ATI: Linux vs. Windows Vista

[remm]

I expect if they do a round of testing, they would test with a variety of applications, including games running on Wine.

[Ole-Martin Broz]

i cant seem to tell ive had any issues running apps, except some DX games, but they can be run in opengl. like wow warcraft 3, and to be honest, starcraft broodwar goes better on 2900 xt than 8800 GTS/GTX, which kind of suprised me.

well, you all might say, starcraft doesnt lagg on my whatever kind of videocard, but it doesnt lagg, till like 5 minutes in the game, the game start to become active and all that. like while playing with 200+ actions per minute, pro gaming.

well. i got some annoying bugs in like gnome, while using my workspace, thats the issue for ati users primarily i guess, for hd users probaly.

I think ati have gotten this driver nearly perfect for the HD series, just to give the same support all the way down to x700.


But with 64 bit fglrx gnome xorg and all that. it still means that we got a bottle neck >_< the GL! so i'd be expecting very simular results, i dont know, lets throw it in the party of benchmark, and see what happens

[zappbrannigan]

Quake 4

What about Quake 4? On my 9800 Pro I can't compare the results on XP and Linux. On both plattforms the game is playable but on Linux is looks very ugly. I remember the situation with Doom 3 was the same.

[Dragoran]

Well I only registered to say something to this comments...
First the game does not use DX10 on windows and even if nobody is stopping you creating this effects using opengl as long as the hardware and driver supports it (nvidia has opengl extensions for this; I am not sure about ATI).
The only two things that can affect perfomance in this case are either vsync which is already mentioned, or AA (enabling it in the game did not have any effect for me using the demo, I had to enable them using the drivers.) But the article should have mentntioned any use of AA/AF.

[ivanovic]

Okay, I think there might be another thing that *could* cause quite some difference:
CPU-Limitation!
Yes, it does look unlikely when looking at the specs of the cpu used, but the very similar results at 1280x1024 and 1680x1050 do look like there is a cpu limitation. The difference between those resolutions shoud be more than only 0.2 fps (<1%). The CPU used does only have a rather low clockspeed (1.8Ghz) and maybe the 1.1 version of etqw is basically singlethreaded. In such a situation there *might* be some differences due to cpu handling from the side of the operating system, though the other 7 cores should be able to handle the os rather well (no idea if that really is the case on windows... ).
Regarding the changelog of patch 1.2 for etqw there might be some significant changes with that version.

And to have more reliable results, there are two things that I would like to see:
1) Screenshots for image quality comparisons. Do both versions really look identical?
2) A comparison with WinXP as in "is the really bad vista driver at fault". I would not be suprised if it is just the vista driver misbehaving since both, AMD/ATI and NVidia did have quite some problems with getting speed out of their cards under Vista.

Never the less, the performance of the latest AMD/ATI driver seems to be really good. Looks like the guys really did a great job with the new opengl implementation.

[Ole-Martin Broz]

Okay, I think there might be another thing that *could* cause quite some difference:
CPU-Limitation!
Yes, it does look unlikely when looking at the specs of the cpu used, but the very similar results at 1280x1024 and 1680x1050 do look like there is a cpu limitation. The difference between those resolutions shoud be more than only 0.2 fps (<1%). The CPU used does only have a rather low clockspeed (1.8Ghz) and maybe the 1.1 version of etqw is basically singlethreaded. In such a situation there *might* be some differences due to cpu handling from the side of the operating system, though the other 7 cores should be able to handle the os rather well (no idea if that really is the case on windows... ).
Regarding the changelog of patch 1.2 for etqw there might be some significant changes with that version.

And to have more reliable results, there are two things that I would like to see:
1) Screenshots for image quality comparisons. Do both versions really look identical?
2) A comparison with WinXP as in "is the really bad vista driver at fault". I would not be suprised if it is just the vista driver misbehaving since both, AMD/ATI and NVidia did have quite some problems with getting speed out of their cards under Vista.

