Feral no longer porting A Total War Saga: TROY to Linux, citing less demand since Proton

I think this is good news, Feral ports were usually not very good: lower performance, delayed patches, additional bugs, etc.. The very idea of "porting" smells of a sub-par product.
I like to see *native* releases; it they cannot provide that, ensuring good compatibility with Proton may be better than a port.

The last Feral ports (i.e. Vulkan) run better than the proton/dxvk version. See for example total war here or Shadow of the tomb raider.

However, these comparisons were taken quite some time ago. Presumably the native ports stayed where they were, Proton evolved and might yield more competitive results today.

but there is generally less demand for native titles since Valve’s launch of Proton.

Here's what I read..

How well this game runs in Proton already represents more then the amount of effort that can be justified putting into a native port for Linux right now.

If Linux had more than 0.9% market share, this wouldn't happen.

Because if Linux had more than 0.9% market share, Feral would very much so care how well their game runs on Linux, enough to want to control the experience by developing a native version and offering the best experience possible, rather than just settling for whatever works via Proton.

This doesn't harm the goal of growing the Linux marketshare, it's just an acknowledgement of how small our marketshare is.

It's passive-voice: it's not Feral's decision, they're just a contractor. Just like it wasn't their decision that Creative Assembly made it an Epic exclusive for a year, or that Creative Assembly refuse to use a library that will allow cross-platform multiplayer, or that Creative Assembly don't give them access to the games or patches in advance to have same-day releases. But they can't say, "Creative Assembly shafted us again," because, you know, they'd like more work in the future.

I would have loved to buy more from Feral and support them...but they were always releasing Total War games. Too many of them! Not my cup of tea.

Feral basically used a translation layer anyway didn't they?

The big problem with feral releases is when games get updates, and the fact the linux versions are under timed licenses. This is why Mad Max and some of their other Mordor games no longer have the penguin icon in store.

The ultimate solution is already here and it's not Proton, or porting.
Current game engines are multi targeted to PC , PS4, PS5, Linux, Stadia , etc. so it should be a some amount of clicks to build the game to Linux if there will be demand for it.

Why not Feral use internal DXVK for graphics, and only port the system part of the game? It should be much faster for them to deliver a new game.


Last edited by lqe5433 on 28 July 2021 at 7:25 am UTC

etc. so it should be a some amount of clicks to build the game to Linux if there will be demand for it.

Unfortunately devs I've asked don't agree. They claim games simply don't work when they try to port to Linux and need a huge amount of manual tweaking and testing which consumes a large amount of time.

etc. so it should be a some amount of clicks to build the game to Linux if there will be demand for it.

Unfortunately devs I've asked don't agree. They claim games simply don't work when they try to port to Linux and need a huge amount of manual tweaking and testing which consumes a large amount of time.

lqe5433 is talking about multiplatform development, you're talking about porting after the fact. They're not the same thing.

I think this is good news, Feral ports were usually not very good: lower performance, delayed patches, additional bugs, etc.. The very idea of "porting" smells of a sub-par product.
I like to see *native* releases; it they cannot provide that, ensuring good compatibility with Proton may be better than a port.

The last Feral ports (i.e. Vulkan) run better than the proton/dxvk version. See for example total war here or Shadow of the tomb raider.

+1 this. I've tested in 2021 Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Ferral port was even faster then Windows DX12 version about ~8% which is huge difference IMO. At least on Radeon VII graphics card.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmarks:

- Native Ferral port
- Proton/DXVK

Graphics settings.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmarks:

- Native Ferral port
- Proton/DXVK

Graphics settings.

The Native Ferral port is not 100% the same as Windows. Some graphical parts are missing.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmarks:

- Native Ferral port
- Proton/DXVK

Graphics settings.

The Native Ferral port is not 100% the same as Windows. Some graphical parts are missing.

That was what i always concerned about. Would be interesting to know which exactly. Can you provide more details on this?

