Linux Galaxy

The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings Enhanced edition on Slackware64

Posted on Sep 15, 2019 by kingbeowulf


I purchased this game on sale at GOG.com a while back (2014?) when I was exited about the Linux port, and before I realized it used the wrapper eON translation layer. (We can quibble over wrapper vs API vs etc here: PSA: eON is not a wrapper).

I'll just say that native linux code would be better.

Performance with Slackware64 multilib with Nvidia GTX 660 was poor: crashes, video glitches, lags, sudden fps drops. I was barely able to complete the tutorial section. A few patches were released that improved performance. There was also github project that tracked Linux updates and performance tweaks which now seems to be gone. I put the game aside for awhile to let it mature.

GOG.com updated Witcher 2 to Release 3, and it is officially tested on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and variants. Non-Ubuntu Linux distributions are not officially supported - as in no technical support or refund. As a Slackware user, I have found that par for the course. Here are some notes on giving Witcher 2 another go.

1Slackware64-14.2 Multilib, kernel 4.4.190
2EVGA Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB driver 430.50
3Samsung U28590 4K monitor
4Xfce 4.12
5Additional dependencies (compat32 versions) from Slackbuilds.org:
6    SDL2 2.0.3 or later.
7    SDL2_image 2.0.0 or later. 
8    Release notes state SDL_image; this is an error

Witcher 2 is a 32-bit program, so multilib and compat32 libraries are not needed on the Slackware 32-bit release.

The installer script runs perfectly to install the game and create desktop and menu entries. Running from the desktop brought up the launcher. However, the play or option menu opens with an error. Running via the terminal, shows a surprise for non-systemd linux distributions: a dependency on libsystemd.so.0. Another Slackware user posted the fix on the GOG.com forum:

LINUX Witcher 2 non-debian distro compatibility bug AND solution

Simply delete or rename /game/libdbus-1.so.3.14.6 and the libdbus-1.so.3 symlink, and the game will use Slackware's libdbus-1.so.3.14.6. Now the game will work as intended.

Witcher 2 runs much smoother at even 4K resolution. Battles with large groups are now possible. I'll probably eventually play on a 1080p monitor to further smooth out the frame rate and reduce the tearing in cut scenes. There are some optimizations and tweaking to do, but I will leave that as an exercise for the reader.


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