Never the less, the performance of the latest AMD/ATI driver seems to be really good. Looks like the guys really did a great job with the new opengl implementation.

Look the same to me, in quality, i run both my settings on 8xMSAA 16xAF. @ 1280x1024

[mitcoes]

I would like persistent benchmarks

As there are no more websites that benchmarks linux i would like persistent benchmarking for drivers.

I also would like 2 game tests OpenGl and Directx.

The first one (opengl) with Xp, Vista, Linux native, Wine, XP virtualized on Xp, on Linux, and Vista, Vista virtualized on XP, Linux and Vista, and Linux vurtualized on XP, Linux and Vista

(Starting with Quake3, and one opengl game for each year)

The second one identical, but for directx games.

You can have Nvidia and Ati identical machines, and test them with latest drivers and a driver for quarter for example.

Of course Linux would have better curve than Windows, but it was so far, now, that drivers are closer repeat this tests after each upgrade would help a lot to choose better to play.

Last, but not least, the future of gaming, could be memory sticks (perhaps USB3) with live distributions, with linux and open source dirvers (identical to propietary ones I hope in a near future) that you can play in several different hardware, as PCs, MACs, PS3, NWii, iPhones and other game machines, including Xbox perhaps MS would reject this kind of distribution, but it would save a lot of mpney in development and it would work great even against piracy.

[givemesugarr]

The first one (opengl) with Xp, Vista, Linux native, Wine, XP virtualized on Xp, on Linux, and Vista, Vista virtualized on XP, Linux and Vista, and Linux vurtualized on XP, Linux and Vista

you've forgotten to mention solaris, solaris virtualized on vista, on xp, on linux, on solaris and project indiana, then freebsd and freebsd on unix that is virtualized on xp that is virtualized by vista, which is virtualized by kubuntu, which runs on ubuntu....

Of course Linux would have better curve than Windows, but it was so far, now, that drivers are closer repeat this tests after each upgrade would help a lot to choose better to play.

wow, you've been able to say something without really saying something...

Last, but not least, the future of gaming, could be memory sticks (perhaps USB3) with live distributions, with linux and open source dirvers (identical to propietary ones I hope in a near future) that you can play in several different hardware, as PCs, MACs, PS3, NWii, iPhones and other game machines, including Xbox perhaps MS would reject this kind of distribution, but it would save a lot of mpney in development and it would work great even against piracy.

yes, you're right!!! i'm buying right now an iphone to run unreal tournament 3 on it. i've had it powered by an ati hd 2900 xt 1gb of ram in sli with an nvidia 8800gt 1gb...


after all it seems that you haven't really understand what here at phoronix are benchmarking...

[Uchikoma]

Okay lets be nice now...-_-

Firstly though mitcoes, I'm kinda curious how we'd do directx testing in linux, and openGL in windows. Linux games don't have support for DirectX for a rather obvious reason(s). [It's not there! *gasp*]

Secondly, virtualization just kills performance. I'm not even sure most gamers would like to run modern games in a virtualized environment especially when there are native clients available.

I don't get the remaining statements in your post though.

Anyhow, that's my thoughts on your proposal. Correct me if I'm wrong ^^

But the idea of persistent benchmarking like what is carried out in Windows systems, would be nice...further down the line when Linux becomes more of a gaming platform with more install base.

[givemesugarr]

But the idea of persistent benchmarking like what is carried out in Windows systems, would be nice...further down the line when Linux becomes more of a gaming platform with more install base.

wow... say it right: you're the universal translator from star trek!!! it's difficult to think of that from that words...
the problem is always the time and the fact that linux is fully customizable, so there may be differences when running on newer/older versions of xorg, or on kde vs gnome vs evolution... the continuous benchmarks would be interesting but there's a really great work to do that and i don't know if the guys at phoronix have this manpower to do these benchmarks everytime.
maybe assigning them to a list of some willing users would help, but then there would be first the need to set out a policy on how to do the benchmarks before venturing in such a project.