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The problem is that from how they describe their process is similar to what CodeWeavers do with their ports... A custom build of wine targeted specifically to the title that is shipping. I don't know whether they re-write shaders or not.

So I have tried the port and honestly I'm very disappointed. Rig:

i5 2500k @ stock speed (I do have the intel pstate driver enabled though)
RAM: 8GB Corsair XMS
GPU: GTX 660 with 2GB VRAM (nvidia blob version 331.20)(also, vsync is disabled in the driver options)
OS: Ubuntu 12.04 64bit with kernel 3.11 (via Canonical's periodic hardware enablement stack)
Monitor res: 1440x900

The only option I found to be better but now what I consider playable is the medium option with some tweaks (for texture quality mostly) and vsync off... meh. On Windows this game is smooth as butter on very high settings.

I've tried with both OpenGL 2.1 and 3.2 but to be able to compare it more fairly against CrossOver I'll limit it to 2.1. I also made sure that the games are on the same patch level by downloading the patches for the GoG version and applying them (3.1; 3.2;3.3 and 3.4)

With the settings shown in the screenshot, running the game with CrossOver simply feels smoother and better. I can't tell you the exact fps because I don't know of any in-game way to show that info.

There might be one thing though. The guy from VP mentioned that they don't use real fullscreen windows so, in some DEs that use compositing this may hamper them. Kwin can turn the compositor on/off any time, but Unity and Gnome (from what I've read) use something called "un-redirected fullscreen windows" which help with performance in games and other 3D applications.

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...not to mention a delicious pizza still tastes delicious if someone spits on it (as long as you don't see it, of course).

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@scaine, Again i disagree, people can compare apples to oranges all they like, but in the end my views still stand.

This is more like cooking a pizza with a lightbulb, the tools ALWAYS matter when the tool isn't up for the job. The point is a lightbulb isn't meant to cook a pizza. In the same way that a Windows game isn't meant to be run on Linux, it's meant to be ported in-code.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: wleoncio

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: scaineFolk need to stop going on about the wrapper too. It's utterly irrelevant. What's relevant is the quality of the final product and in this case, for a lot of people, that's what's been lacking.

I have to disagree, the tools used are exactly what causes the issues so it is entirely relevant.

Any chance they replace the eON version with a 100% native one down the line?

Pretty much no. I could give reasons...but no, that won't happen (I mean 100% native won't happen, not about me giving reasons).

But maybe this paves the way for a better "The Witcher 3". Probably too soon to impact that project, but you never know. Maybe The Witcher 3 will be delayed a little because they replace badly compatible middleware for a more generic, cross platform alternative, requiring less impact from eON? We can certainly hope so.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: wleoncioAny chance they replace the eON version with a 100% native one down the line?

Pretty much no. I could give reasons...but no, that won't happen (I mean 100% native won't happen, not about me giving reasons).

Well, hopefully they're chalking it up to being the port of an older game potentially aimed at testing sales volume and, if all goes well, Witcher 3 will go through a more thorough port.

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: scaineFolk need to stop going on about the wrapper too. It's utterly irrelevant. What's relevant is the quality of the final product and in this case, for a lot of people, that's what's been lacking.

I have to disagree, the tools used are exactly what causes the issues so it is entirely relevant.

Nah, mate. If you buy a pizza and it tastes absolutely delicious, do you care that it wasn't actually made in a stone oven? Of course not. You have a delicious pizza and that's what counts. Job done.

The only reason you care about how THIS pizza was made is that you got a bad one. You're focussing, unnecessarily, on an unimportant detail. Focus on the result.

And don't put up with shoddy pizza. We're agreed on that. CD Projekt RED didn't test properly, but we need to stop getting bogged down in details like eON vs VOGL vs native. No one who isn't a geek cares about that stuff. All they care about is the experience.

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One of the Kickstarter titles I'm most looking forward to playing. The demo was really superb, even back then, so I think it really just needed content.

If I remember correctly, this was also one of the first Kickstarters of its day to make a play of Occulus support.

Can't wait to play it, if I can tear myself away from The Witcher 2. I guess the clock is ticking!

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: scaineFolk need to stop going on about the wrapper too. It's utterly irrelevant. What's relevant is the quality of the final product and in this case, for a lot of people, that's what's been lacking.

I have to disagree, the tools used are exactly what causes the issues so it is entirely relevant.

Any chance they replace the eON version with a 100% native one down the line?

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Quoting: scaineFolk need to stop going on about the wrapper too. It's utterly irrelevant. What's relevant is the quality of the final product and in this case, for a lot of people, that's what's been lacking.

I have to disagree, the tools used are exactly what causes the issues so it is entirely relevant.

