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Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition released with Linux support

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition from Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montréal and Square Enix has been released today with a Linux port available from Feral Interactive.

If you're in the camp of preferring the first Tomb Raider reboot to Rise of the Tomb Raider, fear not, as Shadow of the Tomb Raider is apparently much better. However, I think you're all rather odd as I thoroughly enjoyed the first two games. That's okay though, different opinions on fun are what keep the world going. It's fantastic to see Linux get the full trilogy, since we often miss out.

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Thanks to Linux getting the port later, we get the full Definitive Edition which comes with all seven DLC challenge tombs, as well as all downloadable weapons, outfits and skills.

Linux port details

Running with the Vulkan API, the Linux version should run well for most gamers. Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit is the main distribution they're supporting but it should (as with their other ports) work fine across most others.

As for specifications, Feral Interactive said for NVIDIA you need at least the 418.56 driver and AMD requires Mesa 19.0.1 or newer. Intel GPUs are not supported. On top of that you're going to want at a minimum a 2GB AMD R9 285 (GCN 3rd Generation) or a 2GB Nvidia GTX 680
 according to their Steam listed specifications. To get the most out of it though? The recommended specifications on Steam are an 8GB AMD Radeon RX 480 or an 8GB Nvidia GTX 1080
.

Sometimes it really is the little things, like Feral Interactive's customized Linux launcher. It always looks great styled to the game and helps to show just how much attention they give to their ports:

Not just good looking though, as it's feature filled too. It will ask you if you want to send crash reports to Feral directly, helping them to further improve. Always good to see something like that. Many other helpful things included like setting you resolution and preferred screen, accessing the soundtrack and wallpapers, direct support links and more.

If you wish to get the most out of the performance, ensure your CPU is set into High Performance mode. You can do this manually if you wish, by entering this in your choice terminal app:

echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Played before and found your save game doesn't appear? You can try to copy it over to:

~/.local/share/feral-interactive/Shadow of the Tomb Raider/SaveData/[steamid]

As for the performance, during my testing this evening on Manjaro Linux it performs incredibly well. Even when absolutely maxed out (above the "Highest" preset), with anti-aliasing on the maximum SMAAT2x it was seeing an average of 125FPS which is awesome.

The 2080 Ti is obviously a very powerful card, so here's a look at how some other cards perform in comparison at various levels.

That's a very well optimised port, at least when going by benchmark results the Linux port performs extremely well. After playing a bunch of it myself, it holds up too. The actual real-world gameplay is quite often better than what the benchmark shows, regularly much higher as benchmarks are usually a stress-test of course.

During the gameplay, even with the 1060 on High settings it remained smooth and enjoyable. Certainly seems like Feral Interactive have done some outstanding work here.

Click to enlarge screenshots, all taken in the Linux version.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an incredibly pretty game, some of it is truly gorgeous. That intro scene too certainly got the blood flowing—how intense!

Much like the first two instalments, there's plenty of over the top action scenes that have you run, swing and leap to safety which I always enjoy. It's like being truly part of a movie at times, I once again feel like I need to own a Pickaxe as it seems they're handy for all occasions. It's a lot more of the same, with a few tweaks that doesn't really change the overall formula. That's to be expected though, since this is the third and final part of this story. It would be a little odd to see them drastically change it. So if you enjoyed Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider, you will certainly have a lot of fun with this one as well.

However, there's a lot of newer little features and changes in Shadow. When climbing for example, you can now rappel down from rocks onto platforms below. It's only a small change but a welcome addition to everything else, especially as it helps keep the tension going. You're already running and leaping from one unstable platform to another, frantically tapping your key to grab on, now you've got to rappel and swing from a rope up high and hopefully not fall to your doom? Sure why not.

Where to buy

You can pick up Shadow of the Tomb Raider Definitive Edition from Humble Store, Feral Store and Steam. If you own the normal version, you should be able to upgrade. Recommended? A resounding yes.


We will be having a livestream of the release tonight on Twitch, Sin (our streamer) will also be showing off plenty more of it throughout the week.

As another reminder, we also still have Life is Strange 2 and Total War Saga: TROY to come from Feral Interactive as well.

