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.

Comments

Nothing new

[Zardus]

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.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't one single "Linux crowd", and not everyone, or even nearly everyone run Linux for political reasons. RMS Gnussolini's are very much minority.

I very much welcome any proprietary software on Linux that does the job better.

Re:Nothing new

[AntiSol]

This. Free software is great and I'll always check out the free alternatives before I consider paying for anything, but not all of us think that all proprietary software is inherently evil. Most (all?) of the people I know are much more pragmatic and interested in getting real-world work done than that. I'd love to hand over cash for a powerful video editor that is easier to use than cinellera or a native version of FL Studio so that I can finally ditch wine.

I for one have absolutely zero problem paying for games, even if I do think we'd all be better off if game makers released source code (the content should stay nonfree, though). I just recently broke the "100 nonfree games for Linux" barrier. I'm loving Bioshock Infinite, it was worth every penny, and I'm really happy to see it out for my OS of choice. But it's their code - who am I to argue if they don't want to release their source?

I'm going to choose the video driver that allows me to use my hardware to its fullest extent and gives the highest possible framerate with the prettiest effects. If nvidia want to do it all by themselves and don't want the community's help making their drivers even better than they already are, who am I to argue?

TL;DR: I use Linux because it's better more than because it's free - free is an added bonus.

(I do think the zealots/extremists are essentially correct, but they tend to use a lot of rhetoric and margnialise themselves. It's unfortunate. But it does make us pragmatists seem a whole lot saner)

Re:Nothing new

[tlambert]

EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is more a case of: copyright law does not specify what counts as derived work (in particular, whether kernel modules do or do not count as such), so we're giving you a clear criteria of what we believe. If you have a different opinion you are likely to annoy people and might have to defend your theory in court.

It's not what Linus believes, as he has stated on numerous occasions when question on whether or not kernel modules were derivative works. The concept of the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL was invented by Linux developers who disagrees with Linus on this, and wanted to force hardware vendors to open source their software anyway, even though there are numerous legal reasons they can't. For example, a lot of those people copy code from each other and violate copyright all over the place, and there's a gentlemen's agreement for them all to whistle to themselves while looking in the other direction. This agreement is void as soon as some lawyer can compare the source code. It's a matter of being pragmatic and closed source, or legally liable, and open source.

Yes, I'm aware that Linus has also stated that he has no deeply held philosophical beliefs about EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL, either, but that's more a case of him not giving a damn whether Linux makes it as a gaming platform on an equal footing as Windows, or it never gets to that point, since he really doesn't give a squat about that aspect of things (and he's said as much on that, too).

Without the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL, Linus' public statements on kernel modules not being derivative works is admissable, and he has, in fact, offered to be an expert witness in that regard.

Too but it bluntly

[hooiberg]

Gaming on Linux is done with NVIDIA.

Re:Too but it bluntly

[hooiberg]

And then, a Hello World in CUDA is about eight lines. A Hello World in OpenCL is three pages.

Re:Too but it bluntly

[hooiberg]

Indeed. But in defense of OpenCL, These three pages are mostly initialisation stuff. Once you have that done, the remainder of the code is similar in length to the length it would have were it written in CUDA.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

This is changing. Rather fast. I have 50 Linux games on steam, and all run fine on my 4 year old Core i5 and AMD 6630M laptop. Sure detail levels aren't great, but they aren't bad either. I get 40+fps on war thunder. Still downloading bioshock.

Surprisingly I have yet to have an issue running any of these games. I'm not running Ubuntu (or other debian based), so I expected issues. I am going to experiment with my desktop later when I get time to put a modern linux distro on.

Gaming on Linux is looking good actually.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

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.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[ledow]

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.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

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.

Not really new on Windows either

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Anyone Running Windows Steam Through Wine?

[JohnnyMindcrime]

I started gaming again over the cold Winter months, I have a Windows 7 desktop with Steam that is there for gaming, specifically RPG FPS games like Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. (Neither have native Linux versions for those who don't know.)

I recently upgraded the Windows desktop from an old ATI/AMD graphics card to a newer NVIDIA card due to wanting better Fallout performance. All my other desktops run Gentoo Linux and ATI/AMD cards, probably 66xx or 67xx chipsets.

The only thing stopping me ditching Windows completely is the fact that I have twice as many games in Windows Steam as opposed to Linux Steam, other than that I don't need Windows at all.

But if anyone can confirm if Windows Steam in WINE works well with NVIDIA cards then I may do an upgrade or two so I can ditch Windows completely. I tried it with ATI/AMD cards and had very little success, especially when it came to game performance. But I also have done very little in recent years on NVIDIA cards and WINE gaming.... so any hints here gratefully received!

YEARS and YEARS ago...

[johnjones]

when there was a ATI rage128 X11 driver written by enthusiast and Linux people it was basically the BEST

then nvidia saw the marketing and CAD market decided to ship a direct port of their windows driver with all the horrible spec breaking kludges that made it fast...

