How To Make Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Run Much Faster On AMD Catalyst For Linux

Sure enough... With the latest Catalyst Linux driver (15.7), there is a very measurable performance boost when running CS:GO renamed to hl2_linux. With the Catalyst Linux driver in its default configuration, the performance on this Core i7 5960X Haswell-E system was capped around 107 FPS (something not seen with any NVIDIA graphics card on Linux) while renaming the binary to hl2_linux allows the driver to run around 40% faster on all of the tested graphics cards.

When increasing the resolution to 2560 x 1600, the difference was less dramatic except for the Radeon R9 290 still running over 40% faster. For reference, below is a result for Team Fortress 2 when doing the opposite to see the negative impact... The result is when running Team Fortress 2 stock (where the game's binary is hl2_linux) and instead renaming it to csgo_linux to see the drop in performance by losing the profile support.

Hopefully AMD will get around to adding a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive profile to their Catalyst Linux driver prior to the games's one year anniversary on Linux in September... For now, renaming csgo_linux to hl2_linux does the trick on the latest Catalyst 15.7 driver without causing any noticeable visual differences. I have to wonder how many more Steam Linux games need trivial optimizations / workarounds by Catalyst, considering other games like BioShock Infinite, Civilization Beyond Earth, and the Metro Redux games are still struggling with the latest AMD Linux binary blob. Going back many years there was a similar profile issue/workaround for naming binaries doom3.x86 on Linux, but given the rise of Linux gaming and the increasing number of titles coming over on Steam, it's baffling that it's taking AMD this long to fix up their driver.