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Gaming On Linux With Newest AMD Catalyst Driver Remains Slow
An anonymous reader writes The AMD Catalyst binary graphics driver has made a lot of improvements over the years, but it seems that NVIDIA is still leading in the Linux game with their shared cross-platform driver. Tests done by Phoronix of the Catalyst 15.3 Linux Beta found on Ubuntu 15.04 shows that NVIDIA continues leading over AMD Catalyst with several different GPUs on BioShock Infinite, a game finally released for Linux last week. With BioShock Infinite on Linux, years old mid-range GeForce GPUs were clobbering the high-end Radeon R9 290 and other recent AMD GPUs tested. The poor showing wasn't limited to BS:I though as the Metro Redux games were re-tested too on the new drivers and found the NVIDIA graphics still ran significantly faster and certainly a different story than under Windows.
It's been this way for years. ATI/AMD support for Linux is unbelievably bad. nVidia support is basically perfect, with the exception of the open-source issue. In the past, I've bought a brand new (nVidia) video card, right after it was released, brought it home, and got it running under Linux, day 1, with no headaches. If you want decent Linux graphics, go nVidia.
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
The point? I don't know there is one precisely. I game on linux because it is my preferred platform. I have been using it for so long now I actually have a ls.bat file on my windows machine somewhere.
Linux is fairly useful on the desktop. I did my entire honours project some years ago under linux (including PCB/circuit design and embedded code). In general, I have found it to 'just work' in modern times, unless you are doing something exotic. Beyond that I would love to see it used more in industry. It would be much easier to manage a SCADA under linux, where the bastard operator from hell can't plug in a usb stick with 1002 viruses and I can ssh in to troubleshoot coms problems. Yeah you can disable USB storage under windows too, but it is a PITA.
I am not saying the average user should be running linux (though I suppose we can see how Steam machines do), but it is rather nice to be able to start up a game at home without having to reboot.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
The people beta-testing SteamOS or the Steam hardware? Steam basically ran a competition over Christmas part of which involved early access to the hardware.
Beyond that, who wouldn't? Indie gamers have a vast wealth of software at their disposal that'll run on any old machine that they haven't got a Windows licence for. It's literally the "thorw this in the kid's bedroom" kind of hardware and you can play an awful lot of games. Turn on big picture mode or go as far as putting the SteamOS iso in the drive and you have a self-contained gaming platform that you don't need to manage for them.
1/3rd of my Steam library is available on Linux. It's far from what it used to be. I could keep a kid/teenager entertained for YEARS with what I have on Linux.
And then include family sharing, streaming, etc. and they can play all those games while I am.
These things are about momentum. Diesel is really common here (my boss drives a diesel hatchback, and gets incredible km/l). Every filling station here stocks diesel. Is it a better technology? Maybe... It is really expensive to fix when it breaks. So it is in a way a really good analogy for Linux. In the some places (the USA), everyone only uses it for servers (big haulage trucks) but in other places it gets used everywhere.
There are pros and cons to every OS. Linux is my preferred platform because I am familiar with it, and I like the interface. I have not delusions of superiority. I have had good experiences with hardware support, and apart from printers (I do not own one, so it is a non-issue for me), I have not worried about linux support for hardware since around 2005. Also, a lot of hardware seems to work better: 3g modems for example - they don't require me to install the operators bs bloatware to use under linux. They just work...
I think the point here, is someone is making an effort to build diesel filling stations. You can still get petrol and it will never go away, but you now have options, and each has pros and cons. I like diesel. It has really good torque. Modern diesels have come a long way in terms of reliability (early diesels were terrible). They aren't perfect, but they do the job.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
While AMD fans cry foul, it really is true that AMD drivers are worse on Windows than nVidia drivers. It isn't the massive gap like on Linux, but it is there. OpenGL stuff sees particular issues, with slower performance or even stuff outright failing to run on AMD cards, but other issues as well. My 7970M in my laptop has been headaches since I got the thing and only recently got up to a competent level.
Problems aside, they are just slow with updates for things like Crossfire. Multi-GPU support generally requires game specific profiles to work well, or even work at all. nVidia is quite fast at getting their SLI profiles out, but AMD hasn't had an update to Crossfire profiles since 2014.
AMD just doesn't focus on the software side of things like nVidia does. Their hardware development team seems to be top notch but their software development is lacking.