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FreeBSD: A Faster Platform For Linux Gaming Than Linux?

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  • #91
    Originally posted by kebabbert View Post
    Interesting benchmarks. It seems that BSD devs did something right, when you consider that all Linux code has to be interpreted and then run on another OS - and STILL it runs faster on BSD. Cudos to BSD devs. What is wrong with Linux, why is it slower?

    So, if you want to use Linux software with heavy graphics, you should install BSD instead. It would be interesting to see if BSD also runs other Linux software faster: software that is not graphics heavy, but just pure Linux software. "BSD runs faster Linux than Linux"?




    UPDATE: As someone wrote:
    "What's funny is that people are finding any reason they can to dismiss the benchmarks (my favorite is claiming the hardware is different, when it's not).

    Meanwhile, nobody seemed to have a problem with Phoronix's previous benchmark showing Wine/Cedega games running faster on Linux than on Windows:
    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

    The difference now is that Linux is on the losing end of the benchmark, so it simply must be incorrect in some way."



    When Linux wins, everything is correct and good and fair. When Linux looses, something is wrong and the benchmark is bad and unfair. What is this behaviour called?

    You are dead on.

    Comment


    • #92
      Originally posted by yotambien View Post
      I thought we, as a species, had already discussed the supposed performance advantages of Gentoo more than enough. I mean, yeah, I can understand people with less than 10 posts coming up with the same issues over and over. Fair enough, the ever lasting September and all that jazz. But the old guard...? I clearly remember some point in the past where some Gentoo users publicly admitted the reasons why they love their distro had not much to do with speed and more with ease of customisation...or something. And for all we know, benchmarks do nothing but suggest again and again that different compilation options have various effects depending on the code being baked.

      Anyway, if some random Gentoo user wants to keep singing the same old same old, at least be honest and word it like something around the lines of

      Gentoo is the fastest distro in the solar system by a 1337%(*)

      (*)Terms and Conditions apply. As compared to a standard broken Ubuntu installation on a limited number of tests using a custom version of GCC doped with 0.02% extract of lizard liver and 2 ppm virgin blood.
      LOL! I love Gentoo. I'd probably never install it again though. But there is no way on earth I'd reinstall Ubuntu on my PC ever again.

      Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
      Lolwhat? The properly configured gentoo will always fry any other properly configured distribution out there simply by the fact, code was optimized for host processor. The margin depends only on amount of compiled code. Bigger the static codebase, complexer the system (hello, 32bit what?) - more advantage. Unless compiler has bugs. Or unless people simply don?t care about firefox starting 0.5 seconds faster as result of compiling the code 30 minutes long.
      No one has the time to properly configure such a system when they would rather just use their PC. Even if it were true, the gains are so marginal that no one cares. I agree yes Gentoo is faster, but I don't enjoy recompiling my WHOLE system every time I have to update some stupid packages. It just feels like wasted cpu cycles that could be better used for something else. Imagine something as huge and convulated as windows 7 trying a prank like that. Every update must recompile different parts of the OS. ARGH. It would take days... and for what? A few % increase in speed? meh.. It's a matter of personal choice. I don't even bother compiling the kernel to gain speed these days. It's just not worth wasting time for such marginal speed gains.



      Originally posted by deanjo View Post
      And that is where your reasoning fails. A vast majority of applications and libraries out there do not contain any specific code for the extended sets. Recompiling an app on a processor that has SSE 4 for example does not automagically make the application support SSE4. Most applications out there may have common extended set support such as SSE2 (which is present in all x64 processors). There are a few apps out there that will take advantage (openSSL and GCM for example) and those are easily enough recompiled on any distro to take advantage of the extra support which happens to be what PTS does on the majority of it's tests.
      Yep I woke upto that about 5 years ago. When I realised that no matter how many times I recompiled glxgears, it was the source code that mattered the most. I looked around and found different versions of the glxgears source code and found that some in particular were much faster than others. Then to my shock horror, the binary was the fastest of them all.... (arch linux) That's when I realised that I was wasting my time recompiling things that were never slow in the first place.


      Originally posted by gilboa View Post
      As much as I enjoy reading the overwhelmingly idiotic comments about Gentoo / Linux / Ubuntu and FreeBSD, I guess its time to say:
      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


      It was a sensational story for the sake of, well, writing the sensational story.
      I can't possibly believe that someone @Phoronix done two bencharmks in the same week, one ignoring the WM differences between kwin and Unity, and a couple of days later, a second benhmark comparing Unity to Unit2D and GNOME shell showing the huge effect a WM can have on gaming performance without connecting the dots.

