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PayPalOriginally developed by Creative Assembly and published by SEGA, Total War: WARHAMMER II is another Linux port from Feral Interactive. Arriving on Linux a little over a year after the Windows release, it's another game to use the Vulkan API on Linux (the Windows version continues with DirectX).
This also marks Feral’s 24th Linux port (27th if counting standalone expansions).
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This is actually the second game in a planned trilogy, with Total War: WARHAMMER II offering up a new narrative campaign. If you own the first Total War: WARHAMMER, you can grab the Mortal Empires free DLC which enables you to battle across a huge combined campaign map which stitches both games together. That sounds really rather exciting!
It’s quite a popular game, with it regularly hitting well over twenty thousand people and so having it on Linux and officially supporting is a great thing.
I’ve spoken to Feral Interactive, who confirmed that sadly again the online multiplayer is only for Linux and Mac, it will not work with Windows. Hopefully in future Feral will be able to work with developers even more closely to make fully cross-platform multiplayer a thing.
As expected, it comes with the Feral launcher styled appropriately to the game. It looks good, it's functional and I personally find it quite useful. Being able to pick a screen to display the game on and resolution before you load a game is really nice.
I know some people groan about launchers, but I think when done as well as they are for Feral games, they're more useful than annoying.
Some benchmarks are up next. All done at 1080p with the NVIDIA 415.13 driver. Worth noting that while Feral's system requirements state it was tested on the 396.54 driver, they did say "or better".
Also, when maxing out the settings, the game does warn about "Shadow detail" being set to "Extreme" being likely to cause some performance problems. Not something you should really do, unless your machine is an absolute power-house. Just including that for fun to see how it levels out at the very top.
Here's some results for you:
Ubuntu 18.10 versus Windows 10 benchmarks. Done on the same hardware, both installs up to date. On the Windows 10 side, the NVIDIA 416.94 driver was used. The DirectX mode was picked as 11, since DirectX 12 support for it on Windows is only classed as a beta, so we are comparing properly released states.
In terms of performance, it seems Feral have done a really good job overall. They really know their stuff now and their work with Linux ports and the Vulkan API seems to be paying off to give us some well performing Linux games that can be enjoyed by many. Looking over Windows benchmarks other people have done, it's looking very close.
As for the gameplay and the campaigns on offer, I won't step on the toes of our contributor BTRE who will do it justice, but it certainly seems quite interesting. After going through a rather pretty intro video, the initial campaign load time on a HDD was quite long at 2-3 minutes (seems to be much faster on an SSD according to BTRE). Thankfully, loading the first battle took half the initial game loading time.
Once in, testing myself in the campaign on Ultra everything seems to be really smooth, not even the slightest hint of stutter seen. After a solid hour+ it's not given me any issues at all. Very happy with the Linux port, I'm not usually one for Total War games but even I'm quite impressed.
You can pick up a copy from Humble Store, Feral Store or head directly to Steam.
A full Linux gameplay review will be up within a week from BTRE as there was no advanced access
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Mohandevir Nov 21, 2018
Quoting: einherjarI would prefer running it with proton and Cross Plattform.
A port or natural game is better, but not if cross plattform is missing.
For me, that's a big issue.
Not Ferals fault, maybe and sad for Feral themselves off course.
I hope they get more partnerships with game devs. Actually they are really dependend on the TW and TR series :-(
Quoting: MohandevirQuoting: raverrebelEven if I would've wanted the game, the missing crossplay would hinder me from playing with friends.. Really hope that crossplay will be implemented for future ports (I know it's hard and sometimes impossible).
Just tell them that it's a good reason to try Linux! It's free! Lol!
No! It is not free. It costs them time. And if you have friends that do not care for IT and just want to play, they just won't switch to Win. And the argument: "Multiplayer-Games on Linux can often not be played with friends on Windows. So please install Linux!" is really weak, isn't it?
It is like: "Try a new OS, it gives you problems when you want to play with others on Win. But no matter, you can Dualboot and maintain two systems in your rare spare time...."
That's why I put "LOL!" at the end. I totally know it's not that easy, else Linux market share would already be much higher. I just exploited a "cliché".
Sarcasm we call that?
Last edited by Mohandevir on 21 November 2018 at 5:45 pm UTC
My machine is AMD R7 260X (2nd Gen) 2 GB, and MESA 18.2.4 (Fedora 29)
TW:Warhammer II requires AMD GPU's - Mesa 18.1.5 or better, but it also states it needs 2GB AMD R9 285 (GCN 3rd Gen) or better.
After starting the game/launcher, I get an error message, that my system is incapable of Vulkan rendering on current hardware. Is that because of only 2nd Gen Radeon graphic card, or should I be installing additional packages?
EDIT:
Command vulkaninfo states:
==========
VULKANINFO
==========
Vulkan Instance Version: 1.1.82
ERROR: [Loader Message] Code 0 : /usr/lib/libvulkan_radeon.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32
ERROR: [Loader Message] Code 0 : /usr/lib/libvulkan_intel.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32
vulkaninfo/vulkaninfo.c:3339: failed with VK_ERROR_INITIALIZATION_FAILEDLaunching vkmark fails:
vkmark: /usr/include/vulkan/vulkan.hpp:39005: typename vk::ResultValueType<std::vector<vk::PhysicalDevice, Allocator> >::type vk::Instance::enumeratePhysicalDevices(const Dispatch&) const [with Allocator = std::allocator<vk::PhysicalDevice>; Dispatch = vk::DispatchLoaderStatic; typename vk::ResultValueType<std::vector<vk::PhysicalDevice, Allocator> >::type = std::vector<vk::PhysicalDevice, std::allocator<vk::PhysicalDevice> >]: Assertion `physicalDeviceCount <= physicalDevices.size()' failed.
Aborted (core dumped)Launching vulkan-cube fails:
Segmentation fault (core dumped)EDIT2:
According to Google, I should enable CIK support in the kernel, since currently it is using radeon instead of amdgpu:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Bonaire XTX [Radeon R7 260X/360] [1002:6658]
Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device [1458:2274]
Kernel driver in use: radeon
Kernel modules: radeon, amdgpuLast edited by FerroTiC on 21 November 2018 at 7:59 pm UTC
Quoting: FerroTiCAfter starting the game/launcher, I get an error message, that my system is incapable of Vulkan rendering on current hardware. Is that because of only 2nd Gen Radeon graphic card, or should I be installing additional packages?
Your GPU definitely supports Vulkan, but from the command output you've posted there is something wrong with either your drivers or your Vulkan install. Never used Fedora nor AMD, so I can't help much with that.
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