Linux Gaming Benchmarks With Plasma-Next, KDE Frameworks 5

Written by Michael Larabel in Software on 25 June 2014 at 03:39 AM EDT. Page 1 of 2. 20 Comments.

Up for your viewing pleasure today were some quick benchmarks done of the next-generation KDE desktop stack compared to the KDE 4.13.0 and Unity 7.2.1 desktops of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

For delivering some early preview figures of KDE Frameworks 5 with Plasma-Next, I used the Project Neon PPA recently to test out the full-screen Linux OpenGL gaming performance to see if it was affected differently than KDE4 or Unity. Much more in-depth testing will come when the next-gen KDE stack has been stabilized, but this should serve as some interesting preview figures.

Benchmarking happened from an ASUS UX32VDA ultrabook with an Intel Core i7 3517U CPU having HD Graphics 4000 from the Ivy Bridge generation. An updated Ubuntu 14.04 LTS stack was at play and besides testing Unity 7.2.1, KDE 4.13.0 was tested in its defaults and then again when enabling the option to disable desktop effects for full-screen windows. Lastly, the latest Project Neon components were tested to see if the new KDE code is impairing at all the Linux gaming experience.

All benchmarks were handled by the Phoronix Test Suite. Again, more tests will come later in the summer after the new KDE code is out with stable releases of the major components.


Related Articles