      Beyond that:
      1. Kudos to the nVidia driver team, period. (Whether or not Linux / BSD / Windows is 5% slower or faster is completely irrelevant)
      2. Last time I checked (7.3), the 64bit driver was noticeably slower than the Linux driver; I guess its time to install FreeBSD 8.2. (Or should I wait for 9?)
      3. Beyond rethinking the very, very, very, questionable benchmarking methodology, isn't it high time to reconsider the selection of Ubunutu as master of all things?
      As an alternative, I propose the following:
      a. On each release cycle compare the 3 top distribution (e.g. Fedora, Ubunutu, OpenSUSE, etc).
      b. Determine who's the best performing distribution.
      c. Use *winner* against BSD/Windows/MAC/Android/DOS.
      d. Sound's almost, err, logical, isn't it?

      - Gilboa
      You're totally correct with #1. nVidia have done an awesome job with their binary driver. If only they supported the open source stuff a bit better. I guess it's their choice in the end. You would think that they would have huge gains from it considering intel realise this and they always have promoted open source.

      I personally avoid Ubuntu, so you've won my vote with #3. I propose Arch linux just as a test case... Though I think the horse has bolted on this one. Since before x64, other distro's are now doing similar optimisations, as what Arch did back in it's hey day of 686 binaries vs 386/486. I'm guessing this might be one of the reasons why FreeBSD has caught the tail of Linux, being x64 compiled with newer optimisations.


      Originally posted by russofris View Post
      @gilboa

      You've hit the nail on the head, though I am curious to know the motive behind the article's publication.

      Re: Gentoo posters.

      Gentoo is a source distribution and package manager and fits together based on a combination of Arch and compiler flags. It simply cannot be compared to other distributions in any given performance comparison as it's extremely difficult to reach a consensus on which arch, cflags, makeopts, and overlays constitute a Gentoo installation. We all agree that it is fairly trivial to make a single target application perform faster than those provided by binary distributions. I applaud the efforts of Gentoo users, and view the top performance results of Gentoo installations to represent the potential performance that can be achieved by other performance seeking enthusiasts. That said, we should balance the results with the fact that many Gentoo users do not know what they are doing, have horribly mis-configured their installations to the point of barely working, and perform horribly at all but a few targeted tasks. Gentoo isn't the solution for performance issues, it's the path to the solution.
      Maybe something Gentoo needs is some kind of auto configuration tool. Something that helps with flag selection and compiler optimisation... I don't see the point otherwise.

      Something like this: Ask yourself what you want to use the system for. Then what you predict you will want installed.... (usually unknown) See the problem with most situations is, we keep changing our mind. So in a lot of situations we end up just starting over... I think this is where most operating systems fail though. Much like re-installing windows since it begins to crawl after a year of use... It's not logical to have a intermediate user install Gentoo and not really know what they want. Then having to start again from scratch because they mucked up a few times. Having a man page or htm readme that is a zillion pages long doesn't help either. Especially if the user just wants a fast OS that they just want to use... and install only once every blue moon.

      Comment


      • #93
        Originally posted by tbyte View Post
        Do You know what the meaning of "linux shill" is, Bilbo ?
        Measuring by the level of your logic I'm picturing you as a low level windows support.
        Congratulations, you've fallen for a sensationalist troll article and are slinging mud at those calling shenanigans.

        A number of gamers would happily switch to a BSD based distribution if it offered some benefit over our current linux based installation. Currently, it does not. The results achieved by BSD (in the article) can be achieved in almost any linux distribution when using a window manager that does not interfere with OGL gaming performance. The author knew about this, and even posted an article last week stating such. While I applaud the efforts of the BSD community and the near-native performance of their linux ABI/API implementation, I rather see the mud slinging linked to an article more worthy than the turd that lead you here.

        Shame on the author, shame on the community of rabble-rousers (both BSD and Linux), shame on you.

