Civilization: Beyond Earth Overcoming Linux GPU Driver Problems
Civilization: Beyond Earth is coming to Linux in the months ahead while it was released for Windows this past week. In the lastest update, Aspyr mentions that the Linux (and OS X) port is up to a state of being able to perform full play-throughs of the game and also test the cross-platform multi-player functionality. The biggest issue they're running into is of course about the performance.
Making this port more challenging is that Civilization: Beyond Earth targets Direct3D 11 on Windows compared to Direct3D 9 with Civilization V for Linux. The Direct3D 11 requirement boosts the driver requirements of the Linux version of the port and the complexity in getting things simply running over OpenGL. I'd be surprised if Beyond Earth will be running nicely on the Mesa/Gallium3D drivers around launch-time.
Specifically about the issues, Russ Looney of Aspyr shared, "Our current focus is on improving performance. So far performance has been the biggest development hurdle as we’re facing an engine based on Direct X 11 vs. Direct X 9, which Civilization V was based on. This upgrade means lots of new driver issues and development hurdles for the team. This is also why our current preliminary system requirements are much higher than Civilization V or the Windows PC version of Beyond Earth. However, our development team is extremely good at what they do, and we expect to make significant strides in performance improvement over the next several weeks."
You can read more in this blog post.
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