Intel Graphics On Linux Still Behind Windows, With Sandy Bridge

Starting with OpenArena, in the ioquake3-powered OpenGL game the Ubuntu 10.10 performance with the latest Intel graphics driver code starts out faster than Windows 7 x64 Professional with Service Pack 1 and Intel's latest Windows GPU driver. However, at resolutions of 1024 x 768 and greater, which cover nearly all gamers, the Ubuntu performance turns out to be worse than Windows 7. On average, with OpenArena its frame-rates are 12% higher under Windows 7 than Linux. Fortunately, even at 1920 x 1080, the Linux frame-rate is hitting 60 frames per second, which is still sufficient for gameplay.

With the Warsow game atop the Qfusion engine, the Windows 7 graphics are faster at every resolution, even at 800 x 600. On average, the Windows 7 Intel HD 3000 performance is 25% faster than Linux. With the Warsow frame-rates being lower than in OpenArena, this also makes the difference between a playable experience and a choppy mess. At 1920 x 1080, Warsow was running at 41 frames per second under Windows while with Linux it was hitting 29 FPS.