Quoting: ShmerlIt wasn't GOG's fault as far as I know. inXile's "patch" literally changed most of the files. One of the reasons may be that they generate compression dictionaries randomly for each release and even if source data didn't change, the result will be different. It's really up to inXile to ensure that each patch is as minimal as possible.

I've read the same thing.. so does steam re download 11+ GB everytime inXile submits a patch? If what You're saying is true they changed every texture/graphic asset.. every lib that comes packaged.. EVERYTHING. How are they patching the win and linux version then? PR cop out if you ask me.

Quoting: ShmerlI'm not sure what kind of games would require using multi-GPU setup. Unless of course you use some huge 4K resolution or some such. In normal cases SLI is simply an unneeded overkill which drains power and costs a lot. It makes more sense for some intense computing, not for gaming.

Um.. sorry this is not true. If you want to crank up the eye candy to MAX and beyond on many really demanding games, even at 1080p you can't get CONSISTENT 60fps with the best single cards on the market. If I didn't care about that eye candy.. I would own a console.. I do care and I don't own a console. I like 3 monitor gaming.. some people like gaming at 120hz or even 144hz on a single monitor.. a single card isn't supporting that.

3x 1080p monitors, I'm gaming @ 5760x1080, so 3/4 of 4k ;) I do as much gaming as I can in Linux.. but windows is still very much a necessity for me until Nvidia gets off their @ss and fixes up multiGPU/SLI for Linux and brings it in line with the functionality of their Windows drivers. Borderlands 2 and TPS runs between 20-30 FPS @ 5760x1080 in Linux on my setup. 60FPS(vsync) all day long in windows, with vsync disabled it climbs close to 100 :|

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I fired up an "extended demo" of the win version in wine(plays fine like most unity games). I played it for about an hour and enjoyed what I did play of it. My findings pretty much line up with Samsai's. This just reminded me I meant to buy it and I just picked it up from DLGamer for $8.99

*DISCLAIMER* DLGamer has some good prices sometimes, but they DO NOT exclusively sell Steam keys so you MUST make sure that it says DRM: Steam on the product page. I made this mistake for Tropico 5, they did refund me no problems though once I realized the mistake (they were selling retail keys). Deadcore is a Steam key for sure this time though.

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Quoting: ShmerlBut can you buy them outside Steam? I consider Steam DRM and don't use it.

You can buy Steam keys outside of Steam :D But I know what you're saying. Even if you could, you would be missing out on some of the key things that make the franchise awesome. Namely the co-op play since it uses steams multi-player servers. Borderlands really is "just ok" IMO without the co-op. I've only been able to sink 14 hours into the new once because my BL co-op buddy has been REALLY busy this last week and I just don't get the same level of enjoyment out of it playing by myself. Once we get higher up in the leveling I will "farm" special weapons targets for extremely rare guns when he is not around though.

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Quoting: ShmerlI'd appreciate some DRM-free games from them (were there any so far?). May be The Witcher 3? It seems all their Linux releases were Steam only.

Both Borderlands 2 and TPS will run without steam on Linux. You just don't get the steam cloud save support or coop since those do require steams servers and that was not up to Aspyr anyways. That is just how the game was designed. I don't think it will even launch on win without steam, unless you crack it of course.

Then again, I am one of those who doesn't really consider steam DRM. It is, but it's as little DRM as it can be without being NO-DRM and they don't force devs to use it. Steam is a digital game shelf to me, if it ever seemed that steam was going downhill I would simply download EVERY game I own and burn them to discs and/or put them on brand new HDD's that would sit in static bags when not being used to install one of them. Along with the cracks of course. I already have many of them tar'd up and on my NAS as it is. I Have purchased some things from GOG, Wasteland 2 being one of them and I now REALLY wish I had bought it from steam. No game patches.. have to re download the WHOLE thing every time they patch it... they can't be bothered to do a diff patch apparently.. so I'll think TWICE before purchasing anything non retro from them again.

Aspyr has been doing us all a great service, the Linux market is small but they are still willing to put in the work so they get 2 thumbs up IMO. I don't like the "not running Ubuntu/SteamOS with a 'popular' hardware config, sorry won't help you" attitude I got from their support team, but I SORT OF understand it for now. Hopefully as the platform grows these attitudes change.

