Linux 3D Games Run Faster On PC-BSD

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Linux 3D Games Run Faster On PC-BSD

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday September 7, 2011 @10:25PM from the with-enough-emulators-we-could-make-the-singularity dept.

koinu writes "Phoronix has published benchmarks comparing 3D game performance on Ubuntu Linux 11.04 with the FreeBSD Linux ABI emulation on the 8.2 release of PC-BSD, which is a desktop variant of FreeBSD. Most results show that the emulated Linux layer on FreeBSD performs better than Linux natively. It's pretty interesting, because most people would expect that an additional abstraction layer would generally slow down the execution of binaries."

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Which illustrates what we already knew by erroneus · 2011-09-07 22:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

Linux has lost its way.
It was once lean and fast but now is an industrialized bloated mess. It will take a lot more to get me to stop using Linux but that doesn't mean I can't see when something is wrong.
Lately, we have been seeing a lot of Linux's advantages fade away. Among these are its smallness and compatibility with older hardware.
I think it's just about time to revisit what made Linux great and see if there is a way to get that back while still doing great new things.
1. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-07 22:40 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Kinda disagree with that view. Linux allows you to install things like that, but doesn't force you to do it. It's still compatible with old hardware. You can just not install all the crap that makes it "big". Instead of pressing next next next at the install... There is a possibility to do it, but no requirement.
2. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by ByOhTek · 2011-09-07 23:03 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  As a FreeBSD user, I can't necessarily agree with you.
  WoW also performs better on FreeBSD/Wine than it does on Windows. The issue here, is the graphics capabilities. If it asks less of the graphics card, it will still run, but run faster. In the case of WoW, it's not trying to do nearly all the fancy GPU stuff that windows would do, so it is faster.
  Now, if this were various server/desktop non-multimedia applications, I might start to find the article relevant.
  
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3. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by poetmatt · 2011-09-07 23:20 · Score: 2
  
  linux hasn't lost it's way. You're conflating linux and ubuntu. Ubuntu is bloated to shit, centos, fedora, other flavors of linux are not at all as stupidly bloated.
4. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by CubicleView · 2011-09-07 23:20 · Score: 2
  
  So lack of graphics support is a feature?
5. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by MrHanky · 2011-09-07 23:56 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Shouldn't matter at all here, as both use the same driver. Difference in desktop environment, though, can mean a lot. Then again, Ubuntu seems to suck at 3d, also when compared to other Linux distros.
6. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by ByOhTek · 2011-09-07 23:58 · Score: 2
  
  But the GP was suggesting this was making it big and slow. It can increase the disk space (not like OOOrg or KDE, for example, though), but I cannot see adding hardware compatibility would slow the OS down like he was suggesting (consider the context of what he was responding to).
  
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7. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by maxwell+demon · 2011-09-07 23:59 · Score: 2
  
  I guess it's the graphics-card using 3D compositing window manager Ubuntu uses (or did they switch that off? I didn't read the article). I switched that off on all my computers in part for exactly that reason: It hurts performance of 3D games.
  
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8. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by ByOhTek · 2011-09-08 00:06 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, the graphics support is really good, but in my example, WoW has a *lot* more graphical features turned on in DirectX than OpenGL, so it would run faster in Linux or FreeBSD because it was using OpenGL (you had to run it in OGL mode in wine).
  I don't think that is the issue in this test, because the FreeBSD nVidia driver is very close to the Linux nVidia driver. However, I cannot discount it as a possibility either.
  No, I wasn't saying it was a feature, I was saying that this test is meaningless.
  In the context of statements like this
  
  As a FreeBSD user, I can't necessarily agree with you.
  or this
  
  Now, if this were various server/desktop non-multimedia applications, I might start to find the article relevant.
  That should have been very obvious.
  
