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With the Saints Row 2 report out of the way and performing terribly, I have also taken some time to look at Saints Row: The Third.

Note: May contain spoilers.

A much nicer start up than Saints Row 2, it has proper mouse support! Looks like when it was originally created they put at least a little more thought into the PC version.

The game has probably one of the most annoying DLC introductions I've ever seen. I purchased the big pack on Steam, so once I got out of the introduction section it presented me with a screen I had to press enter on for every pack I purchased. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

Linux performance
Tested at 1080p (1920x1080) on High settings. Pairing an Intel i7 with an Nvidia 980ti.

The game was stuttering in the initial intro sequence video, which didn't exactly set things up very well for me.

During the first section it was actually running okay, there was a bit of stutter here and there but not at all that much. FPS wise it was still all over the place, with it bouncing between 70 and 100FPS. It was playable though, much more than Saints Row 2 was. When you get further into this section, shooting down helicopters and seeing many more police teams come in the game then starts to get a little on the ugly side. It dips down to 40FPS and stutters a bit more.

Once you're on the plane the FPS is much better, but you're in a pretty enclosed space so that's not really surprising. It was hitting 110FPS max in the corridoors. Once you get outside, and you're free-falling the FPS will once again bounce around. It wasn't actually too bad at all, only one dip down to 40FPS when a car exploded, but it soon stabilized. This section was actually quite nice performance wise and gameplay wise it was quite fun.

Once you're in the city the FPS becomes much lower overall. It will generally hover between 40-70FPS. For a 980ti, this is again, really not very impressive. It will stutter at times, and become a little sluggish, but I was able to at least enjoy what I was playing with Saints Row: The Third.

I can accept lower performance in games where it's not directly needed (Like XCOM 2), but in a 3rd person action-heavy shooter like Saints Row: The Third it's not great.

Overall, the game looks far better than Saints Row 2, and performs quite a bit better, but overall still quite poor. I couldn't imagine playing this with a worse CPU and GPU than mine, and mine are top-end, so I wouldn't want to try it on something lower.

You can find Saints Row: The Third on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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adamhm Apr 14, 2016
Performance could be better, but it's playable - on my system I'm generally getting around 30-40fps even in the city, running at 1920x1200 ultra settings.

i7 2600k @ 4.4GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 750Ti with proprietary drivers (364.15), Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon


Last edited by adamhm on 14 April 2016 at 9:24 pm UTC
Keyrock Apr 14, 2016
SR3 was a much more proper PC port on Windows than the famously terrible SR2 port, still not brilliant, mind you, but much better, so there's more hope that Virtual Programming's eON port of SR3 will improve over time (whereas hope of improvement to the SR2 port is lower since the Windows port was so awful to begin with). I'm downloading it now.
apocalyptech Apr 14, 2016
The stuttering thing on the initial videos is something that happened to me in both SR4 and GooH as well, and persisted for a little while when new areas of the map were opened, etc. The game must be, I dunno, compiling shaders or something when that's happening, because in all cases, the second time through playing it, there's always basically no stuttering for me. The opening cinematics of both SR4 and SR3 were basically not watchable for me on the first time through, but then on the second time they play totally fine. (And similarly, the occasional stuttering when going into new areas went away once I'd moved through them once.)

So certainly weird, and definitely doesn't make a good first impression, but at least (in my experience, anyway) it does go away.


Last edited by apocalyptech on 14 April 2016 at 10:16 pm UTC
I'm pleased with SR3. It works well with a PS4 controller even though the prompts show Xbox buttons. The frame rate is solid 60 at medium settings 1080p on my system (vsync enabled):

i7 4790k, 32gb 2400Mhz ram, GTX670 with proprietory drivers, Mint 17.3 Cinnamon.
fagnerln Apr 14, 2016
Someone knows how to cap FPS?
Apply Vsync in Nvidia Settings doesn't work anymore.
PublicNuisance Apr 14, 2016
When it's that bad on a GTX 980 Ti the rest of us are even more screwed haha.
TheinsanegamerN Apr 15, 2016
The co-op is buggy as well. Friend downloaded it, the game crashes upon trying to join or host a coop session. Hopefully this gets fixed. Would love to do a hardcore runthrough again.
Akira Kazama Apr 15, 2016
I have installed the game, the performance was awful at first, completely unplayable, but after some time it has almost the same performance as Saints Row IV, with some occasional stuttering.

I'm playing with a AMD FX 6300 and a GeForce GTX 950.
Keyrock Apr 15, 2016
It plays fine on my beastly machine. Not brilliant numbers, mind you, but very playable. Only had a couple stutters during the opening cutscene the first time I watched it (no stutters the second time), other than that the game runs smooth, at FPS lower than it should on my system, but quite playable.
Xpander Apr 15, 2016
Quoting: Username already takenI'm pleased with SR3. It works well with a PS4 controller even though the prompts show Xbox buttons. The frame rate is solid 60 at medium settings 1080p on my system (vsync enabled):

i7 4790k, 32gb 2400Mhz ram, GTX670 with proprietory drivers, Mint 17.3 Cinnamon.

you seriously can't be happy to run it at medium (which makes the game look like sh**) with the hardware you have.
this game is old and i expect to run it 60+ 1080p on high or ultra settings with midrange GPUs and up
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