Feral basically used a translation layer anyway didn't they?

Yeah, they had their own version of it. From what they've said in public for the likes of the latest Tomb Raider they rewrote some rendering to get it to perform well. Can't find the link but it was mentioned in public.

However, these comparisons were taken quite some time ago. Presumably the native ports stayed where they were, Proton evolved and might yield more competitive results today.

Don't get me wrong, i like proton, and i play quite a few games with. But

1) the only bench i found just show us that the native (Vulkan) version run better.

2) as good as it is, proton is still a translation layer with (small) overhead. It's not difficult to understand that a real native version will always be better than a translation from DX (ok, Vulkan version run generally better). So point 1) has nothing special. I don't really understand why some people seem to get upset when a native version run better. (?)

3) People compare poor native version to up-to-date Proton gaming. ie. Quick and dirty native versions (openGL monothread ported in a few days) let people believe than native gaming is garbage, but it is really biased. As someone mentionned above : If Linux market share was higher than 0.9%, the situation would be different, because developpers would spend time on the native version :
4) a dev from Feral explained that on shadow of the tomb raider, specific Linux optimisations have been made in the source code, which is obvisously not possible with Proton.

In brief, native gaming is certainly better than proton gaming in term of performances but cannot be the choice right now for Valve. Valve is probably afraid of bad native versions, with poor performances, bugs, and poor support. They have no control on these versions, unlike the proton version ! The lack of confidence is in the Windows developers, not in the performance of Linux. Their choice is not a technical choice about performances, but rather a "Quality and after sales choice".

I always prefered Feral port to proton which is full of glitches and bugs. Feral port are always smooth with good sound implementation and 0 bug.

The problem is since the main member of feral left for Unity, there is only total war game, and I don't like total war series. I would buy every port if there was something to buy, but when it's not total war it's always those terrible tomb raider remakes (I bought a few of them despite I don't like).

The feral radar has nothing on it since two years.


Last edited by Jahimself on 28 July 2021 at 12:34 pm UTC

Well, exactly what I wrote a few days ago:

Check out the releases from Feral Interactive. The number of ports has been drastically reduced. This is certainly also due to Proton ... because if it runs well with Proton, then you don't need a port to play a game on Linux anymore.

-> https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/07/ryan-gordon-and-ethan-lee-on-proton-and-the-steam-deck/comment_id=207010


Last edited by KuJo on 28 July 2021 at 1:03 pm UTC

A bit more mainstream coverage (referencing GoL and the comments here)

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/steam-decks-proton-a-total-war-saga

Exactly what i was afraid of, and why i can't say if Proton is a good thing or not.

on the one hand you have 1 game from feral and maybe some other devs not porting their game to linux

on the other hand you have 1000s of games you can play, including the ones they would have ported.

imho the answer is pretty clear

I mean... maybe to be a little gross. But isn't this sort of like the short term gratification of getting a hooker... but then later down the road you figure out you caught something nasty and long term are forever cursed? That's kind of what this seems like, bad things long term, for short term solution.

For me, the specific use case of Proton is for games that would never even remotely get a native port. Games that are years old, and no longer supported. Or for games that won't even run on Windows 10.

what is long term for you?
for how long gaming on linux is a thing and nothing really changed?!?!
do you wanna wait another decade? or 2? or 3?

linux needs market share, which you wont get without games/software. with a bigger market share the native ports will come back

I always prefered Feral port to proton which is full of glitches and bugs. Feral port are always smooth with good sound implementation and 0 bug.

The problem is since the main member of feral left for Unity, there is only total war game, and I don't like total war series.

Well, silver lining there: I think there's a good chance that a good Linux developer in Unity would have a broader impact making Unity generally make Linux games well and painlessly, than the same person in Feral helping to port one game at a time.

for how long gaming on linux is a thing and nothing really changed?!?!

Nothing really changed? Are you serious?