Windows 10 vs. Linux 4.15 + Mesa 17.4-dev Radeon Gaming Performance

First up are some of the automated, mostly open-source games that we have been using for years as OpenGL tests on both Windows and Linux as they are known to be of similar quality on both operating systems rather than just "ports" from Windows to Linux. The other interesting modern Linux game tests follow these initial reference data points.

First one is the classic OpenArena game... In this very basic GL2 game powered by ioquake3, the latest open-source Linux graphics driver for Radeon GCN hardware shows just how fast it's become in relation to the Windows OpenGL driver in some instances.

Though note that OpenArena had higher peak frame times on Linux than Windows 10 with the latest Radeon Software driver.

With the very demanding Unigine Heaven cross-platform benchmark with both operating systems using the OpenGL renderer, the performance is effectively the same between Windows and Linux.

But with the Unigine Valley benchmark, Windows 10 remained a few frames faster on both the RX 580 and R9 Fury graphics cards.

While running the Xonotic open-source first person shooter game, the RX 580 was slower on Linux while surprisingly the Radeon RX Vega 64 was running much faster on Linux. Under Windows the game appeared CPU bound with the same performance between the RX 580 and R9 Fury while under Ubuntu 17.10 with Linux 4.15 + Mesa 17.4, the RX Vega 64 was able to spring ahead.