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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tuubi Nov 18, 2019
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Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoI'm happy (and surprised) to report that winner is the Linux version!!!
Good job, Feral!

Sadly, I can not test the Linux version on Windows 7. (And If it is possible, I don't know how)
You can't test the DX12 backend on Windows 7 either, right? The game is supposed to run better with DX12 than DX11 for most users. I've seen benchmarks that indicate more or less equal performance across the operating systems on both Nvidia and AMD hardware. Feral did a great job.
pete910 Nov 18, 2019
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Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoAnd my Benchmarks are here..

Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS. i7 4790K @4Ghz. 2x8GB DDR3 2400 CL 11. RTX 2060 SUPER. 1080p-Vsync OFF. Graphics settings at HIGH (or ULTRA, when is possible).


Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS. i7 4790K @4Ghz. 2x8GB DDR3 2400 CL 11. RTX 2060 SUPER. 1080p-Vsync ON. Graphics settings at HIGH (or ULTRA, when is possible).

Time to retire that 4790k, it's a severe bottle neck !
Comandante Ñoñardo Nov 18, 2019
Quoting: pete910Time to retire that 4790k, it's a severe bottle neck !


One, that hardware belongs to my Windows 7 SP1 machine.... And is not a pirated Windows; is a legit one and it doesn't support recent processors.

Two, Impossible to retire that CPU with the actual economical situation of Argentina...
pete910 Nov 19, 2019
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Quoting: Comandante Ñoñardo
Quoting: pete910Time to retire that 4790k, it's a severe bottle neck !


One, that hardware belongs to my Windows 7 SP1 machine.... And is not a pirated Windows; is a legit one and it doesn't support recent processors.

Two, Impossible to retire that CPU with the actual economical situation of Argentina...

Odd, win 7 ran fine on my ryzen 1

Legit or not makes no difference, not that I implied you had pirated anything :O

Argentinas economical situation I can't help with, though I would have thought it's down to the individuals economical situation :P
Comandante Ñoñardo Nov 19, 2019
Quoting: pete910
Quoting: Comandante Ñoñardo
Quoting: pete910Time to retire that 4790k, it's a severe bottle neck !


One, that hardware belongs to my Windows 7 SP1 machine.... And is not a pirated Windows; is a legit one and it doesn't support recent processors.

Two, Impossible to retire that CPU with the actual economical situation of Argentina...

Odd, win 7 ran fine on my ryzen 1

Legit or not makes no difference, not that I implied you had pirated anything :O

Argentinas economical situation I can't help with, though I would have thought it's down to the individuals economical situation :P

I am not an Intel fanboy, but I don't like the PGA mechanism of the AM4 socket...
I prefer the LGA of the Intel CPU sockets and AMD Threadripper TR4 socket.

Eventually I'm gonna build a new machine. I don't care if I use Intel or AMD, but it must have an LGA socket.
x_wing Nov 20, 2019
Quoting: pete910Argentinas economical situation I can't help with, though I would have thought it's down to the individuals economical situation :P

Yeah, in the end is all related to individual situations... and if you were fast enough in order to buy before the devaluation XD

By the way, Comandante is definitely a LGA fanboy ;) Still, I went from a 3470k to a 3700X, no regrets!
pete910 Nov 20, 2019
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Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: pete910Argentinas economical situation I can't help with, though I would have thought it's down to the individuals economical situation :P

Yeah, in the end is all related to individual situations... and if you were fast enough in order to buy before the devaluation XD

By the way, Comandante is definitely a LGA fanboy ;) Still, I went from a 3470k to a 3700X, no regrets!

Ironically it has been the source of pain recently for intell with a few of their chips failing due to the pads burning under load !

Not sure how it makes a difference either way, once it's installed that's the last time you see it until upgrade.

Though I guess the not so careful don't like the pins on PGA chips d
Comandante Ñoñardo Nov 21, 2019
And is on sale again....
slapin Nov 24, 2019
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i7 2600K runs perfectly well.
beko Dec 2, 2019
It's interesting how much the cpu governor affects the gaming experience. First one is with powersave and has micro stutters all over the place. Second one is performance and smooth (enough for my display that does 60 max anyway xD)




Kinda cool that a game shows a gpu bound value here :D Used nvidia-smi before to find out about bottle necks.
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