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As I noted on a similar Steam thread, I'm running Ubuntu 14:04 64-bit, i7, 8Gb, GTX670 with 1920x1200 resolution. Game crashes on Tutorial, works if I skip it. Performance has been fine so far - I've tried both medium and ultra settings but couldn't see a big difference between them (I don't tend to notice blur effects and such like), so I've stuck with medium thinking that it might help with framerate later down the line.

I'm about 5 hours into the game so far and it's been a pretty superb experience. No issues with keyboard either, which is weird, since it seems to affect a LOT of people.

Obviously I've been very lucky.

Folk need to stop going on about the wrapper too. It's utterly irrelevant. What's relevant is the quality of the final product and in this case, for a lot of people, that's what's been lacking.

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Quoting: ShmerlDetails from developer about eON: http://steamcommunity.com/app/20920/discussions/0/522728086957775869/#c522728180901709821

QuoteI wish to note that while I am one of the developers from VP who has worked on this game, I am posting to this forum offering my support entirely on my own time, and of my own volition.

I've been asked to respond about the post concerning "WINE uses Windows drivers and we use Linux drivers". This was a misunderstanding by a non-technical member of VP. He confused WINE with OS X Boot Camp, and has been corrected now

We are aware there's going to be potential rough spots with our port as this is our first big Linux release, but we are looking to improve the technology wherever possible. I've also been authorised to explain a bit further about our eON system, and why this has been used to port Witcher 2 to Linux. So here goes.

eON is a middle ground idea between what WINE does, and a native port. It is tuned and customised to each game we port - we do not simply slap a Windows binary into it and ship the game. For example, we often customise the D3D9->GL code path in various ways to cater for the title. Shaders are often rewritten to native GLSL, etc.

There are various reasons why a 100% native port is not feasible or possible - middleware, financial and technical constraints etc. This does not mean that a non-native port is always going to be inferior. The alternative would often be no port at all.

Personally I am excited that VP are looking to help bring more games to Linux - not just because I get paid to do it!!

which means it is native code, yes, they rewrote direct3d functions to wrap it to gl. and since one solution in gl is performing differently on how the games use d3d they rewrite some parts for the games. i see nothing wrong with that...

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Buying it again. Full Price. openSUSE/SteamOS FTW!

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Quoting: Anonymous

Quoting: mintguyI forgot to mention that I am using an Optimus setup and tried to play with bumblebee command "primusrun".

Did you try it with optirun?
I sometimes have different results with the two commands.

with primusrun:
[r0ck3r@localhost the witcher 2]$ primusrun ./witcher2
./witcher2: /lib/libcurl-gnutls.so.4: no version information available (required by ./witcher2)
primus: fatal: failed to load any of the libraries: /usr/lib64/nvidia-bumblebee/libGL.so.1:/usr/lib/nvidia-bumblebee/libGL.so.1:/usr/lib64/libGL.so.1:/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
dlopen: invalid caller
dlopen: invalid caller
dlopen: invalid caller
dlopen: invalid caller
with optirun:
[r0ck3r@localhost the witcher 2]$ optirun ./witcher2
ERROR: ld.so: object 'libdlfaker.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object 'librrfaker.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored.
./witcher2: /usr/lib/libcurl-gnutls.so.4: no version information available (required by ./witcher2)
primus: fatal: failed to load any of the libraries: /usr/lib64/nvidia-bumblebee/libGL.so.1:/usr/lib/nvidia-bumblebee/libGL.so.1:/usr/lib64/libGL.so.1:/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
dlopen: invalid caller
dlopen: invalid caller
dlopen: invalid caller
dlopen: invalid caller

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Quoting: Znurre

Quoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuyPeople are allowed to whine about a "port" if it's supposed to work well and doesn't when it's labelled as a full completed port and not any sort of beta, quality is supposed to be expected and we haven't gotten any sort of quality here.

We as in you and some other vocal others. It works well enough for me and some other people.

And what is "well enough" for you?
I expect a 3 year old game to be able to run at stable 60 fps with vsync and lowest quality on a rig with my specifications.

This +whatever.

If it runs like crap on lowest settings for a lot of people, then there is something up. Saying it runs well for a few people doesn't mean anything, it means a few people have a lucky hardware combination as the majority are saying it runs poorly.

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Quoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuyPeople are allowed to whine about a "port" if it's supposed to work well and doesn't when it's labelled as a full completed port and not any sort of beta, quality is supposed to be expected and we haven't gotten any sort of quality here.

We as in you and some other vocal others. It works well enough for me and some other people.

And what is "well enough" for you?
I expect a 3 year old game to be able to run at stable 60 fps with vsync and lowest quality on a rig with my specifications.

