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Nouveau vs. NVIDIA Linux vs. NVIDIA Windows 8.1

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  • #11
    Originally posted by verde View Post
    Please replace all those uninteresting games and benches (ex. Gpu test) with Unigine benchmarks, TF2 and Dota which are free games and another 2-3 games you can buy with less than 15-20€ all together (L4D2, HL2, S. Sam 3) and then the benchmark will be really interesting.

    This is how hardware/software reviews work.

    On topic now, I am glad that nvidia drivers are on par with Windows on my GPU (GTX460). Nouveau is a disaster and I don't think will ever reach the AMD Gallium quality, features and performance.

    With a little more effort, AMD gallium drivers could have been official drivers against fglrx.
    Proprietary benchmarks:
    - are sometimes paid
    - can be biased, you can't read the source code
    - are unethical (usually full of DRMs)
    - sometimes can't be automated (very bad for benchmarking)

    Open source games are used for reasons.
    Last edited by Calinou; 31 October 2013, 01:36 PM.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
      As soon as the radeon and radeonSI drivers catch up, it would make sense for AMD to move the linux catalyst devs over to the FOSS driver development and shut down the catalyst drivers for good. Giving the FOSS drivers undivided attention could easily make AMD the best choice for linux as a whole (when you take into consideration price, performance, politics, and features).
      Which is indeed what I think they will do, have those that pushed in favor for closed source were ATI people, before AMD integrated them, so they is mostly stuck with their legacy until the open source one catch up. Just wish AMD had the money to push for faster development. Hopefully their first real heterogeneous architecture APU, entering ARM market and controlling the console market will finally rectify their budget. At least their last financial report was the first black ink in a long time, so there is some hope.

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      • #13
        I think you do

        Originally posted by sarmad View Post
        What I still don't understand is why hardware manufacturers like AMD and nVidia keep their drivers closed source. If they are making profit from the hardware only, why close the software? What is so secret about it that they have to keep it closed source? In fact, I think open sourcing it should help them reduce the cost since the community would be doing some of the work on their behalf. Am I missing something?
        I may be wrong, but they have technologies that are trade secrets. They open it up in software and that gives competition advantage, since it may not be hardware related optimization.

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        • #14
          Originally posted by sarmad View Post
          What I still don't understand is why hardware manufacturers like AMD and nVidia keep their drivers closed source. If they are making profit from the hardware only, why close the software? What is so secret about it that they have to keep it closed source? In fact, I think open sourcing it should help them reduce the cost since the community would be doing some of the work on their behalf. Am I missing something?
          Bits of code that are copyright by third parties or that expose some internal data that shouldn't be published openly (like specific hardware design).

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          • #15
            Originally posted by sarmad View Post
            What I still don't understand is why hardware manufacturers like AMD and nVidia keep their drivers closed source. If they are making profit from the hardware only, why close the software? What is so secret about it that they have to keep it closed source? In fact, I think open sourcing it should help them reduce the cost since the community would be doing some of the work on their behalf. Am I missing something?
            Well, it doesnt really work that way in reality. The fact is that only AMD has the time and knowledge to actually develop a good driver for their hardware. The truth is they have done the vast majority of the development. It's as it should be though. It's thir hardware and they should care enough about it to develop good drivers.

            EDIT: AMD has already made it abundantly clear that they will never open source catalyst. it's just not going to happen.
            Last edited by duby229; 31 October 2013, 02:06 PM.

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            • #16
              Originally posted by Calinou View Post
              Proprietary benchmarks:
              - are sometimes paid
              - can be biased, you can't read the source code
              - are unethical (usually full of DRMs)
              - sometimes can't be automated (very bad for benchmarking)

              Open source games are used for reasons.
              Since Unigine's interest it too max out their FPS regardless of software/hardware it should be a very good benchmark.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by MatthewPL View Post
                Sorry, but anyone can tell that Linux is better for gaming depends only on FLOSS games? No offence, but I don't think FLOSS games are the best benchmark. Especially if we now have Steam on Linux.
                Linux is likely faster than windows for gaming (valve found out how much faster when they were porting left 4 dead) since it puts so much effort at throughput. It simply doesn't need to compromise like windows has to.
                That said, the difference isn't going to be much until drivers are built that take advantage of linux's specific strengths.

                Does anyone know what's going on with gputest?

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by sarmad View Post
                  What I still don't understand is why hardware manufacturers like AMD and nVidia keep their drivers closed source. If they are making profit from the hardware only, why close the software? What is so secret about it that they have to keep it closed source? In fact, I think open sourcing it should help them reduce the cost since the community would be doing some of the work on their behalf. Am I missing something?
                  The main reason proprietary (binary) Linux drivers exist at all is that they allow code sharing across multiple OSes rather than having to write a different driver stack for each OS. Downside of that is that open sourcing the code effectively means open sourcing code for all the other OSes as well -- and it's probably obvious that not all OS vendors are as enthusiastic about open sourcing as the Linux community. Releasing the Linux drivers in binary form only gives you a way to protect the IP from other OSes.

                  The other reason is that the actual "releasing of information" that goes along with an open source code release needs to be done very carefully to avoid tripping over any of a *different* pile of problems - 3rd party HW and SW bits, industry standards that aren't actually *open*, DRM/security issues on other OSes. Releasing binary-only drivers is attractive here as well because you avoid all the costs & risks associated with exposing HW info.

                  Surprisingly enough "holding details back for competitive reasons" has not been an issue as often as we initially expected, and generally we have been able to release the info eventually.
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                  • #19
                    Originally posted by duby229 View Post
                    The fact is that only AMD has the time and knowledge to actually develop a good driver for their hardware.
                    Must be the reason why Nvidia's driver quality is better than that of AMD.

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by verde View Post
                      On topic now, I am glad that nvidia drivers are on par with Windows on my GPU (GTX460). Nouveau is a disaster and I don't think will ever reach the AMD Gallium quality, features and performance.
                      Nouveau, despite the lack of documentation is thousand times better than the obfuscated nv driver Nvidia themselves provided.
                      The latter recently release some documentations to nouveau development realizing they are losing grip against competitions.
                      With times, Nvidia either cooperate with Nouveau developers of face irrelevance in the future.

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