        Comment


        • #94
          Originally posted by b15hop View Post
          Maybe something Gentoo needs is some kind of auto configuration tool. Something that helps with flag selection and compiler optimisation... I don't see the point otherwise.
          Not having the auto-selection of arch/opts/flags is "the point". The ability to customize multiple facets of the OS is Gentoo's strength, and should be leveraged as such. I thank those individuals running ~x86, and those that test all of the combinations and permutations of cflags and library versions. It is their efforts that ultimately make pre-baked distributions more reliable. Gentoo users suffer so the rest of us don't have to. In regards to benchmarking, any Gentoo result is only representative of the user's Gentoo installation, not all Gentoo installations. I'd be willing to concede a bit if the benchmark author was the one constructing a targeted Gentoo installation for his/her benchmark. Alternatively, if Gentoo-BSD were to a point where meaningful comparison data could be obtained, I'd probably be interested in the comparison.

          Comment


          • #95
            Originally posted by tbyte View Post
            Do You know what the meaning of "linux shill" is, Bilbo ?
            Measuring by the level of your logic I'm picturing you as a low level windows support.
            Um.... Sure, whatever.
            oVirt-HV1: Intel S2600C0, 2xE5-2658V2, 128GB, 8x2TB, 4x480GB SSD, GTX1080 (to-VM), Dell U3219Q, U2415, U2412M.
            oVirt-HV2: Intel S2400GP2, 2xE5-2448L, 120GB, 8x2TB, 4x480GB SSD, GTX730 (to-VM).
            oVirt-HV3: Gigabyte B85M-HD3, E3-1245V3, 32GB, 4x1TB, 2x480GB SSD, GTX980 (to-VM).
            Devel-2: Asus H110M-K, i5-6500, 16GB, 3x1TB + 128GB-SSD, F33.

            Comment


            • #96
              Originally posted by kebabbert View Post
              I am quoting someone else from slashdot, who observed this behavior. I am not the only one to found this out: When Linux wins, everything is good and fair. When Linux looses, something is wrong. Isn't this a bit odd?

              Regarding if this benchmark is bad or good:
              I know Linux people here that compared a single core 1GHz old SPARC vs 2.4GHz dual core x86 Linux, and drew the conclusion that "This benchmark is fair and correct: Linux is clearly faster than Solaris". When I objected, he called me names such as "FUD, Troll, Idiot, etc" (etc, etc, etc, etc)
              So in short, your main claim is that:
              You don't care if the benchmark is broken because some unnamed idiot (which undoubtedly represents all the Linux users world-wide) started it.
              Following this logic, all non-Linux users world-wide are complete idiots given the 3 y/o like comment made by tbyte. *
              I bow before your superior logic.

              - Gilboa
              (* Rather ironic given the fact that my software ran [at different times] on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD ... and Solaris)
              Last edited by gilboa; 13 September 2011, 03:23 AM.
              oVirt-HV1: Intel S2600C0, 2xE5-2658V2, 128GB, 8x2TB, 4x480GB SSD, GTX1080 (to-VM), Dell U3219Q, U2415, U2412M.
              oVirt-HV2: Intel S2400GP2, 2xE5-2448L, 120GB, 8x2TB, 4x480GB SSD, GTX730 (to-VM).
              oVirt-HV3: Gigabyte B85M-HD3, E3-1245V3, 32GB, 4x1TB, 2x480GB SSD, GTX980 (to-VM).
              Devel-2: Asus H110M-K, i5-6500, 16GB, 3x1TB + 128GB-SSD, F33.

              Comment


              • #97
                The reason I use gentoo is not because it is 1337 ?berfast, but the power over my system I get.
                I can enable/disable for example mp3/dvd/midi/gtk/... support in ALL application with only one small global flag.
                I can completely remove parts from for example KDE which are impossible even to deactivate on most distros.
                I can upgrade any software without worrying about config files being overwritten or outdated.
                I can go back to any previous version of a package if I dont like an update (or it brings bugs).
                I can install multiple versions of packages in parallel if it makes sence.
                I can configure a kernel, compile it, deploy it fully reboot ready with initramfs (raid and crypto enabled) in just one command.
                I can create my own packages in just a few lines of text (especially easy for most kde software).

                Yes, and of course its faster. But we are compiling not only for that but for flexibility. The speed is just a cherry-on-top bonus.

                OK, it's a bitch to setup, but you learn so much on the way and once it is set up you have a very maintainable system with all the freedom and comfort you can get.
                Last edited by Dorsai!; 13 September 2011, 05:23 AM.

