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Major Performance Improvement Discovered For Intel's GPU Linux Driver

Posted by Soulskill on from the striving-for-parity dept.

An anonymous reader writes: LunarG, on contract with Valve Software, discovered a critical shortcoming with the open-source Intel Linux graphics driver that was handicapping the performance. A special bit wasn't being set by the Linux driver but was by the Windows driver, which when enabled is increasing the Linux performance in many games by now ~20%+, which should allow for a much more competitive showing between Intel OpenGL performance on Windows vs. Linux. However, the patch setting this bit isn't public yet as apparently it's breaking video acceleration in certain cases.

18 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Will it work with my distro? by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Funny

    Because my distro is the best.

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    1. Re:Will it work with my distro? by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Funny

      Fuck you, mine is better.

      I'm waiting for it to be ported to HURD

    2. Re:Will it work with my distro? by Pope+Hagbard · · Score: 3, Funny

      Xemacs is the best Linux distribution.

    3. Re:Will it work with my distro? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I agree. The only thing it is missing is a good text editor.

    4. Re:Will it work with my distro? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      As a longtime user of both "My Distro" Linux and "Mine" Linux, I can honestly say that I have never noticed a performance difference between them. However, I can emphatically state that "Your Distro" Linux sucks.

    5. Re:Will it work with my distro? by Wootery · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wine? Valve are supporting Linux natively!

  2. Benchmark Bit by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's the Benchmark Bit!

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    1. Re:Benchmark Bit by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Probably the "Official driver" bit

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      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    2. Re:Benchmark Bit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Intel drivers for Linux are official and open source. They are actively maintained by Intel themselves. This is not like the Nvidia/Nouveau split, Intel are actually very open source friendly in this area.

    3. Re:Benchmark Bit by UnknowingFool · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Also most likely the Linux drivers are written by different people than the Windows or OS X drivers so there are probably so noted differences in the coding. Some of the differences are due to APIs. Procedurally there would be practical reasons to keep driver development separate. There may be some NDA stuff on the proprietary side that Intel has to maintain with the OS.

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  3. The "paid Microsoft tax" bit, apparently by pla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I notice TFA has almost no detail beyond what TFS says. Yeah, so they found this bit that apparently has no side effects to anything else but magically boosts performance by 20%? I'll admit I haven't written a graphics card driver since back in the VESA2 days, but I can't even conceive of what function such a bit could have, without having some down side... Something like (and I don't mean this literally) disabling vsync but accepting tearing.

    1. Re:The "paid Microsoft tax" bit, apparently by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      You read the article, but did you read the summary?

      "However, the patch setting this bit isn't public yet as apparently it's breaking video acceleration in certain cases."

  4. now you've done it... by funkymonkjay · · Score: 5, Funny

    you've flipped the EVIL bit!

  5. "apparently it's breaking video acceleration in ce by grahamtriggs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's probably why it wasn't being set then.

  6. This one simple bit bumps your performance by 20% by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and you won't believe how easy it is!

    C'mon editors, it's like you missed the entire social media headline writing class.

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  7. I have seen that before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Removing flush() from code boosts DBMS performance by 40% but that patch wasn't yet accepted as in rare cases it makes data disappear after power failures.

  8. Re: Pointless improvement? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People are quick to yell "games" as if the entire desktop hasn't been 3D-accelerated for a decade.

    In many cases if a chip can be done 30% faster, not only is the user happy with the visuals, but that silicon can enter low-power mode more quickly. A laptop user might get a few more minutes' battery life with this bit on and the world might burn a few less tons of coal for all of the systems.

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  9. I liked the original headline better by Minwee · · Score: 3, Funny

    "How A Mom Found A Secret Bit That Improves Her Video Driver Performance By Twenty Percent! Intel Hates Her!"