The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition available on Linux!

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

The Witcher 2 for Linux beta 5 is out.

02 Sep 2014 13:52 BST
Beta 5 - buildID 370876
This one has two fairly small changes:

• Workaround for AMD Catalyst's broken ARB_texture_storage support. We detect Catalyst and disable this extension, for now. AMD have told us that this will be fixed in their next driver release.
• Change to memory management - a much smaller "reserve" section is used, and our heap manager now uses regular mmap() allocations. Limited inhouse testing seems to suggest this is more performant and better with large texture loads.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

GOG has silently released Witcher 2 for Linux!

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

An update from VirtualProgramming about the GOG release:

05 Sep 2014 14:26 BST
GOG Version
We see that GOG.com have chosen to release The Witcher 2 for Linux on their store. Unfortunately, they did not have the latest version before publishing.
As they have packaged the game as one huge download, we decided that as well as sending them the latest build, we would make the new files available for public download. You can download them here:
http://developer.vpltd.com/public/witcher2-gog-20140905125243.tgz

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Now GOG includes that patch in the game card.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

@Marcin Momot : Do you know if VirtualProgramming are still going to continue fixing bugs in TW2 for Linux, or they have stopped already? I get a feeling that since the time it was released on GOG they stopped the development (while there are still quite some bugs left to fix).

 

[Marcin Momot]

@Marcin Momot : Do you know if VirtualProgramming are still going to continue fixing bugs in TW2 for Linux, or they have stopped already? I get a feeling that since the time it was released on GOG they stopped the development (while there are still quite some bugs left to fix).

I'll find out and will get back to you as soon as I know something. Unfortunately I can't give you an answer off the top of my head because, simply, I don't have the knowledge about this.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Thanks Marcin!

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I'll find out and will get back to you as soon as I know something. Unfortunately I can't give you an answer off the top of my head because, simply, I don't have the knowledge about this.

Hi Marcin. Are there any updates on this? Now apparently TW1 was released for OS X using eON from Virtual Programming, so some are suggesting they might want to release it for Linux as well, but if they aren't going to support it and fix bugs like it seems to be happening with TW2 there won't be much of a point in such port.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

@Marcin Momot : It's been quite a while and now there is little doubt that Virtual Programming simply stopped any work on TW2. Are they at least going to maintain it going forward? For example will they update it to Wayland and so on?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

UPDATE: Looks like Virtual Programming didn't abandon bug fixes. And another update is coming! https://github.com/KillaW0lf04/The-Witcher-2-Issues/issues/89

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Linus Torvalds commented on bug in TW2 and will provide a kernel fix for it:

* https://github.com/KillaW0lf04/The-Witcher-2-Issues/issues/89#issuecomment-70857835
* https://github.com/KillaW0lf04/The-Witcher-2-Issues/issues/89#issuecomment-70859667

 

[dragonbird]

Linus Torvalds commented on bug in TW2 and will provide a kernel fix for it:

So he's playing the game? Cool!

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

So he's playing the game? Cool!

Not really (see here). He simply was pointed to the bug which is caused by Linux kernel regression, so he said he will fix it because breaking userspace is quite a big deal (see here).

 

[dragonbird]

Not really (see here). He simply was pointed to the bug which is caused by Linux kernel regression, so he said he will fix it because breaking userspace is quite a big deal (see here).

Awwww. Ah well, still, as you say, a big deal.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Virtual Programming released a new beta of the Witcher 2 for Linux:

24 Jan 2015 20:50 GMT
Latest Beta - BuildID 503099
A bit of a refresh here. We've worked more on our Direct3D 9 engine since the last beta, so everything we've done there has gone into this patch. Hopefully, that means better performance too!
We've also resolved the constant crashing on exit, removed our dependancy on libcurl, and we now ship a new CrashReporter which, while still using libcurl, should work with a variety of different versions as shipped by the many distro's out there.
We've also added a fix for the crashing caused on kernel 3.17.7 and later, even though the kernel maintainers have already agreed to amend the patch that caused the problem - it is better if our behaviour avoids the issue in the first place
Test and let us know how things are...

Especially good that they worked on optimizing the engine more.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

New announcement from Virtual Programming:

7 Feb 2015 01:45 GMT
Latest Beta - GOG release

Here is a download of the latest beta for GOG users. It is identical to the Steam Beta BuildID 517988 http://developer.vpltd.com/public/witcher2-gog-20150206215034.tgz

Plus a few more updates in the beta:

A few bug fixes from last time:

• CrashReporter should now work reliably, and will use a 64-bit version if your system is 64-bit
• Bugs with gamepads should be fixed. An updated SDLGamepad.config is included in this build, and the game now takes Steam controller mappings over the mappings in this file
• All binaries are now launched via a script, "saferun.sh" which should report if a binary fails to start due to missing library dependancies or missing 32-bit support
• Reverted behaviour on OpenGL Core context setup, so the game now asks for GL 3.2 Core in this mode as before. This should eliminate the problem with Mesa drivers creating a context

If all goes well with this beta, it will become the current Release version next week

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

The issue tracker for the Linux version of the Witcher 2 is now official:
https://github.com/virtual-programming/witcher2-linux

Official Github page used for tracking issues related to the Witcher 2 on Linux.

This was created in response to the steam thread found here which was created to help the developers identify important issues in the Witcher 2.

The main aim of this repo is to allow users to better communicate their findings on bugs they found on the Witcher 2 for Linux. By organising bugs and associated fixes I hope to allow users to solve any issues they are having.

Numerous workarounds have already been found for a number of issues so make sure to take a look at all the items marked with the "workaround" tag.

Note that complaining will not be tolerated and users will have themselves removed and banned from the repository if unconstructive comments are made. This is a place to provide technical feedback and help the developers. It is not a place to harass the developers or regress to a forum of complaints.

We have decided that since a GitHub issue tracker has worked so well for us in getting things up to speed with Witcher 2 on Linux, we would create a formal GitHub organisation for VP, and use it for our future products. We'd like to thank Michael Aquilina for taking the initiative to create the original, and doing a great job of managing it

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Another beta update from Virtual Programming:

20 Feb 2015 18:00 GMT
Latest Beta - Steam BuildID 532444, GOG release 20150220175412
This beta fixes the following issues:

• Problems on XFS filesystems due to d_type always returning DT_UNKNOWN should be fixed (#71, #59, possibly #106)
• Temporary files written to the game's "bin" folder during saves are now redirected to a dir in /tmp, avoiding problems if the game's dir is read only (#75)

The GOG version can be downloaded from http://developer.vpltd.com/public/witcher2-gog-20150220175412.tgz

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Another beta release from Virtual Programming:
https://github.com/virtual-programming/witcher2-linux#announcements

06 Mar 2015 20:46 GMT
Latest Beta (Release Candidate) - Steam BuildID 547552, GOG release 20150306204412
This should finally address issue #106. The game should be 100% OK on XFS now. The GOG version can be downloaded from http://developer.vpltd.com/public/witcher2-gog-20150306204412.tgz
We are looking to set this as the default release next week.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

The latest beta is now an official release, so it should appear on GOG soon:

11 Mar 2015 10:53 GMT

Release 3

We're now releasing the previous build (Steam BuildID 547552) as the current release version. GOG have been provided with this version to release officially. If you have already applied GOG release 20150306204412, then you are up to date.

The beta branch has now been disabled, and Steam should revert you to the default branch, ie "Opt out of all betas". Please check Steam has done this, and revert if necessary. It may take a client restart before Steam will notice the new default branch.

Thanks for all the constructive feedback so far!