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Saints Row 2 & 3 Are Being Ported By Virtual Programming

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With earlier news about another Saints Row game, a member of the community sent word that Virtual Programming have updated their website to include Saints Row 2 & 3 as in development.

We know their ports are still a bit controversial, but after how well they have done recently I think they deserve some pretty high praise. Their recent test-port of Arma 3 for example had beautiful performance, and I still hope it's promoted to a full port with VP.

If you don't remember, they don't port games "natively", but they use what people refer to as a "wrapper". The reason they still get flak as people are rather bitter from the initial port performance of The Witcher 2, but they have been getting better and better, and they are proving themselves.

They state the ports are currently in beta, and so they should be out before too long.

This doesn't really change my thoughts on it, as it's a great way to quickly boost our library, but how do you feel?

This also suggests that Saints Row IV and Saints Row: Gat out of Hell will be ported by someone else. Since neither are on VP's website.

Thanks for letting us know @k4os77. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Liam Dawe Oct 10, 2015
Quoting: Beamboom
Quote"The reason they still get flak as people are rather bitter from the initial port performance of The Witcher 2"
I don't believe that's the reason at all, not anymore. They've long confirmed for all that their wrapper is running well indeed.
This very site had an excellent article a while ago that presented a long range of rational reasons why VRs closed-source wrapper is not the way forward for Linux gaming.

My personal problem with it is that it's not native code. Not because native code is guaranteed to run better (as we know in real-life examples now) but for the longer term advantages. But as the article I refer to also pointed out - if VR instead had joined the Wine crew in their efforts to optimize that solution, it would have gained Linux as a whole a great deal more.

I'm still gonna play'em games though. :)

It's not the way forward for titles from let's say at the very least made this year and onwards, but for older titles we may have never gotten anyway, why the heck not.

If by VR I guess you mean VP :P

If VP joined Wine, guess what would happen? They would go out of business obviously, their business is based around their tech and so be it. Not to mention Wine sales count for Windows, not Linux, so go figure.
Nanobang Oct 10, 2015
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I guess I've never really understood the hubbub surrounding wrapped vs. native ports. Native or wrapped, if the game is playable on my Linux box --- especially if it's a AAA title --- then I'm do-a-little-dance happy.
boltronics Oct 11, 2015
Quoting: liamdaweIf VP joined Wine, guess what would happen? They would go out of business obviously, their business is based around their tech and so be it. Not to mention Wine sales count for Windows, not Linux, so go figure.

Not sure I can agree with you there. A lot of games getting ports (such as the recently announced Overlord 1 and 2) have long since ran perfectly under Wine, and yet contracts are still handed out to release native game ports for such titles. There are many reasons for this, such as short-term advantages in distancing the main developer/publisher from testing, packaging and support responsibilities.

If VP took Wine, add compatibility for Saints Row 1 & 2, and used that solution to package the wrapped game and support it, everyone would win. VP would still get their $$, would have had less work to get there, and end users would end up with a better version of Wine at the end which doesn't cut into VP's profits (but could help them save money in future).

The other problem you mentioned is Wine sales counting for Windows - but is that really happening? If so, is it really a problem? As of today, http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey says Windows is at 95.71, OS X is at 3.23, and GNU/Linux is at 0.94. That comes to 99.88% of operating systems accounted for, so what about the other 0.12%? Probably, that's your percentage of people running Wine.

Regardless, Valve knows the number of people who play under Wine. When you submit the Steam Hardware & Software Survey form, it shows you the data sent, and it clearly detects and sends information about Wine (if applicable) such as the version in use. I'm sure Valve could make that information available to developers if there were enough interest in doing so.

I'm not sure what Beamboom means exactly by "if VR[sic] instead had joined the Wine crew", but I do believe VP should have based their work on the Wine project and gave back to the community, both for the cost savings and for the betterment of Wine for all.
Corben Oct 16, 2015
Looks like both entries (SR2 and SR3) are gone from the "In development" section?
supermonkey77 Oct 17, 2015
Hopefully VP will allow the Gentlemen Of The Row mod for Saints Row 2 otherwise the game is virtually unplayable.
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