Tonight I sat down and played a long overdue session of Borderlands 2. I wanted to do a recording as I do with a lot of things that I play, and as per tradition the encoder in OBS was overloaded, even on settings I usually use. Out of curiosity I decided to use the same settings under the Linux version, and while I’m happy to say that it worked perfectly out of the box with only a slightly lower framerate, the client itself seems to have become a time capsule of sorts of early adventures in Linux porting. I copied my Windows save over to the Linux side and found that my shield and certain weapons were missing, items that happened to be in the Commander Lilith DLC which they never ported outside of Windows (along with some other DLC packs).
I did some further investigation and found that Aspyr is working on an update for the Linux and Mac clients, but until then if I want to play the Linux version it has to be with other Linux and Mac users on a much more ancient build of the game. I have to confess; finding that out after getting a successful recording under Linux was kind of a kick in the crotch to me. I have all of this power and capability now, squandered by missing content, alas… At least they’re working on it though, maybe if we’re lucky they’ll update the graphics a bit? (For the record D3D9 = DirectX 9 and OpenGL is OpenGL)
It isn’t a dealbreaker or anything, but if Valve can get their games running under Linux with little to no visual sacrifice, then Randy Bitchford should be able to part with some of his Bitchford Bucks to pay for a better Linux experience (though I do like the ad free experience in the old version. :v ). That said, I was reading the Linux requirements and found that AMD and Intel GPU’s aren’t officially supported (Fuck NVidia). I wonder what an NVidia GPU under Linux would look like? Perhaps something for a future project on my gaming laptop.
Meanwhile, back in Windows; I researched that a bit as well and found some interesting tips that seem to get rid of the encoding problem, at least for my setup. Disabling Ambient Occlusion and switching from borderless window to fullscreen seemed to do the trick. I’m not sure why, but switching from borderless to fullscreen increased my framerate (the opposite if what I would expect), and disabling AO made the encoder overload error go away, at least for local recordings. The true test will be recording and livestreaming it at the same time. If I can do that then my soul will be at peace… until NVidia fucks it up again.
If you’re looking to make some tweaks to your install, no matter what OS platform you’re on I highly recommend the PC Gaming Wiki. They’ve helped me fix up a couple of games thanks to their community provided tips and tricks!