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FreeBSD, Ubuntu Offer Same NVIDIA OpenGL Support As Windows

Posted by timothy on from the next-year-windows-will-be-ready-for-the-desktop dept.

An anonymous reader writes "There's some good news if you use NVIDIA graphics on (Ubuntu) Linux or FreeBSD with their binary graphics driver: the OpenGL performance is comparable to Windows 8. Unfortunately, that's not the same for Intel graphics and AMD doesn't even offer a Catalyst driver for FreeBSD. FreeBSD offers a binary Linux compatibility layer to run games at the same (or better) performance as Linux, but unfortunately it's capped to running Linux x86 binaries and NVIDIA is the only GPU vendor with proper BSD graphics driver support."

14 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. AMD Shooting themselves in the foot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    AMD is missing out on that HUGE FreeBSD gaming market.

    1. Re:AMD Shooting themselves in the foot by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah. Like the Sony PS4.

      VGLeaks reports that the operating system used on Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 is called Orbis OS,

      http://www.vgleaks.com/some-details-about-playstation-4-os-development/
      http://www.tomshardware.com/news/FreeBSD-Linus-Orbis-OS-PlayStation-OtherOS,23254.html

    2. Re:AMD Shooting themselves in the foot by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The PS4 doesn't use a stock FreeBSD install, it uses something that incorporates a lot of FreeBSD code. So does Android (although not in the kernel) and so does OS X, but neither of them use the same driver model for GPUs either.

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    3. Re:AMD Shooting themselves in the foot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not a FreeBSD user, but this shows that sadly, we still have a long way to go when it comes to getting open source driver support. Sure, there are drivers for Linux nowadays, which I'll admit is a huge victory in itself. But having binary drivers only completely misses the point. The point of *open* drivers is to permit tinkering, which is a Greater Good that benefits all of us (including the manufacturer).

    4. Re:AMD Shooting themselves in the foot by Eunuchswear · · Score: 2

      The closed source driver is a non-issue as long as nVidia would provide continuous support for it.

      Nothing to add

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
  2. in 3... 2... 1... by cbope · · Score: 2, Funny

    "...performance is comparable to Windows 8."

    Oooh, this is going to get ugly, quick.

    1. Re:in 3... 2... 1... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's like the finger smudges on the screen are jumping right out at me!

    2. Re:in 3... 2... 1... by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just wait for Windows 8.1 (with new Start button!). It will completely surpass FreeBSD in gaming market share.

    3. Re:in 3... 2... 1... by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's kind of sad that people on Slashdot no longer understand that operating systems include modular components that can be replaced.

      I installed Windows 8.. on a 5 year old Core 2 duo system using a spare hard drive. You know what? While I sure didn't like the UI choices MS made for Windows 8, it was at least as fast as my Arch Linux installation on the exact same box (the difference being that Arch got an SSD while Windows 8 was on an older mechanical hard drive).

      In many ways the Windows graphics stack is well ahead of X (Wayland is fixing this fortunately, but it has taken a long time). The interesting thing is that the actual 3D stack in Linux, which practically ignores the X server in modern implementations, is actually quite good, but the actual core graphics in Windows are also very good despite what Slashtrolls would like to believe. Nvidia
      has done a very good job at getting comparable performance levels out of both platforms.

      --
      AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    4. Re:in 3... 2... 1... by readingaccount · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No-one has complained about the performance of Windows 8 - in fact it's known for being a bit better than Windows 7 in some areas. It's just the shoehorned mobile-focus UI in Win 8 that's earned contempt instead of hardware requirements for a change.

  3. Grain of salt by gauntlet420 · · Score: 5, Informative

    This article seems to be talking about newer hardware and the NVIDIA binary blob driver. If you're stuck with Nouveau and an older NVIDIA card, your performance is going to be much worse than Windoze. I recently de-Windozed a P4 box running a GeForce440MX. Perfectly acceptable performance under XP became molasses-slow under Xubuntu 13 - we're talking seconds per screen refresh, and lots of visual artifacting. Newer distys and the legacy binary blob drivers that support GeForce 4 don't play nice with each other either. I ended up yanking the card and putting in a Radeon 9800SE (with 1/4 the video RAM) and even with the open-source radeon driver, performance was astronomically better - the machine was actually *useable*.

  4. That's nothing, you insensitive clods... by Type44Q · · Score: 5, Funny

    Unfortunately, that's not the same for Intel graphics and AMD doesn't even offer a Catalyst driver for FreeBSD.

    I'm still trying to get the Tseng Labs ET4000 video chip in my IBM PS/2 ValuePoint to display more than 256colors. Apparently the chip itself is capable but there was a hardware bug in IBM's implementation (the chip is soldered to the motherboard, by the way) and it simply won't display 16 or 24bit color depths in Windows 3.1 without artifacting all-to-hell. I've tried calling IBM every year or so (since 1994) to see if they've released a patched BIOS for the problem yet but still no luck (however, now that Lenovo's in charge, things might finally shape up over there; my fingers're crossed...).

  5. You missed a possibility by cupantae · · Score: 3, Informative

    FreeBSD offers a binary Linux compatibility layer to run games at the same (or better) performance as Linux

    Or worse. It might be worse, too.

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  6. Re:Yes! Econ-101 by somersault · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Linux is a nonstarter in the mid to high leveled graphics card markets.

    Are you talking about consumer or professional grade cards there? People do engineering CAD work and simulation in Linux. Steam is out for Linux now, and more games will presumably be on the way. Linux users are more likely to be power users who actually care about getting decent hardware.

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    which is totally what she said