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9. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by pe1rxq · 2011-09-08 00:38 · Score: 2
  
  I am wondering why the author of the article couldn't be bothered to compare BSD and Linux on the same hardware.
  Looking at that list I get the impression that he spent a lot of time making sure he compared apples and oranges.
  This benchmark is pretty much worthless
  
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10. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by miquels · 2011-09-08 00:53 · Score: 2
  
  Unless I am mistaken, Linux has a less stable (as in it change more, not crashes) API than FreeBSD. Having to adapt to this, multiple times, could ad to kludgy patch jobs in applications, making them run less and less efficiently
  The internal linux kernel API is not set in stone, but the ABI for applications that run on the kernel is. You can start applications from 1998 on a 3.0 linux kernel from this year, and they will run.
  Mike.
  
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11. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by L4t3r4lu5 · 2011-09-08 01:05 · Score: 2
  
  You should probably point out that there is not a lot of difference to the observer between OpenGL and DX9 rendering in WoW. At least, there wasn't when I was dual booting and running WoW between Windows XP and Lucid Lynx.
  
  Same hardware, different renderer, faster on Linux, didn't look much different. Shame I play more than just WoW, really.
  
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12. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by tibit · 2011-09-08 01:14 · Score: 2
  
  Haha. So, you've obviously tried it, with repeated, positive results? The kernel ABI is pretty much irrelevant. Good luck getting an app from 1998 to run without setting everything else up (essentially a chroot environment for it).
  
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13. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by bluefoxlucid · 2011-09-08 01:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  If BSD can emulate linux faster than linux can run, something is very, very bad going on.
  Why? It just means BSD is faster somewhere than Linux, that's all.
  Nothing is "emulated." Wine does not "emulate" windows, either. Wine supplies a dynamic link loader that brings up PE executables. It also supplies a set of libraries for Windows-- Wine is a Windows re-implementation. It comes with an msvcrt that supplies strcpy() and strlen() and open() and such. It comes with kernel32.dll. It comes with everything.
  Unix systems that have other Unix system execution layers basically keep an additional syscall table around. BSD loads a Linux ELF executable, recognizes it's for 32-bit Linux, and sets its syscall entry point to the Linux table. All POSIX functions mostly route to BSD's innards, just like the native BSD table. A few tricky things supply a little translation layer--we might see data come by in format [xxx][yyyy][zzz] and we expect it in [xxx][pad][yyyy][zzzz] so it's padded properly, or something equally as banal. Some specialized functions are implemented for Linux, using BSD facilities to approximate.
  In the end, you have an operating system that capably loads binaries under a specific API, not an emulator.
  
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14. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by rgviza · 2011-09-08 02:58 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  yea but the average FreeBSD distribution is lot more optimized than the average bloated linux distro such as Ubuntu. Ubuntu is made for the masses and I'd be surprised if the number of drivers NOT in the ubuntu kernel is more than the count of fingers on my left hand. FreeBSD is made by engineers for engineers in most cases. Ubuntu is built so some uneducated guy in Bangladesh can load it on his crap whitebox laptop with random hardware and it JustWorks(tm) and has him up and surfing the internets within 20 minutes. Ditto for windows. That takes a lot of kernel bloat to accomplish. Ubuntu's mission is admirable and they do a bang up job. However you don't want to use Ubuntu for any task where the best performance possible is required. Squeezing every last ounce of performance out of your hardware and software takes a little more work than "pop the disk in and wait". Install Gentoo, strip the bloat out the kernel and you'll see what I'm talking about.
  
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15. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by theArtificial · 2011-09-08 03:51 · Score: 2
  
  I feel your pain. Unfortunately the windows drivers have the best performance in my experience.
  
  AMD Phenom II 955
  nVidia GTX 260
  8GB DDR2
  FreeBSD 8.2 AMD64, nVidia 275.28 drivers
  