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People are allowed to whine about a "port" if it's supposed to work well and doesn't when it's labelled as a full completed port and not any sort of beta, quality is supposed to be expected and we haven't gotten any sort of quality here.

We as in you and some other vocal others. It works well enough for me and some other people.

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30 fps is simply pants when compared to the framerate you'd get on Windows with the same hardware. I'm currently in the process of downloading this game and will test it and compare against CrossOver (which is wine 1.7.4 + some hacky stuff + CSMT)

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Who cares if it's a AAA game an indie game? If it runs like crap then it runs like crap.

People are allowed to whine about a "port" if it's supposed to work well and doesn't when it's labelled as a full completed port and not any sort of beta, quality is supposed to be expected and we haven't gotten any sort of quality here.

Some people do go overboard in their comments though, but I don't think anyone here has said what you put in quotes.

Just because we are a minority OS does not mean we should be happy with bad ports or they will keep happening. This is why on GOL I always put my opinion on how the game runs in articles when I have tested it so people know what to expect.

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It's pretty obvious that the most vocal people are the ones that have problems. The game runs absolutely fine for me, besides a few crashing whenever I try to play the tutorial at times. I'm running a gtx 660 on high settings, and I'm getting 30 fps+ ALL the time.

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I just played 15 minutes of it, no I didn't read 12 pages of whinging. It's a AAA game running on Linux, albeit a bit buggy. I couldn't care less if it isn't "native" or whatever that means in the context of a binary that is ELF, and won't run on Windows.

What I find ridiculous is that people are abusing the devs who are trying to provide support on their own dime and time. How about a bit of "cheers for the port, but it isn't working for me/runs like balls on my mid-level 2011 video card" rather than "OMG YOU GUYS ARE LYING SCUM".

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Performance is bad indeed.

My rig:

CPU: i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6 cores
GPU: NVidia GeForce GTX 780
RAM: 8GB 1600MHz CL6

I can't hold 60 fps all the time, even on lowest settings.
Actually, both High and Low profiles are about as bad when it comes to FPS and stuttering.
Increasing the quality to High doesn't seem to give me worse performance than Low, it's just really sluggish in general.

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Quoting: neffoI just bought a copy for some random Linux guy on my steam friends list who had it on his wish list.

RE: this thread. Why in fu*k's name are people so upset about getting a great fu*king game on Linux?

Because the game only runs on low settings on a 2000€ gaming pc? At least for 90%. I can play it on mid settings and yes it runs fine on that level of detail. But i can run it fine on ultra settings via wine.

Quoting: AnonymousSo... has anyone got the keyboard to work?

yes, look here:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/20920/discussions/0/522728086937828976/#c522728086953857443

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Oh yeah no, thats creepy as hell. But its another game for linux so i approve :D

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A steal at £2.99 :D Works great for me on the medium graphical setting (Arch, GTX 660).

I do fing the main character's "Snake Pliskin" vocal style a little odd and out of place though!

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Quoting: neffoRE: this thread. Why in fuck's name are people so upset about getting a great fucking game on Linux?

Have you actually read any of the comments on it? If you did then you would know.

The performance is utterly laughable due to not being a native port and it runs better in Wine.

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They are only $25 for both all up in a bundle for people who have the original games, so I purchased it straight away. Support the developers who do bring their games to linux :)

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I just bought a copy for some random Linux guy on my steam friends list who had it on his wish list.

RE: this thread. Why in fuck's name are people so upset about getting a great fucking game on Linux?

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So... has anyone got the keyboard to work?

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100+ comments holy cow.

Copying what I said in the Steam forum topic on it since a VP developer has been posting in there:

I never get the "I'm not a PR guy" reasoning. If you do a major release then have a PR guy ready, that shouldn't be a secret key to success. That should be a bit of common sense.

If you don't do some form of public testing then crap like this will happen, I tell this to every developer who doesn't do a public beta and then sees posts like this.

I've seen the "no houses around to test for Linux", as pointed out the LinuxGameCast (Venn) do a fair bit of testing and could have helped, there's also http://www.gamingonlinux.com which could have helped test...but nope neither crew where approached to even do minor testing. Again no outside testing was done AT ALL.

Having THE top end newest generation Intel i5 and an Nvidia 560ti and I see crap performance on LOWEST settings is bloody unacceptable to me. That instantly tells me along with the multitude of other people seeing the same issues that the testing before-hand was utterly flawed.

There are also reports on the Steam forums that some of the people claiming to have great performance are level 0 Steam accounts (meaning a brand new account), it's starting to sound fishy to me: Found one here, level 0 and hidden profile claiming it's on par with Windows.

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I think worrying about the wrapper is very relevant, people should feel free to use whatever tools they want to bring games to linux, the important part is that they support their linux releases.

Christian

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