Gaming on Linux

PLANTROON · 2012-09-19 15:07:17

I have heard a lot about gaming on Linux. People say they get higher FPS than on Windows in OpenGL apps. So I did some benchmarking. I installed WIndows 7 and gfx drivers (12.6, ati dropped support for my card Radeon HD 3600) and games like Minecraft, Alien Arena and 0 A.D. were working much better than on Linux. I could still see some tearing in 0 A.D. but that was the only bad thing about it. Framerate comparison: it was the same, a bit higher (2-3 fps) on WIndows. So whats true? Is Linux really good in gaming performance and my graphics card is kind of made for Windows?

Another things I noticed:
Flash player (only occurs on youtube, idk why) is laggy on any 64-bit linux in full screen for me. It shows very high framedrop.
Im using XFCE, but if I switch to KDE and turn on Suspend desktop effects for full screen windows, everything looks like it works better. I dont want to use the bloated KDE so this doesnt solve my problem.
Also, if I use xf86-video-ati, I get higher framerate, noticed some change in Flashplayer (youtube works in full screen, HD 1080p is laggy) and in Alien Arena (framerate was the same, 20-25 fps, but it seemed smooth with xf86 driver). This driver has one thing I dont like: overheating my PC

Now the funniest part: When using Wine to play games (recently Black Mesa) they work better with Catalyst driver. World of Warcraft WOTLK works fine, and I can say it works better than the native Linux games. I dont like WOTLK so I wanted to play WoW classic and it has some texture bug which only occurs with Catalyst driver (xf86 works, but it's too slow and overheating again) I first asked my friend to help me with this, he told me to configure the driver but didnt tell me how to.

Anyone else ever experienced this kind of problem?

karol · 2012-09-19 16:39:08

PLANTROON wrote:

I have heard a lot about gaming on Linux. People say they get higher FPS than on Windows in OpenGL apps.

Any links? What drivers are they using? What hardware?

xfce · 2012-09-19 17:43:25

Yes, even left4dead runs faster on linux.

According to a recent blog post by Valve the developers were able to get Left 4 Dead 2 to run at 315 frames per second on Linux while Windows runs the game at 270.6 frames per second.

karol · 2012-09-19 17:49:11

xfce wrote:

Yes, even left4dead runs faster on linux.
According to a recent blog post by Valve the developers were able to get Left 4 Dead 2 to run at 315 frames per second on Linux while Windows runs the game at 270.6 frames per second.

We already have a thread about Steam on Linux: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=138717

DSpider · 2012-09-19 18:11:26

Open source drivers suck for gaming. Why? Because Nvidia and AMD are being candy-asses about intellectual property (you don't hear Intel complaining). Or so they claim, because there's not much intellectual property in GeForce FX5200 and older cards. They refuse to make them open source, out of stubbornness.

Also, Flash needs to die. Soon. Why? Because it's closed source, full of bugs, full of exploits, controlled by one company (Adobe) and because it's a resource hog (it's the reason they dropped support for mobile devices in 2011).

TGN. Topic going nowhere.

Get a blog.

Last edited by DSpider (2012-09-19 18:12:53)

PLANTROON · 2012-09-19 18:48:44

Yeah, Flash has to die! I dont have much RAM and it usually takes more than any operating system I tried to use HTML5 to watch youtube but I dont like it. I dont have such a good feeling from it. Another problem is that my screen flickers when viewing full screen HTML5 video. I am sure I have all required codecs installed so I dont know why it lags.

ChemBro · 2012-09-19 21:39:11

DSpider wrote:

Open source drivers suck for gaming. Why? Because Nvidia and AMD are being candy-asses about intellectual property (you don't hear Intel complaining). Or so they claim, because there's not much intellectual property in GeForce FX5200 and older cards. They refuse to make them open source, out of stubbornness.

They don't make it open-source, because they are not allowed to. They can't open-source it, because they don't have the rights to do, because there is enough code from other companies in it, that don't allow them to publish it. Same with Intels closed-source driver (for Windows).

Intel might not complain, but there is still a huge difference between their closed-source Windows-driver and open-source Linux-driver and they won't open-source that, too.

Thom · 2012-09-19 21:48:50

Warsow and FTL works well with ATI HD 6870 with free driver.

ConnorBehan · 2012-09-19 23:57:35

Disorganized code and code owned by other companies might explain why AMD hasn't made Catalyst open source. But Nvidia is simply being stubborn. They have a long history of not sharing specs even for their oldest cards that no one uses anymore. And they are one of the few GPU companies that does not employ anyone to work on the free drivers.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-09-19 15:07:17

Gaming on Linux

#2 2012-09-19 16:39:08

Re: Gaming on Linux

#3 2012-09-19 17:43:25

Re: Gaming on Linux

#4 2012-09-19 17:49:11

Re: Gaming on Linux

#5 2012-09-19 18:11:26

Re: Gaming on Linux

#6 2012-09-19 18:48:44

Re: Gaming on Linux

#7 2012-09-19 21:39:11

Re: Gaming on Linux

#8 2012-09-19 21:48:50

Re: Gaming on Linux

#9 2012-09-19 23:57:35

Re: Gaming on Linux

Board footer