Witcher 2 Launches for SteamOS/Linux Today!

[Askew]

That was unexpected, here's a post from GamingOnLinux from an hour ago, so I think this may be fresh news, one important thing to note, AMD GPUs are not supported, neither are intel iGPUs.

 

The reason has been posted in the comments, and it will be fixed in the next Catalyst.

The current AMD Catalyst driver contains a problem which stops the game from running. AMD have already fixed the problem, and the fix will be in the next driver release.

Intel is not supported simply because the driver performance is currently insufficient to run the game well enough. It will run, but the framerate is not good.

The open source Nouveau and Radeon drivers are simply not feature complete enough to run the game. Witcher 2's RED Engine is making full use of OpenGL 3.2 features.

 

 

This is a pretty large, graphically demanding and very good game that now runs on Linux by making use of OpenGL 3.2, I'm impressed and in my opinion this will please a lot of Linux gamers.

 

It's also available on Steam today for 80% off for the Windows or SteamOS/Linux version!

 

Happy gaming Linux folks, it's a great game!

[Unhelpful]

Personally I was much more of a fan of the first game (aside from the combat), but still very good. This is really cool.

[Volbet]

With all these demanding games coming to Linux, I think it's about time someone did a Windows/Linux benchmark to see if there is any difference in game performance.

 

And this make me wonder, if the Witcher 3 will support Linux aswell. That might be one of the reasons they delayed it.

[qwertywarrior]

With all these demanding games coming to Linux, I think it's about time someone did a Windows/Linux benchmark to see if there is any difference in game performance.

 

And this new make me wonder, if the Witcher 3 will support Linux aswell. That might be one of the reasons they delayed it.

100% sure  phoronix will be the first website to benchmark it

[samotage]

I would highly recommend buying Witcher 2, such a great series and a great game

 

- Samo

[Humbug]

This was expected but not so soon. I thought they would take a few more months.

[l3lackmoses]

I finished Wither 2 like 2 days ago. Its a solid game though there are things i wish they didn't change from witcher 1.

[techswede]

Yay.

That's all i have to say

[Mr crabcake]

Bought it immediately. Can't wait for the new AMD drivers I probably need a new HDD just for linux and games for it.   

[Misanthrope]

Now this is interesting, something of the size and quality of Skyrim might help me move permanently to Linux even faster. Might even delete my windows partitions completely.

[dmegatool]

I just started playing The Witcher 2 on my friend's shared library. This sale come up, I'm buying both... GG Valve. 

[Askew]

The most prominent question in my mind is of course 'Are they going to support Linux with Witcher 3?'

They are a well respected developer already, launching their massive Witcher 3 game on SteamOS would add to their already solid reputation in the PC gaming community.

Now that the RED engine is running, it's not unfeasible that Valve may be trying to broker some kind of deal for SteamOS support for a major upcoming title.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with SteamOS as time goes on, I'd like someday to be able to build a gaming rig that just runs Steam and reaps the benefits of a low OS footprint, exceptional stability and functional simplicity.

[kuddlesworth9419]

I wanna see some benchmarks at how well it performs compared to Windows 7.

[Askew]

I wanna see some benchmarks at how well it performs compared to Windows 7.

Definitely, benchmarks between hardware is commonplace but SteamOS vs Windows performance testing is coming.

[Hazorazor]

Wish the linix drivers for amd were better, needing to run only Ubuntu at the moment.

[VG Docs]

I'm somewhat ashamed to say this, but I pirated this game when it came out. I didn't do a whole lot, because my rig was crap at the time, so I just forgot about it for a while. Today, I bought both of the games for a total of $2.96 (sort of) because of trading cards. Excellent buy, and now that I have an adequate rig, I will certainly be playing both of these awesome games for quite a while.

[popman]

While it's fantastic to have openGL support added to the game, there's something a lot of people are overlooking.

 

http://www.playonlinux.com/en/app-883-The_Witcher_2__Assassins_of_Kings.html

[Rassilon]

If Linux benches higher than Windows, they'll praise Linux.

If Windows benches higher than Linux, they blame the drivers.

[Misanthrope]

If Linux benches higher than Windows, they'll praise Linux.

If Windows benches higher than Linux, they blame the drivers.

 

Linux can outperform even having to deal with the crappy drivers: You go ahead and run your videocard with the CD drivers that came with the card and then tell us how much of a performance hit you get not to mention the endless bugs and issues. Otherwise, I respectfully ask that you stfu about it.

[Askew]

Linux can outperform even having to deal with the crappy drivers: You go ahead and run your videocard with the CD drivers that came with the card and then tell us how much of a performance hit you get not to mention the endless bugs and issues. Otherwise, I respectfully ask that you stfu about it.

 

I believe that you are biased in favour of the Linux operating system and have been for some time, whether it's because of your distaste for Windows (which I'm not saying isn't justified) or for another reason it is still apparent that you carry a bias.

[Misanthrope]

I believe that you are biased in favour of the Linux operating system and have been for some time, whether it's because of your distaste for Windows (which I'm not saying isn't justified) or for another reason it is still apparent that you carry a bias.

 

If that was the case I would have denied the fact that Linux drivers are quite crappy and barely usable at all. However there's no technical reason why this must be so, and Linux is less resource intensive and more scalable this is a verifiable fact since you can run it on really really low end hardware (256mb of ram for some of the most basic distros and software packages)

 

Now if we talk the reasons for the lack of adoption, sure I'm quite biased towards the open source philosophy and way of making things. But if we're just talking numbers, performance numbers do back me up, regardless of my bias.

[Askew]

If that was the case I would have denied the fact that Linux drivers are quite crappy and barely usable at all. However there's no technical reason why this must be so, and Linux is less resource intensive and more scalable this is a verifiable fact since you can run it on really really low end hardware (256mb of ram for some of the most basic distros and software packages)

Now if we talk the reasons for the lack of adoption, sure I'm quite biased towards the open source philosophy and way of making things. But if we're just talking numbers, performance numbers do back me up, regardless of my bias.

OK, I may have misunderstood slightly your previous post, when you said that Linux could outperform despite poor drivers I took that to mean in performance with this gaming application/other games.

I concur that it has a lighter footprint. I also mentioned that in a previous post in this thread.

Poor third party drivers are not the responsibility of the Linux developer though, carrying a bias toward the operating system wouldn't necessarily include third party drivers written for the OS.

I wasn't criticizing your bias toward the open source concept, I would like that system to be more prominent also, the fact that it isn't and there continues to be issues such as weak third party drivers is an unfortunate setback.

When I see advancements and larger scale efforts to support Linux such as Valve's distro and now this game being ported it gets my interest, hence this thread.

[Humbug]

AMD needs to get their shit together and devote more resources to catalyst for Linux.

[Terosterone]

Hey, that's great news. I'm really looking forward to make the hop to a Linus OS in a year or two. 
It really looks like they are gaining momentum.

But, I'm even more happy you mentioned that W2 was on 80% sale! I really wanted the game, so thanks for that!

[Linus_torvalds]

Hey, that's great news. I'm really looking forward to make the hop to a Linus OS in a year or two. 

It really looks like they are gaining momentum.

it is not linus OS it is linux!