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16. Re:Which illustrates what we already knew by lahvak · 2011-09-08 05:05 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's not really Linux that has become this bloated mess. It is what they call "modern" desktop environments.
  I used to run a fairly minimal setup, with fvwm2, xdm for login manager and rxvt for terminal emulator. I had that same setup on wide array of computers, from an old 486 with 512MB of memory up to a powerful SparcStation, and it ran reasonably fast on all of them. Over many years I developed a configuration that I liked, so it was very easy to use for me.
  Several years ago I got a dual core laptop with 4GB of memory at work. Since it was a work laptop, I had to use SUSE Linux, as that was at that time officially supported by our IT staff. I had no experience with SUSE, before I always used Debian, so I just installed the default distro with Gnome, and I was surprised how slow that was. Later I got fed up with SUSE, and was allowed to switch to Ubuntu, which turned out to be even slower. I got fed up with that too, installed Debian, which I know pretty well, and started stripping everything I don't need.
  I am now back to my original setup with fvwm2. I use slim for login manager, replaced rxvt by urxvt so I can display Chinese characters in the terminal and can have nicer fonts. I now throw in few things that I never used before, such as stalonetray for system tray, and gkrellm for system monitoring and volume control. I manually purged everything that says gnome or kde that I don't actually use (very little is left). I now have a nice fast system again. The thing that slows me down now is firefox. I tried Chrome, which is faster, but last time I checked, its vi keybinding extensions are nowhere near as capable as vimperator or pentadactyl for firefox.
  One thing that drives me nuts though is how the desktop environments took over lot of things that really belong to the core system, and changed the way lot of core functionality is now configured. Lot of things, like networking, mounting of drives, etc, that really should have nothing to do with desktop environments, are now configured in some sort of weird gnomish way, which, in addition, completely changed at least 5 times during the last 4 years, and when you try to find out how to do it, you get at least 10 totally conflicting guides and advices. Most of all classical howtos are hopelessly outdated, and were replaced by number of mutually contradictory posts on Ubuntu forums. The result is that figuring out how to configure something without using some sort of default annoying Windows like clicky Gnome or KDE thingy is a huge pain in the ass.
  
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Re:Interesting benchmarks, but not an article by kestasjk · 2011-09-07 22:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

Something to do with the benchmarks comparing OSes on two different systems?

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Compiz by jonsmirl · 2011-09-07 22:46 · Score: 5, Informative

This is likely caused by Compiz interacting with the game engine on Ubuntu. Turn Compiz off and re-run the benchmarks.
1. Re:Compiz by renoX · 2011-09-08 00:36 · Score: 2
  
  > This is likely caused by Compiz interacting with the game engine on Ubuntu. Turn Compiz off and re-run the benchmarks.
  True, but if you do this, you couldn't have the outrageous tittle, which would mean fewer ads served and less money: cannot have this on Phoronix!
Re:Ubuntu the best choice? by woodsbury · 2011-09-07 22:49 · Score: 2

Though the table has what I assume is the section detailing the x86_64 machines cut off, the two systems are running two different DEs. And two different versions of X. Also have different amounts of RAM, different sized HDDs, different motherboards, and are using different file systems. Not that those last things will have as much of an effect on the benchmark I don't imagine, but it desperately raises the question why they didn't just dual boot Ubuntu and PC-BSD on the same machine...
Not a good test. by Junta · 2011-09-07 23:13 · Score: 4, Informative

The test was insufficient to actually conclude anything of value. They used two *different* systems instead of reinstalling (specs looked *close*, but they weren't the same). They used KDE vs. Unity (this by itself explains the discrepancy, it's widely been shown unity degrades full screen 3d performance). It compared only one version of one distribution to one version of one variant of BSD. It only compared the nVidia driver, though there is no choice on that front.
"Unity slower than KDE" is a more likely conclusion, but again, you'd need a more controlled test to say anything. Phoronix should be ashamed...

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1. Re:Not a good test. by Galactic+Dominator · 2011-09-08 05:01 · Score: 2
  
  Read the article it's the same system.
  
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Interesting. by DiSKiLLeR · 2011-09-07 23:34 · Score: 4, Informative

FreeBSD had always ran Linux binaries faster than Linux. Interesting that this may still be the case.
Point, though, that the 'Linux Emulator' in FreeBSD isn't really an Emulator. FreeBSD runs Linux binaries natively. The so called 'Linux Emulator' just provides Linux syscall capabilities to the FreeBSD kernel.
And of course, Linux libc and other libraries need to be provided (which the linux binary was linked against), and probably linux's /proc is also needed to satisfy various linux binaries. But its by no means an 'emulator', is just provides the services a Linux executable expects.

