Confused on Steam Play and Proton? Be sure to check out our guide.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

UPDATED, See the bottom!

That's not an error, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition is now out for SteamOS/Linux and I am downloading it as I type this. This is truly a knock-out year for Linux gamers and it's only May!

Warning: Radeon graphics cards are not supported, Intel integrated graphics chipsets are also not supported. This commenter points out why. Interesting to see AMD fix their drivers so quickly, I hope more bigger games come out forcing all graphics vendors to improve.

One thing I mentioned before is the coming of "SteamOS" rather than Linux, it is becoming more frequent quickly and I am actually okay with that. Linux has been a scary word for developers for too long, but no more!

There have been hints at this happening for months and I am extremely pleased to see it turn out well for us.

Be warned it's a hefty 15.8GB download, so prepare for a wee bit of a wait. Grab a beer a relax while watching that download bar, or just play something else...

About

The player is Geralt of Rivia, a professional monster slayer, a witcher. Entangled in the political turmoil that engulfed Temeria, Geralt helped quell the rebellion of the Order of the Flaming Rose. Soon after, he saved King Foltest’s life when the monarch was attacked by a witcher-like assassin. He continues to protect the king, serving as his bodyguard as Foltest strives to bring peace to his kingdom. The Order’s last bastions have yielded to the royal army, yet one more task remains - the Baroness La Valette announced her secession from the realm, and her fortress must be taken. A month after the attempted assassination, Foltest’s armies stand at the gates of La Valette Castle, preparing for a final assault. Still at Foltest’s side, Geralt is among them, unable to begin his personal quest to discover the mysterious assassin’s origin and identity…
Thanks to the new, ultra-modern REDengine, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings features both beautiful graphics and sophisticated in-game mechanics, drawing players into the most lively and believable world ever created in a video game.
Defining new standards for realistic, non-linear game narration, The Witcher 2 spins a mature, thought-provoking tale to produce one of the most complex and unique RPGs ever released on consoles. In addition to its epic story, the game features a complex combat system that uniquely combines dynamic action and tactical depth.

The great thing is that it's also 80% off to celebrate! Get it on Steam now, seriously go get it right now.

Check out the trailer if you haven't seen it before:

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link


For those who own a boxed copy of it, with GOG.com supporting Linux this year I suggest you go here and reedem your backup copy on GOG. While you won't get a Linux copy yet I imagine in future you would.

You can also thank the developers directly on their official forums post on it.

UPDATE
It's no wonder people are experiencing poor performance issues, it looks like it uses a wrapper called "eON" from Virtual Programming who did the Mac port. This porting technology is new to Linux, so perfect performance isn't going to happen right away.

Personally I am displeased by this as the performance on the lowest setting for me isn't great and my rig is pretty damned powerful. I am actually glad I didn't pay full price as it's unplayable. I don't mean to be too harsh about it (I don't like to sugar coat things either), but when there's so many people claiming the same thing then something is up, but this "eON" tech is new to Linux, so there's always room for improvement.

If you scan around the files, you will note these:
eONprecompiledShaders32.dat
witcher2.vpfs
VPFS_registry.vpfsdb

Pretty obvious it uses their eON tech. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't run so terribly, I've said before that I am glad our purchases count for Linux rather than Windows, but for newer games it just doesn't feel right somehow.

What do you think to this information?

UPDATE 2
A developer from the porting house who worked on this has done a few posts in the Steam forum topic on it. You can see one such post here, there's also a funny one here where the developer is sadly making rather uninformed statments:

jaycee1980Remember the binary Nvidia and AMD Catalyst drivers only tend to support newer hardware.


I wish developers would research a little more before saying such things, as it doesn't do their reputation any-good.

Both teams need to do some damage control I think and get down to fixing issues ASAP. Two things to check is if Vertical Sync and UberSamping are both off as both are known to cause problems, but sadly for me I still cannot play on the lowest possible settings.

Not the best of launches.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Action, RPG, Steam
0 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
170 comments
Page: «8/17»
  Go to:

Anonymous May 22, 2014
Quoting: vaRPlease, liam, stop the hired guys from posting. Same thing on the forums. This won't work with decent pc specs and is just awful. CDProjekt should be ashamed.

Hired guys? What are you talking about?
Pinguino May 22, 2014
I'm running it right now on Ubuntu 13.04.

I'd say my specs are good, but not top-of-the-line: Intel i3 with 6 GB RAM, Geforce GTX 650 (2 GB), Nvidia 331.20 driver.

On 1080x720 resolution, medium graphics run smooth like silk; ultra runs a little bit slower, but still playable unless you're a framerate nut (I'm not, but I think "medium" has a better performance/eye-candy balance). Gamepad (wired Xbox 360) works fine as well.
Anonymous May 23, 2014
@wleoncio

Did you disable V-sync? That seems to make a big difference.
Pinguino May 23, 2014
Quoting: Anonymous@wleoncio

Did you disable V-sync? That seems to make a big difference.

I haven't. I use a TV for a monitor that gives me pretty bad screen tearing, but it can't hurt to try. Do you think I have the specs to run it well on ultra?
drmoth May 23, 2014
Haven't tried it yet but just finished Witcher 1 on Wine with CSMT last night. Excellent timing!
Can I recommend to people Antimicro, a very excellent gamepad key mapper. I used it for Witcher1 and it worked perfectly. I ran out of buttons so I created a second profile that I triggered by pressing the start key on the gamepad (logitech f710).http://www.ryochan7.com/projects/antimicro/
http://www.ryochan7.com/projects/antimicro/

It was predictable that they were going to do a similar port to that of OSX (not fully native). CD Project RED are testing the linux waters, so let's give them some love instead of complaining. I've been enjoying reading about the the people here and on reddit that are giving away free copies of the game out of joy and support. That's the spirit! It's only a measley $4 in any case...
Shmerl May 23, 2014
Did anyone try to enable Nvidia GL multithreading (using __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS) to check if it makes any difference with this release?
Spl-it May 23, 2014
View PC info
  • Mega Supporter
Bad performance sadly.
Ubuntu 14.04
Nvidia GTX680 (sli enabled brings the fps down to about 10 or so) driver 337.12
i7-3820 / 16 gb ram
enable / disable V-sync doesn't make any difference.

The game runs smooth with ultra settings on windows, sadly this isn't the case on Linux for me.
Pinguino May 23, 2014
Quoting: Spl-itBad performance sadly.
Ubuntu 14.04
Nvidia GTX680 (sli enabled brings the fps down to about 10 or so) driver 337.12
i7-3820 / 16 gb ram
enable / disable V-sync doesn't make any difference.

The game runs smooth with ultra settings on windows, sadly this isn't the case on Linux for me.

What a mystery. :S:
Shmerl May 23, 2014
Just a reminder, don't forget to report all these issues to developers if you care about them improving anything:

* http://forums.cdprojektred.com/forums/40-Tech-Support
* http://en.cdprojektred.com/support/how-to-contact-the-tech-support/
Spl-it May 23, 2014
View PC info
  • Mega Supporter
Quoting: ShmerlDid anyone try to enable Nvidia GL multithreading (using __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS) to check if it makes any difference with this release?

No notable difference here.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.