AMD Catalyst 14.4 Brings Few Linux Performance Improvements

While the Catalyst 14.4 OpenGL Linux graphics driver offers OpenGL 4.4 support, bug-fixes, and other improvements, it seems the performance improvements are limited -- at least in terms of raw frame-rate performance and frame latency. Some Phoronix readers have been boasting about the Catalyst 14.4 Linux driver being better with some Steam Linux games, but from my tests of a few Source Engine games, there didn't seem to be any major differences. The Catalyst 14.4 Linux driver only showed measurable performance boosts in a few benchmarks, where the biggest performance change for the four tested graphics cards was 6~9% faster.

I'm still carrying out more tests of Catalyst 14.4 on Linux and will post if I make any further discoveries.