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AMD Catalyst Linux Driver Performs Wildly Different Based On Program's Name

Posted by Soulskill on from the a-rose-by-any-other-name-would-still-render-as-fast dept.

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?

6 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Speed v.s. reliability by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Speed increases may be sacrificing some reliability or cutting some corners. In a FPS game it may be worth it to reduce number of bits in the graphics to increase the frame rate in fast moving images but if you work on photo editing then you want precision rather than speed.

    Maybe looking at the name of the executable was an easy way around that.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    1. Re:Speed v.s. reliability by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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
    2. Re:Speed v.s. reliability by jrumney · · Score: 5, Interesting

      So they have a whitelist to deal with this problem rather than an API call. The cynic in me wonders how much AMD charges to have your game listed on that whitelist.

    3. Re:Speed v.s. reliability by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't underestimate the power of human laziness.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. Re:First post by JoeCommodore · · Score: 5, Funny

    Too slow, you should have titled you first post Global Strike: Counter Offensive.

    --
    "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
  3. Confirmed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just tested on the game I develop, Warsow, and our latest version of Qfusion engine.

    FPS jumped from 250 ~ to 300 ~ without a cap on the same location. WTF, AMD?