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The Witcher 2's Linux Version Has An Open Beta For Bug Fixes

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Don't set your hopes too high yet folks as this doesn't yet include performance fixes, as this is a bug-fix only open beta for now. I am glad Virtual Programming decided to go down this road as it seems they are learning from past mistakes.

I have tested it myself and my 360 gamepad worked flawlessly by just simply switching to gamepad in the game menu. I've seen other Linux ports of games on Steam that flat-out don't support gamepads on Linux, so it's now actually a point in their favour.

They have also worked on multi-monitor support and improved stability, but it does still give me the game has crashed dialog on exit half the time, but not every time like before.

Full post below:
QuoteWe have just set up a beta on Steam, called "linux_public_beta". This is where we're going to be posting our betas of work-in-progress so far. This first beta contains the following:

Multimonitor support
Improved support for gamepads, and workarounds for problems in xpad
Improved stability.. the game should crash a lot less now. We still see the occasional crash on exit, inside the nvidia driver. We're working on finding out if this is an issue with the 331.38 driver or with our code.

Note that this doesn't yet include any of our DX9 multithread rework, as that's still in progress. We thought we'd put this out here so that we can get some feedback from you guys on what we have done so far, and also show that we really are working on making this port better :)

Please opt-in, and tell us how things are. You can head on over to the Github issue tracker for the game, and post there:

https://github.com/KillaW0lf04/The-Witcher-2-Issues

Source

It's great to see them work on the issues and they know they have work to do. I cannot wait to see how their multi-threading rework changes things to see if it can give me a playable framerate.

I said it before, and will say it again, if they fix up their eON software which they will no doubt use in future ports then that's great. We can complain about native vs wrappers all we like, but if publishers and developers opt to go for them we should at least want working ones right? So, let's hope eON from Virtual Programming becomes a "good wrapper".

Check out The Witcher 2 on Steam if you dare, but personally I wouldn't buy it until their performance work goes in and we report back on how that fares. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Action, RPG, Steam
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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.
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HadBabits Jul 9, 2014
I'm more concerned with Among the Sleep fixing their issues. I can't seem to get a response out of them.
Liam Dawe Jul 9, 2014
Quoting: HadBabitsI'm more concerned with Among the Sleep fixing their issues. I can't seem to get a response out of them.

Keep an eye here: https://twitter.com/gamingonlinux/status/486946106451181568

My second time to try to get a reply from them...
oldrocker99 Jul 9, 2014
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You want to check out the Eador:Masters of the Broken World forums for some really inattentive developers.
DrMcCoy Jul 9, 2014
Quoting: HadBabitsI'm more concerned with Among the Sleep fixing their issues

Yeah, this is very sad. Like many others, I see this weird black cross everwhere, making the game unplayable for me. For me, it looks like some vertex coordinates are broken, with them going off into infinity; but that's just a half-educated guess.

They said they can't replicate that bug, for some reason. A shame.
I offered to run a debug build with debug printf()s or something for them (aka simplistic stone-age debugging), but so far they haven't taken me up on that offer. I guess they can't use that help. *shrug*

I even briefly considered setting up vogl and see if I it's feasible to give them a complete GL dump (depending on how big that would be; I have no idea). Unfortunately, the vogl build script gives me a weird chroot error on my Debian system, and I can't make heads or tails of that. And I frankly don't see why I should put so much time into that on a hunch, especially when I have too much stuff going on already anyway...
Beamboom Jul 9, 2014
Quoting: DrMcCoyThey said they can't replicate that bug, for some reason.

I got a strong suspicion that reason is because they don't even have a Linux box in their office.

As far as I recall it's a game built on Unity. They chose "compile -> Linux" in their menu and just assumed it would work.
That is what my gut feeling tells me.
xuwang Jul 9, 2014
Quoting: BeamboomAs far as I recall it's a game built on Unity. They chose "compile -> Linux" in their menu and just assumed it would work.
That is what my gut feeling tells me.

That is indeed what they probably did. I think it's more like "they assume there's a good chance it would kinda work and that's better than not giving a Linux build at all", which as we've seen with The Witcher is not necessarily true.
Shmerl Jul 9, 2014
Great to see Virtual Programming actually actively working on redesigning eON to improve performance. It means CDPR gave them resources to do that.

I still wonder who if anyone at all will be working on the Linux version of the Witcher 3? CDPR themselves or some external contractors like in this case?
Nyamiou Jul 9, 2014
That's really good news, there is too much games that are released with a lots of bugs and typically you have to wait months to have them fixed. Here they seems to be putting a lot of effort into fixing them fast.
jdub Jul 9, 2014
The best devs yet have been Hand of Fate....they actually installed ubuntu, and went out and got an nvidia card because of the reported issues....very impressed
GoCorinthians Jul 9, 2014
Every damn time that i close the game...its popup a error window!
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