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NVIDIA vs. AMD 2D Linux Drivers: Catalyst Is Getting Quite Good At 2D

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  • NVIDIA vs. AMD 2D Linux Drivers: Catalyst Is Getting Quite Good At 2D

    Phoronix: NVIDIA vs. AMD 2D Linux Drivers: Catalyst Is Getting Quite Good At 2D

    Our latest Linux graphics driver benchmarks are taking a look at the binary NVIDIA and AMD Catalyst drivers using the latest versions while running on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. It's been a while since last time we closely compared the two proprietary GPU drivers with 2D workloads on an array of graphics cards so these results should be definitely interesting.

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Any plans for AMD to fix Catalyst's GtkDrawingArea performance problems?

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    • #3
      Always nice to see going for the higher end model R9 290 paid off -.-
      Every single benchmark it performs like a 270X...just great.

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      • #4
        The more benchmarks I see, the more eager I am to buy a 270X
        Any idea why in the last benchmark, 270x is so much faster than the other radeons???

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        • #5
          Interesting as I actually noted a significant performance increase when lots of glyphs are displayed.
          In particular, rxvt had a pathologically slow glyph performance in the order of 1 page/sec including a visible build-up of the screen.
          That's also fixed now and scrolls just fine.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Apopas View Post
            The more benchmarks I see, the more eager I am to buy a 270X
            Any idea why in the last benchmark, 270x is so much faster than the other radeons???
            Because r270x has a different architecture than r290 parts. Probably it has a different ALU/TMU/memory timings/memory bus combination that let it perform better in 2D than r290 parts. We should also consider how much of the resources are allocated when the card is in "2D mode" or, if you prefer, how much of the graphics pipe is busy when doing these benchmarks.

            Anyway r290 are much faster where real performance is required.

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            • #7
              It feels like I bought the only card with awful support all around - the 7790.

              On free drivers, it's possible to use the desktop with animations and all that - it works albeit not smoothly and all, and with some graphical glitches. 3D is pretty much impossible.

              On proprietary drivers, on the other hand, 2D acceleration for the desktop is even worse - dragging windows is incredibly rough and you can see them jumping around and being sketchy etc - filled with bugs - but 3D sorta works.

              What the hell guys?

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              • #8
                Originally posted by ClosureSpin View Post
                It feels like I bought the only card with awful support all around - the 7790.

                On free drivers, it's possible to use the desktop with animations and all that - it works albeit not smoothly and all, and with some graphical glitches. 3D is pretty much impossible.

                On proprietary drivers, on the other hand, 2D acceleration for the desktop is even worse - dragging windows is incredibly rough and you can see them jumping around and being sketchy etc - filled with bugs - but 3D sorta works.

                What the hell guys?
                A 7790 should perform much like a 260X. If that's not happening with your card (which sounds likely) it might be something odd like a non-standard device ID. That said, you need quite recent drivers (especially kernel IIRC) to get decent performance on the CI dGPUs with open source drivers so if you're not already using a really recent distro build that might be the first thing to try.
                Test signature

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by bridgman View Post
                  A 7790 should perform much like a 260X. If that's not happening with your card (which sounds likely) it might be something odd like a non-standard device ID. That said, you need quite recent drivers (especially kernel IIRC) to get decent performance on the CI dGPUs with open source drivers so if you're not already using a really recent distro build that might be the first thing to try.
                  I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, but with git Mesa. The kernel is 3.13 though. Should I suspect improvements when switching to 14.10's 3.16 kernel? Also, why? I thought only Mesa impacted performance.

                  Is it a combination of a recent kernel and proprietary drivers that should give me a computer that is smooth both in 2D and 3D performance?

                  As I said, 2D is almost livable at the moment - certainly good enough for desktop use. But 3D isn't.

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                  • #10
                    The kernel impacts the open-source driver a lot, but the blob is not affected at all. Ie, your performance using the blob won't change a bit if you change kernels, but for the open driver, a big part of it is in the kernel.

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