AMD now released a good driver that doesn't have too many kludges and sticks fairly well to the spec but its slow... they dont want to reveal all their breaking of the spec and kludges that they do on windows...

basically we could have a driver that was fast but it wont be a good (without fudging colours and resolutions etc)

AMD need to look at it like a marketing experience and invest in the software drivers for a couple of years... hey they could blow nvidia out of the water in about 6 months if they had the right team and just went for it...

regards

John Jones

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

Nice troll. But inaccurate on both counts:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...

I could be in any part of the green area. Try again.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[loufoque]

Why do you think people want games on Linux? It's because rebooting to Windows is tedious.
Linux is the better desktop and working environment, so it is what you use when you don't play games. Having your desktop be an alt-tab away is convenient to quickly switch between gaming and other things.

Now why isn't the demand for games on Linux higher? Because most people who use Linux are professionals, and they don't spend that much of their time on the computer playing games, so when they need to, suffering the reboot is ok.

AMD support isn't that bad

[gukin]

It's really not that bad and yes I spent a couple of hours playing BS:I yesterday on my core i7 nVidia 660 Ti gaming system with all settings set to Ultra. My AMD system is a Kaveri APU based system and lo and behold, the only game that requires very low settings is BS:I. As I understand it, BS:I and the other game he mentioned are using some form of emulation, similar to WINE for the game to play, this is true of the Witcher and will probably become more and more common.

So, ONE of my steam games plays better on nVidia than AMD, admitedly, I only have 24 Linux/SteamOS games but I tend to stick with the high profile shooters but one game plays bad and Michael L. makes a big stink. When my Kaveri came out, all the comparisons were against the top of the line i7 and i5 processors and it looked like crap. Using a car analogy, a Camry with a V6 compared to a Hellcat Challenger will look pretty slow but for all other purposes the Camry will have more than enough acceleration to satisfy the average driver.

Hell I'm just happy the games are coming to Linux, whether the run perfectly or not, I'd rather play on Linux in low settings than Windows in high.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

or perhaps techheads in general like to have their "special stuff".

When Windows 8 came out, I had 3 very nontechnical friends who found themselves "upgraded" to an interface which was completely foreign and confusing to them. They called me and said that their computers had "gone weird" on them. My solution was to put an xubuntu livecd into their drives and let them play with it for a bit. All 3 of them said that they preferred it because it "made more sense" and was "more like it used to be", all 3 agreed that I should wipe the windows partition and install xubuntu. All 3 are still using it.

(of which I am one)

LOL. A gamer is not a "techhead".

buy anything and it will work on Windows. Linux? I'd have to check first

Go buy a Packard Bell FastMedia Remote control and then come talk to me. You'll find it's simply impossible to use in anything newer than Windows me due to the WinNT line not allowing direct access to serial ports. Mine still works brilliantly in linux.

I literally can't remember the last time I plugged something into a linux machine and it didn't just work. It might have been around 2007, but I suspect it was more like 2003. And I get my hands on weird and wonderfully exotic hardware every now and then.

What does Linux in 2015 do that Windows does not?

Just a couple off the top of my head:

1. Shows you what it's doing when it's busy (assuming you bother to ask)
2. Mounts mounting volumes in virtually every filesystem ever invented
3. Supports loopback mounting (i.e mount an iso [or any disk image] without thirdparty software)
4. Supports more than 25 attached disks.
5. Boots into a live, usable environment from a USB stick or DVD
6. Has a themeable, customisable interface
7. Supports MUCH MUCH more hardware
8. Runs on ARM devices
9. Runs on a Space Station
10. Serves up most of the web's traffic
11. Provides virtually all of the world's supercomputing
12. Has tens of thousands of high-quality applications available for free and about 3 clicks away from being installed
13. Provides free, 1-click updates
14. Doesn't have any arbitrary limitations imposed based on how much you spent on it.
15. Doesn't need a virus scanner
16. Doesn't suck ass

Have you ever even used Linux? If you tried Red Hat 5.0 back in 1998, it's probably time you took another look. In 2015, it's superior to windows in every respect except one: available proprietary software. And that's changing.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

When Windows 8 came out, I had 3 very nontechnical friends who found themselves "upgraded" to an interface which was completely foreign and confusing to them. They called me and said that their computers had "gone weird" on them. My solution was to put an xubuntu livecd into their drives and let them play with it for a bit. All 3 of them said that they preferred it because it "made more sense" and was "more like it used to be", all 3 agreed that I should wipe the windows partition and install xubuntu. All 3 are still using it.

Many people use their computer as nothing more than an Internet and e-mail machine, and in that respect, it largely doesn't matter what OS they run.

Many of these people are moving to tablets as they discover they don't really want or need a computer.