Linux GPU Performance

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 4, 2004 @06:40AM from the how-does-your-rack-stack dept.

CrzyP writes "AnandTech.com has benchmarked the most popular graphics cards from ATI and NVidia on the Linux OS (SuSE 9.1). It is interesting to see that they have also written a custom benchmarking tool which can also be downloaded from the article. Take a look at Kristopher Kubicki's "Linux 3D AGP GPU Roundup" to see how each of the mid to high end cards performed on the Penguin flavored system."

12 of 373 comments (clear)

Kristopher Kubicki by TheReckoning · 2004-10-04 06:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Get that man on the KDE team IMMEDIATELY! His parents obviously had a grasp of the KDE naming convention long ago.

It's funny. Laugh.
ATI vs nVidia by Eeknay · 2004-10-04 06:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Wow, this is very surprising. One would expect with similar Windows benchmarks for the X800 to be matching or beating the 6800 Ultra (depending on drivers of course), so these low X800 scores in Linux really are quite a shock.
1. Re:ATI vs nVidia by Tumbleweed · 2004-10-04 06:50 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  If low-performing Linux ATI drivers are a shock to you, you haven't been paying attention for a few years. :(
2. Re:ATI vs nVidia by tempmpi · 2004-10-04 06:53 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Not really, it is common knowledge that Nvidia's linux binary drivers are much better than Ati's. Not only the performance is better in Nvidia's drivers but they are also more compatible. People often had problems getting ATI's binary drivers working, while Nvidia's drivers are working without problem in most configurations and even problems like 4k stacks were fixed withhin a reasonable time.
  
  --
  Jan
...vs. same cards with Windows? by TrollBridge · 2004-10-04 06:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

Those numbers are all well and good, but I'd be interested in seeing them side-by-side with the same tests performed (on the same machines, of course) running Windows.

--
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
1. Re:...vs. same cards with Windows? by DeckerEgo · 2004-10-04 07:05 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Here's what they noticed (more of a summary than a benchmarking):
  Although this analysis did draw some pretty strong lines as to where each card stand, we were more interested in how each game performed compared to their Windows counterparts. We drew a lot of conclusions from one of our more recent video card analyses from July. Surprisingly, most of our NVIDIA video cards scaled very similarly. Wine games like Jedi Knight took a 10% to 15% hit in performance compared to the Windows tests that we did just a few weeks ago. Other games like Unreal Tournament 2004 actually showed mild signs of an increase in frame rate on the NVIDIA graphics cards. Wolfenstein: ET generally performed with similar average FPS to our video cards from 2003. However, keep in mind that the drivers used then were almost a year old.
My linux GPUbreakdown from independant tests: by stratjakt · 2004-10-04 06:48 · Score: 5, Funny

NVidia: Sort-of

ATI: Kind-of

--
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Better drivers and licensing please by Handbrewer · 2004-10-04 06:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

The situation right now is quite frustrating - all distributions should be able to ship the binary drivers for the vendor kernel. It would make it so much easier, than having to get the kernel source and headers before building the module on your own. Thats an unneccesary burden only placed on our shoulders because of some paperwork. 2nd, id like some better drivers please, the ATI drivers are terrible, please stop treating me as a second rank costumer. My money is as good as anybody elses. Thanks so far NVIDIA, now we just need a better license.
Re:Penguin-flavored? by temojen · 2004-10-04 06:51 · Score: 5, Funny

Herring, probably.
Re:Penguin-flavored? by kfg · 2004-10-04 06:53 · Score: 5, Funny

What does a penguin taste like, anyhow?

Fat chicken.

KFG
Re:Indeed by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-04 06:57 · Score: 5, Informative

For Windows users not familiar with the process, the kernel must be completely recompiled for ATI or NVIDIA drivers to work.

I don't know about the ATI drivers, but this isn't true for the NVIDIA drivers. You can download an installer from NVIDIA that will create a kernel module for you and places it with the other modules. No need to recompile the kernel at all. Just load the module (if the installer doesn't do this for you) and restart your X server.
Proprietary driver hell by freelunch · 2004-10-04 07:10 · Score: 5, Interesting

I have an Nforce2 based MB with built-in video..

For a few months I ran Nvidia's proprietary driver but found that their support was poor. Countless people would report the same problem and Nvidia would basically just shrug and not even reply to the postings on their website. Stuff like "not our problem". They were very slow to support 2.6.

And as a gentoo user, I hated the binary installation program.

I finally dumped their stuff and went to the OSS driver. It is much slower, even when just opening new browser windows or xterms. But not having to mess with nvidia installer hell each time I gen a new kernel (which is pretty rare, actually) makes it worth it.

This was a great article, however, because it shows just how much chance and luck there is in getting these drivers to work. Buying the latest and greatest MB and CPU for use with Linux is still a huge unknown for the novice and experienced Linux user alike. And then there is the very real fear of whether it will work after you upgrade your kernel, etc.

Sad to see that Nvidia is the most Linux friendly vendor??