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You might remember, that back in September last year I talked a little about Lutris and Overwatch [Official Site] together and how it was working well. Here’s an update on how it’s been going.

Overwatch, developed by Blizzard, is an online team-based shooter that feels a lot like Team Fortress 2 from Valve. However, as much as I’ve tried to get into TF2 it just doesn’t stick. TF2 feels like it has no identity, it feels…bland.

Overwatch on the other hand, is an incredibly exciting experience and I’m still very much a beginner. It has a pretty loud and proud identity, along with various animated shorts which help to suck you into the world. It’s something friends play practically religiously too, so it’s one of those times where I’ve felt a bit left out, well—no more!

When I tried it previously back in September last year, the performance was pretty good. Fast-forward multiple months, a few new versions of DXVK have come along and the experience is mind-blowing. I don’t want to oversell it, but seriously it’s so smooth I completely forget that the work done to get it working on Linux wasn’t done by Blizzard directly.

I should note, there’s still one downside. Before a cache is built, it will stutter and it doesn’t look good. However, before even when the cache had built there would still be odd bits of noticeable stutter and slowdowns. Since switching over to DXVK 0.95, that’s basically all gone. Honestly, it’s smoother than the majority of actual Linux versions of games I’ve played recently and that’s saying something big.

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My complete lack of skill aside, how smooth it is in that video I took of a recent game should speak for itself. You can see how well it performs and that’s with it on very high settings.

Additionally, an issue where the Blizzard Battle.net client would fail to login and say it went to sleep (something like that anyway) also seems to have gone away so that’s awesome too. The only issue I’m left with, is it starting in windowed mode needing a quick ALT+ENTER to fix and away I go. That’s less effort than I have to put into for some “native” Linux games, so it really doesn’t bother me.

It’s funny really, some of my own first steps on Linux involved mucking about with Wine. Here I am some thirteen years later, enjoying another game thanks to it (DXVK has helped a lot too of course). In a world without Windows, having Overwatch run rather nicely on Linux could be a big help for those looking to switch and test the waters.

Another shout out to Lutris, for making installing and managing the game a mostly painless experience. If you do have issues with Overwatch on Linux, this page can certainly help.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Video, Wine | Apps: Overwatch
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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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Lumumba Jan 21, 2019
TF2 has way more interesting game mechanics to master, rocket jumps, reflects, market gardener etc. etc.
but not everyone wants to invest many hours of training to master them.
gustavoyaraujo Jan 21, 2019
Has anyone tried Heroes of The Storm on Lutris?
shawnsterp Jan 21, 2019
Hey, Liam, I just gotta say thank you. Because of this, I decided I'd take a look at Overwatch, and was surprised to see that not only does Starcraft 2 have a platinum rating on lutris, but it is also free to play. Never made it to Overwatch (maybe in the future), but I am now reliving my childhood with SC2. Pretty cool.

Anyway, this was certainly not on my radar, so thanks!

BTW: I do have a graphical glitch in the battle.net interface where it is not rendering fonts correctly. It does for SOME things, but not others. In game is not affected, so no big deal, but let me know (anyone) if you know a fix for it. I haven't restarted the machine since I installed all this stuff (never used lutris before) so for all I know it is just that.
bgh251f2 Jan 21, 2019
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: devnull
Quoting: bgh251f2Also there is a complete lack of diversity among the chars. No women is really saddening. And no, Pyro doesn't count because there is no way to know that (s)he is a women.

... LOL, K. Overwatche(d) can keep that little political bombshell, it has no place in gaming. There are female models if it offends you that much :) I do know women who play TF2, gender has never been an issue for them.
How wanting both sexes (not genders) on a videogame is political? You have a real problem if you think that way.
He didn't say he was offended btw, also i know a lof of women that plays Overwatch every day but i don't know any PERSON that plays TF2 today. But somehow women characters are political and have no place in gaming.
Having a woman in BattlefieldV was political, a way to wash war criminals with SJW bullshit (the only women fighting in the WW2 were soviet women, but let's give a more feminine face to capitalist countries), having woman in a game like Overwatch is not political at all, there is a fucking GORILLA in the game and that's great.

Not only Gorilla, there's a hamster and a robot. And they are so diverse when playing. Of course lots of it happens because of the different time the games are available. TF2 is a very old game.

But yeah, I want more women on game, playing and as characters. Gay men too would be good. Don't know a game where I can play as a gay men, except of Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. And I'd like less "faggot and gay" being used as insult during gameplay. No wonder I almost never play multiplayer anymore. Or why i'm running from games with plot. Only once having a story for me would be cool.

It's not about politics, it's about having a game character I can identify myself with in a game that's not a dating simulator.
Liam Dawe Jan 21, 2019
I seriously don't get the issue some have with games actually including a more diverse cast :)

Sin (our streamer, a girl) plays Overwatch religiously and partly because it's so diverse and interesting.
gurv Jan 21, 2019
Honestly the performance seems disappointing.
Just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux998aNR9-Y
Same GPU as yours and ultra settings (vs very high for you) and the framerate never dips below ~140fps vs ~70fps for you.

So what appears to be less than half the performance of Windows is not exactly great.
I've been used to a lot better performance of DXVK in other games.
Dribbleondo Jan 21, 2019
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: kuhpunkt
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: Dribbleondo> TF2 feels like it has no identity, it feels…bland.

Strongly and violently disagree.
I've no doubt plenty will, what games people like is a very subjective thing.

But it already had great vibrant characters 10 years before Overwatch, and they already had shorts about the characters and comics and... hats! Many many hats! :(
I just don't see it. To me, TF2 has such a basic and uninteresting design to it. It has as much character as any other shooter out there. I mean, just look at the classes, they're extremely generic. You have a Medic, a Soldier and so on. Where's the character in that? There is none.

Yes, A mad scientist medic who uses a healy-beam medi-gun to heal people, a soldier who can rocket jump and is overly patriotic to the extreme. The scout who is cocky and boastful 24/7, The spy, enigmatic, hard to play, and very rewarding when played well. Totally boring classes that have different weapons for different situations. The game has character, you're just not seeing it.
Liam Dawe Jan 21, 2019
Quoting: gurvHonestly the performance seems disappointing.
Just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux998aNR9-Y
Same GPU as yours and ultra settings (vs very high for you) and the framerate never dips below ~140fps vs ~70fps for you.

So what appears to be less than half the performance of Windows is not exactly great.
I've been used to a lot better performance of DXVK in other games.
Considering this is all 100% unofficial, it's pretty damn good.
Ehvis Jan 21, 2019
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Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: gurvHonestly the performance seems disappointing.
Just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux998aNR9-Y
Same GPU as yours and ultra settings (vs very high for you) and the framerate never dips below ~140fps vs ~70fps for you.

So what appears to be less than half the performance of Windows is not exactly great.
I've been used to a lot better performance of DXVK in other games.
Considering this is all 100% unofficial, it's pretty damn good.

Well, that video was on 1080p while your video was 4k. Were you actually playing the game on 4k resolution?
Liam Dawe Jan 21, 2019
Quoting: Ehvis
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: gurvHonestly the performance seems disappointing.
Just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux998aNR9-Y
Same GPU as yours and ultra settings (vs very high for you) and the framerate never dips below ~140fps vs ~70fps for you.

So what appears to be less than half the performance of Windows is not exactly great.
I've been used to a lot better performance of DXVK in other games.
Considering this is all 100% unofficial, it's pretty damn good.

Well, that video was on 1080p while your video was 4k. Were you actually playing the game on 4k resolution?
No, it's upscaled because otherwise YouTube murder 1080p videos.
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