                Comment


                • #98
                  Originally posted by Dorsai! View Post
                  Yes, and of course its faster. But we are compiling not only for that but for flexibility. The speed is just a cherry-on-top bonus.
                  You were dead on up until this generalization. Targeted compilation (+march +mcpu and friends) does not guarantee an increase in performance for any specific app. Running the latest and greatest compiler does not guarantee an increase in performance for any specific app. Choosing one compile over another(ICC versus GCC) does not guarantee an increase in performance for any specific app. It is only through iterative testing with all combinations and permutations that the best combination of compiler, version, and cflags that the best performing solution for a given archtype is discovered. Gentoo-as-an-OS does little to promote/achieve this unless you were to automate the recompilation of the app and test each combination. Gentoo-as-a-community 'does' indirectly achieve this due to to the variety of platforms/architectures on which Gentoo runs and the diversity of their users.

                  I assure you that the fact that your hypothetical id3-tech-based game runs 5% faster on your Gentoo installation than your Fedora installation is almost entirely accidental, and not a result of -o3 versus -o2 (or any other magic flags in your make.conf). That is.... Unless you've iterated through different flags/compilers to find the best working combination on the target app and its dependencies via a profiler, all of your "optimizations" may be having an equally adverse effect.

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    I am only using general optimization (-o2 -march=native) and I am sure that this is (or better should be) the best configuration for my compiler/machine configuration. You are of course right that there are always applications and programs that break the rule but in general and as a rule of thumb you can say that most (maybe ~90%) of the source code out there runs better optimized for your machine than optimized for some machine. Everything else should be considered either a bug in the application or a bug in the specific arch backend of the used compiler.

                    And mind that such bugs can strike the "other" arch as well. In average -march=native should beat -march=pentium or somesuch in every machine configuration, well except for a real pentium that is where it should be equal ;-).

                    Another thing to consider: -o3 could be called faster in general, but the code produced is way larger. In some applications that leads to slower execution. While that may be an argument for your side, I doubt that many binary distros will compile -O3 on a per application level as the IO throughput and memory speed a user has available can not be forseen. I guess -o2 can be seen as consens for most binary distros. (except maybe -Os for the "tiny" distros)

                    Then there is the memory aspect of "speed" in Gentoo. You have your own personal, slimmed and trimmed down binaries which will load considerably faster in most occasions then their binary distro counterparts. The optimization does not only increase the starting time of applications but also increases the subjective "snappyness" of an application. When you press a button it might make a difference if for example 20 MB of libraries have to be loaded into the RAM or 100MB before you see any action. Mind that most desktop distros build "everything with everything" as long as a user COULD need it.

                    I do not know how well spread the usage of --as-needed in the linker flags is among the binary distros, but seeing that most patches for even the most mainstream apps came as gentoo introduced them I am not so sure it is used. If applied globaly it removes several MB of unneeded libraries which will not have to be loaded on the application start. When it was introduced as recommended it reduced the loading time of KDE4 and its applications considerably.

                    Sure, Gentoo will not magicly transform a Pentium 1 into a modern gaming rig, but the ability to tailor it to your needs will increase its subjective speed visibly. Also, even 2% gain are per definition faster, although not by much.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by gilboa View Post
                      So in short, your main claim is that:
                      You don't care if the benchmark is broken because some unnamed idiot (which undoubtedly represents all the Linux users world-wide) started it.
                      Following this logic, all non-Linux users world-wide are complete idiots given the 3 y/o like comment made by tbyte. *
                      When there were broken benchmarks here, of Linux vs OpenSolaris, I did not argue too much. OpenSolaris used gcc 3.4, 32 bit, vs Linux gcc 4.3, 64bit. I did not whine about OpenSolaris, and I do not whine about Linux now.

                      I am saying that I dont see the same fanatic Linux fanboy behaviour from BSD or Solaris users, maybe because if you are the best, then you dont have to fight all the time. Only people feeling inferior or using inferior productst, must fight all the time. Bad self esteem, maybe.

                      However, you should not call Kraftman an "unnamed idiot", he might be angry with you. Then you will surely have problems as he fights with everyone.

                      Anyway, it would be interesting to see BSD running Linux software. I have read people claiming that BSD is faster than Linux, when running Linux software. That would be interesting to see if it is true. Clearly, BSD devs did something right. Again.

                      Comment

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