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God of War is now on Steam and runs out of the box on Linux with Proton

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Something that still doesn't quite feel right somehow is seeing the likes of a PlayStation logo on Linux. Anyway, the smash hit God of War is now on Steam and works right away on Linux. You can thank Steam Play Proton for that.

It's hard to believe the changing face of gaming sometimes. Previously console exclusive games now coming to PC more often. A trend I hope to see continue for years to come. Of course the new release comes with the kinds of things you would expect like enhanced graphics, ultra-wide support, NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR and so on.

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Enter the Norse realm
His vengeance against the Gods of Olympus years behind him, Kratos now lives as a man in the realm of Norse Gods and monsters. It is in this harsh, unforgiving world that he must fight to survive… and teach his son to do the same.

Grasp a second chance
Kratos is a father again. As mentor and protector to Atreus, a son determined to earn his respect, he is forced to deal with and control the rage that has long defined him while out in a very dangerous world with his son.

Journey to a dark, elemental world of fearsome creatures
From the marble and columns of ornate Olympus to the gritty forests, mountains and caves of pre-Viking Norse lore, this is a distinctly new realm with its own pantheon of creatures, monsters and gods.

Engage in visceral, physical combat
With an over the shoulder camera that brings the player closer to the action than ever before, fights in God of War™ mirror the pantheon of Norse creatures Kratos will face: grand, gritty and grueling. A new main weapon and new abilities retain the defining spirit of the God of War series while presenting a vision of conflict that forges new ground in the genre.

There's some really heavy stuttering though with an NVIDIA GPU. As always with more graphically intense games built for Windows and run through Proton, they need time to build up a shader cache. Once that is done, eventually Steam will have it to give out while the game downloads for your machine to sort it ahead of time. So, if you want a smooth experience, it usually pays to wait a week or so. That said, if you want to put up with the stuttering for a bit, don't let us stop you as outside of that, it seems to play quite brilliantly.

Like me, you might find that the lip-syncing voice audio is completely off though. It's possible you can fix that by adding this as a Steam launch option:

PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 %command%
In my own testing, that made it match up much better but not always.

One possible way to improve day-1 performance in this and other single-player games is to use the community built  Proton-GE, which you can get easily with ProtonUp-Qt. Proton-GE has DXVK_ASYNC, which can help reduce stutter but is not recommended for multiplayer titles as it can trip up anti-cheat. In my own testing, it made God of War massively smoother. If you choose to try that out it's this launch option: DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%

Since I'm not much of a console gamer, even though I do own multiple consoles, I completely missed this and had no idea that Christopher Judge was the voice actor for Kratos so if you'll excuse me I have some fanboying to do.

You can buy it on Humble Store and Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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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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damarrin Jan 17, 2022
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Quoting: 14While the scenery is incredible at times, there wasn't enough actual action and gameplay for me.

Huh. That's a very interesting take, if anything, the game is overflowing with action, the only times of peace are when you're
Spoiler, click me
rowing around the lake for a bit.
einherjar Jan 17, 2022
Quoting: etoven
Quoting: einherjar
Quoting: d10sfanRuns pretty bad with nvidia 1070, so refunded it for now.

Oh, sad, I am on a 1070TI@1440p - that may be not enough for good gameplay :-(

Give it a go.. I am running perfect on my GTX 1060. No issues at all. Got many settings to ultra proton experimental.

@1440p?
Leopard Jan 17, 2022
Quoting: GuestIt would be nice if someone put up a performance test on youtube so we can see how well it's running right now. How good is the performance with the DXVK_ASYNC=1 option? And how does the performance currently compare to the performance in windows10.

There are currently a lot of people on windows10 who have severe fluctuations from 39 fps to over 80 fps. Is this problem also present on Linux?

I use DXVK async patch on top of DXVK master ( i've built it myself as dxvk-async repro only provides builds for releases, which GoW fixes of DXVK are not in a release, just in master )

It is just night and day difference compared to normal DXVK master.

My system is i7 7700HQ,GTX 1050.

Zero stutters with DXVK async on top of master. Lots of stutters with DXVK master.
sarmad Jan 17, 2022
Thanks, Liam, for the tip. That `PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60` completely saved the game for me.
gabber Jan 18, 2022
Quoting: WorMzyOh boy, another developer that can't be arsed to support Linux, but will still benefit financially from open source software picking up their slack. Whoopee.

It's a bit more complicated than that:

1.) If you buy it on Steam, Valve gets a cut. And Valve is investing in open source software.
2.) AFAIK it will be registered as a Linux purchase
3.) Your steam friends on windows see you playing God of War, makes them think again about "you need windows for AAA-gaming"

Sure it would be great if Sony made a Linux version, but perfect is also the enemy of good.

I think waiting for pure linux ports is not helping:
1.) At some point valve will look at what the sales due to Proton were.
2.) The people around us will see us only play very few / niche games, cementing the "you need windows for AAA-gaming".
lukas333 Jan 18, 2022
Can't wait to play it when it will be at a reasonable price.
Vasya Sovari Jan 22, 2022
A game I didn't buy on release purely because I still haven't played any of the AAAs I bought a year ago. I will the moment it goes on sale
cookiEoverdose Jan 26, 2022
Quoting: rustigsmed
Quoting: cookiEoverdose
Quoting: rustigsmedso getting between 80-135 fps ultra 1440p. proton experimental (5950x 6900xt).
there are frame drops at times but generally in changing cut scenes rather than in the action. definitely playable - looks great.
Getting only fps in the low forties @high 1440p, proton experimental (rtx2080).

seems a bit low? is it an nvidia issue?

Not sure, but I can say it is running 20-30% faster under Win 10 Pro.
(I was curious and installed it)
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