Mir Support Not Merged For Mesa 9.2

[ForkedPython]

sorry to derp into this thread, don?t understand this window manager stuff. I have questions though..

background:
I am a gamer who can now game quite well on Linux through desura and steam (also games that don?t require a DRM browser ) however i crave more performance, right now both my A10-5800k & my AMD 5850 should really be pulling double the frame rate (as within windows (and the rest)) but given the type of simple source games and the relative power of my hardware 30-40fps is OK and on some older source games 60fps is doable (where it would be 150 and more on windows). But as you have guessed i am an early adopter and have moved away from windows 7. The experience is not always smooth and im starting to wonder how games will fare that are a bit more hardcore (( DID ANYONE SEE THE JOB ADVERT FOR A CRYTEK, CRYSIS 3 LINUX DEV ?))

So the questions:

1. Will all of this Wayland / MIR stuff get in the way of gaming on Linux? Politically, will it hinder the confidence of Valve and other game devs to commit i.e will you install DOTA2 on Ubuntu get 100fps and then need some conversion that reduces FPS or increases frame latency to work on Weyland.

2. Firstly, X is here for a while longer i guess as the dust needs to settle but if STEAM is officially supported on 13.04 Ubuntu then one would assume games will be ported and tested for MIR in future. Will Weyland games run as fast as MIR ? Will people who want to game on Linux be forced to use Ubuntu ?

3. What is wrong with X ? it seems like only the actual open source drivers and mesa improvements hold performance back from reaching windows standards? If its because X doesn?t fit tablets, cars then why should I care I want a desktop environment?


Sorry for my dumb questions

[mrugiero]

I am a gamer who can now game quite well on Linux through desura and steam (also games that don’t require a DRM browser ) however i crave more performance, right now both my A10-5800k & my AMD 5850 should really be pulling double the frame rate (as within windows (and the rest)) but given the type of simple source games and the relative power of my hardware 30-40fps is OK and on some older source games 60fps is doable (where it would be 150 and more on windows). But as you have guessed i am an early adopter and have moved away from windows 7. The experience is not always smooth and im starting to wonder how games will fare that are a bit more hardcore (( DID ANYONE SEE THE JOB ADVERT FOR A CRYTEK, CRYSIS 3 LINUX DEV ?))

If you are using the closed drivers, you should get around the same performance, little bit better, little bit worse.

So the questions:

1. Will all of this Wayland / MIR stuff get in the way of gaming on Linux? Politically, will it hinder the confidence of Valve and other game devs to commit i.e will you install DOTA2 on Ubuntu get 100fps and then need some conversion that reduces FPS or increases frame latency to work on Weyland.

Will it? There's no way to know for sure. I think it might, but I heard they rely on SDL for all the window management related stuff (not sure if it's that way, though), and if it is that way, as long as it's supported on both Mir and Wayland (Wayland support is on the way, and Mir support will likely happen if not on upstream, with out of tree patches) it won't change anything for Valve. As for latency and such, I think both Mir and Wayland are supposed to be non intrusive, so it shouldn't affect as long as they do no hackish fixes to code for one and later make it run on the other.

2. Firstly, X is here for a while longer i guess as the dust needs to settle but if STEAM is officially supported on 13.04 Ubuntu then one would assume games will be ported and tested for MIR in future. Will Weyland games run as fast as MIR ? Will people who want to game on Linux be forced to use Ubuntu ?

Again, there's no way to know for sure. I doubt Valve will use Mir on their console, because that would imply they either need to code for a custom compositor or use Unity, and the first is unneeded work and the latter I think is not really what you want in a console. If I have to guess, for now they'll stick to X.org because they did the port recently and switching now could make porting to X.org seem like a wasted effort. But it's all speculation. Valve didn't make any claims on the subject, and supporting Ubuntu might just be a convenience, and if it starts implying more work, it stops being such a convenience.
/*EDIT: I'm not sure if I was clear as of why I mentioned the console, so I'll clarify it now; I mention it because I think that's their priority on porting to Linux, more than the desktop market share, so they will keep things the way it's easier for them to get the console out */

3. What is wrong with X ? it seems like only the actual open source drivers and mesa improvements hold performance back from reaching windows standards? If its because X doesn’t fit tablets, cars then why should I care I want a desktop environment?

