October 06, 2012 -- While Linux 3.7-rc1 hasn't even been released yet as the merge window is still open, the Linux 3.7 kernel is exciting and users of the open-source Nouveau driver will be greeted by the Nouveau DRM driver rewrite / code restructuring. Due to the invasive Nouveau work, some early Nouveau tests under the Linux 3.7 kernel were carried out. The 3.7 results were then compared to the earlier Linux 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6 kernel releases.

September 25, 2012 -- Recently there was the NVIDIA graphics comparison under Windows 7 and Linux providing new data at how the cross-platform NVIDIA driver is comparing between Ubuntu 12.10, Kubuntu 12.10, and Windows 7 Pro. Aside from Ubuntu's Unity desktop with Compiz impairing the performance, the results were competitive. Next up now is a look at Intel Sandy Bridge and Intel Ivy Bridge graphics when comparing the performance of the three operating systems.

September 18, 2012 -- A few months back the NVIDIA Linux driver introduced support for FXAA, a new anti-aliasing method. In this article are benchmarks of FXAA plus more information on this post-process shader-based anti-aliasing method.

September 04, 2012 -- Due to the prolific driver development work being done by Intel's Chris Wilson to advance the SNA 2D acceleration architecture for the xf86-video-intel driver, here's some new benchmarks of "Sandy Bridge New Acceleration" when being run from an HD2500-class Core i5 "Ivy Bridge" processor using the new driver release from Sunday.

August 27, 2012 -- As a prelude to the forthcoming Windows 7 vs. OS X 10.8 vs. Ubuntu Linux benchmarks that are looking at how Intel OpenGL graphics compare between the operating systems, here's some Intel Sandy Bridge benchmarks that provide a historical look at how the Linux kernel -- and upgrades to the Intel Direct Rendering Manager driver within the kernel -- have matured over time. On average, the Intel Linux graphics performance is up about 30% over the course of the past few kernel releases this year.

August 16, 2012 -- Testing of the latest Linux 3.6 kernel that's presently under development has revealed some additional OpenGL performance improvements with Intel graphics, at least concerning the latest-generation "Ivy Bridge" processors.

August 13, 2012 -- Recently I showed benchmarks of the Radeon Gallium3D driver for a mature Radeon HD 4870 graphics card over the past two years to look at the performance improvements made to this open-source Linux graphics driver. Up today are benchmarks of an old Radeon X1950PRO (R500 class) ATI graphics card when using the original "R300g" Gallium3D driver and testing every major Mesa release going back to Mesa 7.8 with the classic R300 driver.

August 08, 2012 -- With the upcoming release of Mesa 8.1, here's a look at how the AMD Radeon "R600" Gallium3D driver performance has changed over the past two years. This article has benchmarks of each major Mesa release going back to Mesa 7.9 of 2010 back when the R600 classic DRI driver was still in early development but the only viable choice for using accelerated open-source graphics on AMD Radeon HD 2000 series graphics cards and newer. For the most part, the open-source Radeon Linux graphics performance has advanced greatly in terms of OpenGL performance over the past two years, but it's not without some outstanding regressions.

August 07, 2012 -- Having now delivered Mesa 8.1 benchmarks looking at the hardware drivers for AMD R600g, Nouveau, R300g, Intel Ivy Bridge, and Intel Sandy Bridge, here are some benchmarks when on LLVMpipe.

August 03, 2012 -- A few days back I published benchmarks showing Intel's Ivy Bridge hardware regressing with Mesa 8.1. While those problems are still outstanding, the good news is that Intel's previous-generation Sandy Bridge hardware appears unaffected. Overall, Sandy Bridge is performing well with the soon-to-be-released Mesa 8.1 library for open-source Linux graphics drivers.