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A New The Witcher 2 Linux Beta Appears, Improved Performance

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Virtual Programming might just redeem themselves and their Eon technology yet. A new beta (today) for The Witcher 2 has been put onto Steam, and with it some performance fixes.

In my own personal testing the input lag is almost gone now, and in general it doesn't feel so sluggish anymore, but I cannot give an exact FPS comparison with the last beta as GLXOSD seems to make the game instant crash now. If you do manage to benchmark it at all be sure to let us know if the FPS is any better for you.

Looks like the game might be playable by the end of the year.

The new patch contains this:
- Optimised shader compilation to link OpenGL programs in waves, instead of one by one, which makes it possible to speed it up using threaded shader compilation on some cards.
- Drawing of fullscreen quads optimised
- Optimized out some memory barrier commands from OpenGL command queue
- OpenGL rendering never lags more than one frame behind commands given by D3D, which should reduce mouse lag.
- Added better reporting of missing extensions in game log, to make it more visible when the game is slow due to OpenGL not supporting various features.
- Undid the regression of fullscreen monitor selection support - this should now work correctly again
- OpenAL used for sound instead of SDL, so it should improve sound drop-outs

You can see the full info on the unofficial github page they are using to publish the info.

Check out The Witcher 2 on Steam if you dare to dip your toes. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, Steam
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About the author -
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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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34 comments
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GoCorinthians Aug 11, 2014
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: GoCorinthians
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: GoCorinthiansmight be playable by the end of the year? lmao...im playing it maxsettings(ubber off) from beggining and now at dragon tower fight(dark mode) no problem at all, only after closing the game I get always a crash...apart that not problem at all.
You need to remember what works for you does not always for others. There was massive complaints about it when it came out, and that's the reason they keep doing big performance patches.
liam off-topic.

Mind Path to thalamus is avaiable in linux steam...no article until about it...maybe its out yesterday...
You mean http://store.steampowered.com/app/296070/ which is windows only? Why would I write about that...?

really strange...dev said that ue3 isnt compatible with linux...but i downloaded it in steam linux...

STiAT Aug 11, 2014
Quoting: GoCorinthians
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: GoCorinthians
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: GoCorinthiansmight be playable by the end of the year? lmao...im playing it maxsettings(ubber off) from beggining and now at dragon tower fight(dark mode) no problem at all, only after closing the game I get always a crash...apart that not problem at all.
You need to remember what works for you does not always for others. There was massive complaints about it when it came out, and that's the reason they keep doing big performance patches.
liam off-topic.

Mind Path to thalamus is avaiable in linux steam...no article until about it...maybe its out yesterday...
You mean http://store.steampowered.com/app/296070/ which is windows only? Why would I write about that...?
really strange...dev said that ue3 isnt compatible with linux...but i downloaded a file of 1gb in steam linux...


Really interesting you see it in your linux games. In April they stated the Engine does not support it.
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/244996887/540738050890916116/

Tried to play it?
Xpander Aug 11, 2014
Quoting: GoCorinthiansreally strange...dev said that ue3 isnt compatible with linux...but i downloaded a file of 1gb in steam linux...


because it has openVR for linux, which probably came with the package and they forgot to remove it.

http://steamdb.info/app/296070/depots/
STiAT Aug 11, 2014
Quoting: GuestWhile performance has improved, and the mouse responsiveness is better (well, the screen update to processed mouse events...that was always the frame buffering delay), but it's still not quite playable for me. Still, large gains compared to what it was like when released, so there's hope for one day enjoying it.

Still beta - let's keep our hopes up :).
GoCorinthians Aug 11, 2014
Quoting: STiAT
Quoting: GoCorinthians
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: GoCorinthians
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: GoCorinthiansmight be playable by the end of the year? lmao...im playing it maxsettings(ubber off) from beggining and now at dragon tower fight(dark mode) no problem at all, only after closing the game I get always a crash...apart that not problem at all.
You need to remember what works for you does not always for others. There was massive complaints about it when it came out, and that's the reason they keep doing big performance patches.
liam off-topic.

Mind Path to thalamus is avaiable in linux steam...no article until about it...maybe its out yesterday...
You mean http://store.steampowered.com/app/296070/ which is windows only? Why would I write about that...?
really strange...dev said that ue3 isnt compatible with linux...but i downloaded a file of 1gb in steam linux...


Really interesting you see it in your linux games. In April they stated the Engine does not support it.
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/244996887/540738050890916116/

Tried to play it?
missing executable...like witcher 2 before releasing it!
Ivancillo Aug 11, 2014
It is really true that GoG.com is very conservative when releasing / supporting games.

So conservative that they release games for Linux of other companies rather than publish its in-house games.

They seem to prefer to publish it on Steam either.

Crazy world.
EKRboi Aug 11, 2014
I was never able to get glxosd to run with this game so I have no numbers. The last beta made it at least "playable" and this one has improved as well. I don't feel like framerate has risen much as it still seems like 20-30fps but it does feel more responsive. It is still struggling way too much for me to have 2 gtx 580's though. Im playing on high -uber -motion blur -ssao

EDIT* oh WOW! scratch what I just said. This beta is a mega improvement! The feeling of being more responsive before must have just been placebo :S: I forgot that I had renamed the witcher bin to launcher so that steam would launch it directly instead of the actual launcher. So when it updated for the new beta and I launched it from steam it was still launching the last beta bin. It is now running at least twice the last beta's framerate and possibly even 60fps. Very pleased with these new enhancements. Kudos to CDPR for stepping up and really improving it. Just symlinked launcher to witcher bin so I don't make that mistake again :D

EDIT again* I'm able to push it up to ultra now and it runs smoothly as well.
BillNyeTheBlackGuy Aug 11, 2014
Quoting: STiAT@Beamboom well, it does play pretty acceptable if you do have a good graphics card. The 7xx versions of NVidia seem to be pretty okay, on lower cards you really get low fps.

Runs fine on my 660ti gtx.
STiAT Aug 11, 2014
Quoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuy
Quoting: STiAT@Beamboom well, it does play pretty acceptable if you do have a good graphics card. The 7xx versions of NVidia seem to be pretty okay, on lower cards you really get low fps.
Runs fine on my 660ti gtx.

Interesting, but I guess perception of people is different too what is "fine" and what is not :).
BillNyeTheBlackGuy Aug 11, 2014
Quoting: STiAT
Quoting: BillNyeTheBlackGuy
Quoting: STiAT@Beamboom well, it does play pretty acceptable if you do have a good graphics card. The 7xx versions of NVidia seem to be pretty okay, on lower cards you really get low fps.
Runs fine on my 660ti gtx.
Interesting, but I guess perception of people is different too what is "fine" and what is not :).

Well I don't have a program to check FPS, but it does feel better than 40 for me on high settings. Not close to the windows version, but it's very playable.

On low settings the game performs at 60 fps for me. I don't need a program to tell me that.
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