As for fitting, X.org fits almost everywhere, and has been used on phones even. It's not that.
The problems with X are a lot, I'll just list the ones that come to mind, but they're all related to being designed when computers were a completely different thing than what they are now.

One of the problems is that it should be backwards compatible with software written in another era.
Another is that, for some reason I don't quite remember, enabling a tear free desktop implies breaking support for such old software.
Other problem is everything related to input handling, event management, etc.
Basically, it gets too much in the way. Here is a very complete article from not too long ago on the differences between Wayland and X.org, I think you should read it.

Sorry for my dumb questions

No question is dumb, only answers can be dumb. And the previous one can contain silly errors, BTW, I don't quite remember most of the problems with X, aside of doing a lot of things it doesn't need to do by today.

[ForkedPython]

If you are using the closed drivers, you should get around the same performance, little bit better, little bit worse.

Will it? There's no way to know for sure. I think it might, but I heard they rely on SDL for all the window management related stuff (not sure if it's that way, though), and if it is that way, as long as it's supported on both Mir and Wayland (Wayland support is on the way, and Mir support will likely happen if not on upstream, with out of tree patches) it won't change anything for Valve. As for latency and such, I think both Mir and Wayland are supposed to be non intrusive, so it shouldn't affect as long as they do no hackish fixes to code for one and later make it run on the other.

Again, there's no way to know for sure. I doubt Valve will use Mir on their console, because that would imply they either need to code for a custom compositor or use Unity, and the first is unneeded work and the latter I think is not really what you want in a console. If I have to guess, for now they'll stick to X.org because they did the port recently and switching now could make porting to X.org seem like a wasted effort. But it's all speculation. Valve didn't make any claims on the subject, and supporting Ubuntu might just be a convenience, and if it starts implying more work, it stops being such a convenience.
/*EDIT: I'm not sure if I was clear as of why I mentioned the console, so I'll clarify it now; I mention it because I think that's their priority on porting to Linux, more than the desktop market share, so they will keep things the way it's easier for them to get the console out */

As for fitting, X.org fits almost everywhere, and has been used on phones even. It's not that.
The problems with X are a lot, I'll just list the ones that come to mind, but they're all related to being designed when computers were a completely different thing than what they are now.

One of the problems is that it should be backwards compatible with software written in another era.
Another is that, for some reason I don't quite remember, enabling a tear free desktop implies breaking support for such old software.
Other problem is everything related to input handling, event management, etc.
Basically, it gets too much in the way. Here is a very complete article from not too long ago on the differences between Wayland and X.org, I think you should read it.


No question is dumb, only answers can be dumb. And the previous one can contain silly errors, BTW, I don't quite remember most of the problems with X, aside of doing a lot of things it doesn't need to do by today.

Thanks for the replies mrugiero. I have to wonder if the problems with VSYNC that crop up between games are Due to X ?

You mention the closed source drivers should be equal to windows, this is not the case. I can atest to trying 3 flavours of AMD GPU from low end 4 series Southbridge, a 5 series high end and a new A10-5800k. I have used quite a few different distros and all DE's I know of (so thats KDE, XFCE, Unity, Cinnamon, MATE) and the performance is way behind Windows. All the installations were fresh and upto date and run for a number of months (often breaking with Mesa updates) the used from the 12 to the current 13.6 driver sets both beta and non beta.

my experience is that the frame rate and consisentcy of frame rate of MOST BUT NOT ALL games through Steam, Desura and standalone has varied and I dont mean per title aI literally mean per second (so 5,12,60,80,12,25,35,36,36,48, etc..) I have messed with Vsync on KDE , AMD's tear free options, AMD's Vsync options, Game Vsync options etc..

