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Observer [Steam, Official Site], the cyberpunk horror game from Aspyr Media and Bloober Team is now available on Linux. Strap in and become a neural detective! Also, it's 15% off on Steam!

Features:

  • Observe and Report - You are Dan Lazarski, an elite neural detective known as an Observer, and part of a corporate-funded police unit whose purpose is to hack and invade suspects’ minds. In this future, anything you think, feel, or remember can be used against you in a court of law.
  • A Dark Dystopia - The year is 2084. If you somehow survived the Nanophage, odds are you were killed in the War. Those who live have turned to drugs, VR, neural implants— anything to distract themselves from this new reality. But they can’t hide from you.
  • Interactive Insanity - As you hack into the unstable minds of criminals and victims to look for clues, you will relive their darkest fears, forcing you to question your own reality -- and your sanity.
  • A New Horror from the Creators of Layers of Fear - The largest and most frightening world yet from Bloober Team! Lose yourself -- and your sanity -- in the dark dystopia that is 2084. >observer_ is a horror experience meant for mature audiences. What you see will disturb you.

System requirements

I was hoping for the launch to have better news to report about it supporting AMD GPUs on Linux, but prepare yourself. I spoke with Aspyr Media, who confirmed to me the team has "currently no plans to support AMD at this time for Observer".

So for now, you're only supported using an Nvidia GPU and that might not change in future. It's possible it may work, but I do not have AMD hardware to report on. Here's the rest of the requirements:

  • Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04, 17.04, SteamOS 2.0
  • Processor: Intel Core i3 / AMD A8-6700
  • Processor Speed: Intel (3.4 GHz), AMD (3.1 GHz)
  • Memory: 8 GB
  • Hard Drive Space: 10 GB
  • Video Card (NVIDIA): GeForce GT 680
  • VRAM: 2 GB

I shall be livestreaming the game in less than an hour - follow us live on Twitch to get in on the fun. Someone pass me my spare pants, I'm going to need them. Note: My key was provided by Aspyr Media directly.

I've given it a very brief test before I begin the livestream and it does seem to work fine on High settings with my i7 5960x and 980ti, although it's not a solid 60FPS.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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48 comments
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jasondaigo Oct 27, 2017
Quoting: jensit seems you bought the wrong card.

this for itself is 100% troll comment; dont work around it; just stop
Liam Dawe Oct 27, 2017
There is no right or wrong card, it's personal preference, not a contest ;)

I would happily go AMD myself, if issues like this didn't come up. For me personally, I just want to know that I can play all my games which is usually the case with Nvidia that stuff works. Once AMD get in a great state, which I estimate is another year away yet, then I will likely consider switching.
slaapliedje Oct 27, 2017
The problem for me in the past when I have had ATI/AMD cards is not just their Linux support was bad, but their Windows support too. I would love a fully open-source gpu. Lady ones I seem to have had that worked great were the Matrox cards before the Parhelia. They worked wonderfully. Then they started going the binary route...

I still remember using the computer of a friend of mine where the Catalyst control pabel would crash every time when I would click on a specific button.
jens Oct 27, 2017
  • Supporter
Quoting: liamdaweThere is no right or wrong card, it's personal preference
Exactly. All cards have strength and weaknesses, nothing is perfect. There are only wrong buying choices for your personal preferences and expectations.

If you bought a Ferrari and want to transport 6 people with comfort from A to B, I would say you bought the wrong car for your purpose or preference, right? This has nothing to do with how shiny or fast the Ferrari can go.

I'm sure AMD is doing great, but it is not the card (yet) that everybody supports due to still being experimental drivers and stack. Just accept that when buying such a card, be cool and be patient. And no, nvidia is not the holy grail, far from. AMD is much better at system integration, but nvidia shines with being stable and solid for gaming.


Last edited by jens on 27 October 2017 at 7:51 pm UTC
jens Oct 29, 2017
  • Supporter
Quoting: jens
Quoting: XpanderMight need some ini file tweaks for it.
Do you happen to know the settings for a correct aspect ratio for a resolution of 3440x1440 too? I can select that resolution in the settings, but that results in black boarders on the sides.
Otherwise the games runs perfectly fine.

This trick works on Linux too:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/514900/discussions/0/1471968797465016980/

Looks really cool now in 21:9 ;)
johndoe Nov 20, 2017
Quoting: eldersnakeSeems to run well at first on my AMD 380X on Mesa git (well, git as of last week heh).

However as soon as I open the first door in the apartment complex, the screen goes black. If I stay just inside the door and look out I can see the courtyard thingy where the birds are, but as soon as I edge through the door the whole screen goes black as if there's zero lighting :<

Tapani from Intel and me solved this problem:)
Read here... https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=103801

Using this patch with mesa master (mesa-17.4.0-devel) works for me with Intel Iris Pro 5200.
The issue was a GLSL spec restriction - with this patch it should work for all mesa users.

I will test the patch if it also works for stable (17.2.5) as soon as I'm back at home.


Last edited by johndoe on 20 November 2017 at 12:53 pm UTC
johndoe Nov 20, 2017
Tested the patch now also with 17.2.5 and 17.3.0-rc5 > works!
Happy gaming AMD and Intel mesa users!

@AMD-mesa-users: Please report back if it works for you - and of course to Aspyr.
We need "official" Mesa support.


Last edited by johndoe on 20 November 2017 at 7:02 pm UTC
eldersnake Nov 21, 2017
Quoting: johndoeTested the patch now also with 17.2.5 and 17.3.0-rc5 > works!
Happy gaming AMD and Intel mesa users!

@AMD-mesa-users: Please report back if it works for you - and of course to Aspyr.
We need "official" Mesa support.

Thanks heaps man! It works fine here, on AMD 380X with Mesa-git on Arch Linux :D
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