason.
Thanks a lot! That delta is still prettyl bad but because of issues with the vulkan drivers on older Nvidia hardware we may leave it like this. 30-40 fps for this game seems at least acceptable. Correctness for everyone with an option to switch to vulkan for people with the skills to do it seems acceptable to me. UE4's Linux support leaves something to be desired it turns out... :-/
Last edited by TMM on 24 July 2020 at 10:02 am UTC
Quoting: TMMUE4's Linux support leaves something to be desired it turns out... :-/
That's what I was afraid of really. Any idea about the framerate cap under Vulkan? That's honestly my biggest headache as I prefer to bump some settings down and have that higher.
Quoting: RaabenQuoting: TMMUE4's Linux support leaves something to be desired it turns out... :-/
That's what I was afraid of really. Any idea about the framerate cap under Vulkan? That's honestly my biggest headache as I prefer to bump some settings down and have that higher.
I'll check it on my 5700XT, it should be able to do 60+fps. I'll get back to you!
Quoting: ShmerlAny news on GOG release, and how can I contact the authors about it?
*edit* Sorry, Windows only at the moment.
Now on GOG, too:
https://www.gog.com/game/beyond_a_steel_sky
Last edited by Eike on 19 March 2021 at 5:16 pm UTC
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