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Re:Now is the time for Hurd by maxwell+demon · 2011-09-08 00:05 · Score: 2

And 2012 will be the year that the Hurd will reach the Desktop!

December 21, I guess?

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turn EVERYTHING off... by C0vardeAn0nim0 · 2011-09-08 01:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

some 10 years ago, when even the slightest hiccup could make a game running in linux slow to a crawl (not linux's fault. more like greedy games on average hardware), i ran several tests to find the best settings for performance. here's what i found:
- even a lightwheight window manager like windowmaker, fluxbox or xfce impacts negatively (specially if you're short on RAM)
- any cute widget, dockapp or systray app can take a hit. a simple opengl cpu meter, displaynig a spinning cube, running inside a 64x64 dockapp had a 10% hit on glxgears' frame rate
- daemons started from init.d scripts steal memory, and if they trigger a backgroud process, bye-bye performance. so make sure anything than trigger lots of disk I/O operations are off. specially if they run from cron
- get used to the command line. shut down GDM/KDM/XDM or any other graphical login. log on the console, quickly create an .Xsession file with nothing more than "xterm" on it. as soon as X starts with a windowless xterm, run the game from the CLI.
now, optimize BOTh PC-BSD and linux this way, THEN run a benchmark. otherwise, is the same as trying to compare a default ubuntu with openBSD on which one is more secure. or the other way on which is more usefull as a desktop. it's not right to ebnchmark different OSes by leaving the defaults just like that.

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"more" is more important than faster by sl4shd0rk · 2011-09-08 02:06 · Score: 2

What's needed is more games on linux, not faster ones.

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Re:Also, the ocean was found to contain water by Beelzebud · 2011-09-08 02:59 · Score: 2

I've seen many anecdotes about having games run faster in wine than Windows, but my own personal anecdotes say otherwise. My experience with Wine has been something like this: Game looks like its supposed to, but performance is crap. Game has glitches, but performance is acceptable. At the end of the day it's always way more fiddling than I want to spend with my gaming time. When I want to play games these days, I don't want to be bullshitting around with OS settings for a majority of the time.
Heh...I was right... by Svartalf · 2011-09-08 03:49 · Score: 2

He tested this with Ubuntu 11.04 under Unity and FreeBSD with KDE. It's a known that the configuration in Ubuntu there is a fairly massive performance sink on top of the already bad one Compiz can introduce with OpenGL stuff. As some pointed out in Phoronix' forums...all they did was benchmark Compiz/Unity versus KDE for all intents and purposes.
All things being equal, the results should be very similar if you're doing apples-to-apples comparisons since the OSes in question are similar in nature in this specific regard.

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Re:Interesting benchmarks, but not an article by Galactic+Dominator · 2011-09-08 05:00 · Score: 2

Read the article, it was the same system. OS's identify things differently and there was no attempt at standardization.

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Re:Would want to see something other then Ubuntu by bonch · 2011-09-08 05:24 · Score: 2

If you have to compile your entire operating system to get performance that's competitive with a pre-built package-based distribution, there's a problem.
Phoronix and bias by bonch · 2011-09-08 05:32 · Score: 2

What's funny is that people are finding any reason they can to dismiss the benchmarks (my favorite is claiming the hardware is different, when it's not).
Meanwhile, nobody seemed to have a problem with Phoronix's previous benchmark showing Wine/Cedega games running faster on Linux than on Windows. The difference now is that Linux is on the losing end of the benchmark, so it simply must be incorrect in some way.
OS bias is a funny and bizarre thing.
IT'S THE SAME HARDWARE by bonch · 2011-09-08 05:37 · Score: 2

This claim keeps getting repeated, over and over by people who didn't RTFA. IT IS THE SAME HARDWARE. The operating systems report it differently.
As for Phoronix, nobody here seemed to have a problem with their previous benchmark showing Windows games running better on Linux Cedega. Now that Linux is shown to be losing in a benchmark, suddenly there are all these "problems" with the benchmark. This community is so biased.