I've recently figured out MOST of my gaming issues in Linux are in fact the Nvidia drivers and SLI/Multi Monitor. SLI more or less doesn't work in Linux, apparently they implemented it, tweaked it for iD's Tech4 engine(Doom3, Quake4, etc) and then have not touched it since. I hope they get to this soon especially when they have removed features from the Linux driver before in the name of "parity with windows"... They need to get us up to parity with windows. With my config SLI is really a MUST have, and I have no intentions on downgrading. When I trade in these 3 1080p monitors, it will be for 3 4k monitors (probably 3-5 years from now)

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Full patch notes over there --->> CivV Steam v1.3.7 Patch Notes (10-27-14) [External Link]

Linux fix #1 = Improved multimonitor support.

Awesome, Reinstalling now as that is what kept me from playing it before ^_^

On the other hand it kind of irks me they spent time to fix it for this game, but when I brought up a multi monitor issue with them about the Borderlands ports they basically said they wouldn't spend time trying to fix multi monitor issues with the games because it was a minority case :huh:

EDIT* HAHA, whoops! Pay no attention to me I got my games mixed up. In other Aspyr Civ news, CivV received a game update today :whistle:

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I had been toying with Linux back when Doom3 was new, but I never tried to game on it. But the only game I can say with 100% certainty ran better for me in Linux than it did in windows was made with iD's tech5 engine so sadly it wasn't even native, I was using wine. Wolfenstein: The New Order. I was able to turn the settings up higher and still achieve an overall much more solid and high frame rate than in windows.

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Quoting: iensensamaI don't know if anyone else has been running the game on the same hardware on both Windows and Linux, but I have so I thought I would share my findings.

I have rarely found a game that runs better on Linux than it does in windows and I use nvidia cards and the official proprietary nvidia drivers which is arguably the "best bet" for running games in Linux. I'm honestly not sure why this is as Linux is obviously better at resource management and is the snappier/leaner OS over all. Everything I've ever read says that OpenGL can beat out DirectX in benchmarks.. but alas I have not found it to be the case in the real world.

It always seems that games that were written with Linux in mind from the "get-go" perform way better than ones that are ported afterwards. I do think a lot of the issues are the game engines themselves. I'm not sure we have any "big name" titles that run on engines that were designed with Linux in mind. With the exception of the Unity Engine. BUT, while the Unity Engine, is a great platform for small devs and devs who want ease of making multi platform games is not really well optimized for any platform and from what I have seen simply eats more resources to produce visuals that wouldn't cause as much stress on a system from another well optimized engine.

We have quite a few Unreal Engine 3 games that have come to Linux, but UE3 was not made with Linux in mind so it has been an afterthought really and every UE3 game I have tried damn nears runs at half of what its windows counterpart does. Some porters have done a better job with the engine than others too.

I think UE4 is going to be quite interesting since it is being built with Linux in mind, but we have yet to see a finished UE4 game. CryEngine 3 has been available for Linux for some time and at least in Windows is one of the better optimized game engines IMO, right next to Frostbite. I've seen some games advertised as coming to Linux and using CryEngine3 so hopefully when a fairly graphically demanding game running on it shows up for Linux it will perform as great as it does in Windows.

From a system standpoint I can't explain why my observations seem to be the case, I'm just speaking from my experiences and what I hope the future holds for Linux gaming. I would very much like to rid myself of my windows install in the next year or so, but sadly right now there are a few games that force me to keep it around. I'm hoping that when I get around to updating my aging GTX 580 GPUs with newer GTX980 cards that I will simply brute force the performance out of games that right now I boot to windows to play even though there are native Linux versions available.

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Quoting: HamishZenimax forcibly stamped out the practice of releasing unofficial binaries.

REALLY sad how anti-linux they are, and for no apparent reason other than they choose to be. I would love to see Fallout 3 and New Vegas brought to linux natively, but sadly I doubt that will ever happen. What is even more sad is that more than likely I will have to use windows to play Fallout 4/Fallout:Boston or whatever they call it. It's almost certain it will be a DX11 only game.

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Quoting: JSVRamirezSuch a shame that DNF development ended up with Gearbox, one of the most Linux unfriendly devs out there. I'd love to have seen that in this box.

I do agree that is is a shame it took Gearbox stepping in an finishing DNF or that it took as long to make as it did in the first place.

Gearbox being "one of the most Linux unfriendly devs" though? Not so sure you can say that anymore that they brought Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre Sequel to Linux, the later being a day 1 Linux release and also the first AAA day 1 Linux release at least in recent memory. Granted it was Aspyr who did the porting, and the quality of the port is questionable(IMO), Gearbox hired them to do it.

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Quoting: Segata SanshiroThis article shows we've got some really great writers at GOL :). I'm glad we're able to keep things going even without Liam writing.

Yep, I admit I was a little worried, but the news keeps coming! Keep it up folks!

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