Slashdot Mirror
AMD Catalyst Linux Driver Performs Wildly Different Based On Program's Name
An anonymous reader writes: In past years the AMD Catalyst Linux driver has yielded better performance if naming the executable "doom3.x86" or "compiz" (among other choices), but these days this application profile concept is made more absurd with more games coming to Linux but AMD not maintaining well their Linux application profile database. The latest example is by getting ~40% better performance by renaming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Linux. If renaming the "csgo_linux" binary to "hl2_linux" for Half-Life 2 within Steam, the frame-rates suddenly increase across the board, this is with the latest Catalyst 15.7 Linux driver while CS:GO has been on Linux for nearly one year. Should driver developers re-evaluate their optimization practices for Linux?
But then wouldn't it be better to let the end user choose whether something is optimized in a certain direction?
IE, if this can be done based on file name and looking up a profile from a list of Knows, would it be possible then to have an environment variable that if not set or set to "none" or whatever no in-driver corner cutting (ie, the game wasn't renamed), or if set to "FPS" do the speed thing at expense of precision, and if set to "photo" or whatever set to precision at cost of speed?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Don't underestimate the power of human laziness.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.