Now some of this is down to poor ports of games with bad opengl implementation (killing floor) but mostly it would seem there is some GPU clocking issue or Refresh issue as the frame rates can be very high at times ?

My hope is that the problems will go away when Weyland and Mir is here due to better management of drawing video as I suspect the complexities of X are getting in the way of game rendering (again im a noob so this may not be the case)

a quick example = CS:source which can run at 120+ FPS on windows yet runs about 70-75fps on linux? all closed source drivers. So most people wont notice because their refresh is 60hz on the monitor. TF2 is only around 30fps-40fps but again this is upwards of 80fps on windows. Same drivers as windows as on linux (in version at least)

So i would say no, the performance is knowhere near to windows with closed source. Of course im excited for Mesa 9.2 and Kernal 3.11 to merge and then i shall try the opensource drivers..

which finally leads to my point.. opensource drivers are fantastic on the desktop! they beat out the closed source for stability and smoothness.

[mrugiero]

You mention the closed source drivers should be equal to windows, this is not the case. I can atest to trying 3 flavours of AMD GPU from low end 4 series Southbridge, a 5 series high end and a new A10-5800k. I have used quite a few different distros and all DE's I know of (so thats KDE, XFCE, Unity, Cinnamon, MATE) and the performance is way behind Windows. All the installations were fresh and upto date and run for a number of months (often breaking with Mesa updates) the used from the 12 to the current 13.6 driver sets both beta and non beta.

The only thing that comes to mind is that maybe your desktop is not bypassing compositing. When I used the closed drivers, I achieved the same performance than in Windows with AMD. I don't use NVIDIA (my brother does, though), but I hear the same is supposed to happen with their driver.

my experience is that the frame rate and consisentcy of frame rate of MOST BUT NOT ALL games through Steam, Desura and standalone has varied and I dont mean per title aI literally mean per second (so 5,12,60,80,12,25,35,36,36,48, etc..) I have messed with Vsync on KDE , AMD's tear free options, AMD's Vsync options, Game Vsync options etc..

Now some of this is down to poor ports of games with bad opengl implementation (killing floor) but mostly it would seem there is some GPU clocking issue or Refresh issue as the frame rates can be very high at times ?

I'm not a hardcore gamer, so this kind of things are not my main strength, but the OpenGL argument makes sense. You should try the game on Windows with OpenGL to make sure if that is the cause.

My hope is that the problems will go away when Weyland and Mir is here due to better management of drawing video as I suspect the complexities of X are getting in the way of game rendering (again im a noob so this may not be the case)

As long as you are using compositing bypassing, I wouldn't expect big differences in fullscreen apps performance, and that includes most games.

a quick example = CS:source which can run at 120+ FPS on windows yet runs about 70-75fps on linux? all closed source drivers. So most people wont notice because their refresh is 60hz on the monitor. TF2 is only around 30fps-40fps but again this is upwards of 80fps on windows. Same drivers as windows as on linux (in version at least)

Again, I'm no hardcore gamer, it's pretty much out of my expertise area. However, might have something to do with game specific optimizations on the drivers? I'd look for a changelog. If that's the cause, it's likely to improve with time, now that this games are becoming more usual on Linux.

So i would say no, the performance is knowhere near to windows with closed source. Of course im excited for Mesa 9.2 and Kernal 3.11 to merge and then i shall try the opensource drivers..

which finally leads to my point.. opensource drivers are fantastic on the desktop! they beat out the closed source for stability and smoothness.

The open source drivers are not likely to have better performance than the closed source ones, it's usually the other way around (there are huge improvements on the releases you name, anyway).
I agree on stability, smoothness and don't messing your system, that's why I use them. But in performance, they're currently losing most of the time (there are cases, specially on older hardware, where the open source drivers have better performance than the closed ones).