NVIDIA Is Still Killing AMD Over Linux OpenGL Performance

[tomtomme]

Right now it relies on 3.13 kernel and Git Mesa, but this stuff will be out in normal channels in the next release cycle. Open Source drivers on lower power APUs is a really great choice for an HTPC now.

A small correction: It does not rely on Mesa git, but on Mesa 10 which was released some weeks ago
And Kernel 3.12 is also ok, you need the kernel 3.13 only for HDaudio formats (True HD etc.)
XBMC however is needed as alpha >=10 of the upcoming xbmc 13 (gotham)

source

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174854

[smitty3268]

"Privativo" (ending with "o") is the spanish translation for "propietary" in the context of free software. Somewhere "propietary" is bad translated in this context as "propietario", wich means "owner" (correct for other context), so "privativo" is recommended in spanish.

"Privative" is a valid english translation of "privativo" and maybe people use it to avoid confusion to spanish speakers. Maybe you also read the term "libre software". "Free" have two meanings, free as in freedom, and free as in free beer. In spanish we have "gratis" for "free as in free beer" and "libre" for "free as in freedom", so lot of people is using that spanglish term "libre software" to avoid confusion (Moreover, in spanish the correct term is very similar: "software libre").

Great explanation, thanks. I had a feeling it was something like this, because i was seeing it in way too many places for it to all be the same guy. It was just weird because i'd never seen it before until recently.

[malkavian]

"libre" is actually French (who took it from Latin, but it came to English through French).

True, but it is spanish too, which, as French came of Latin. But, in english, "free" is more used, which (that word, not english) come from Indoeuropean language.

[benmoran]

Nvidia is the only graphics company actively adressing performance of it's cards underneath Linux.

AMD has good drivers, PS4/Sony is somehow getting a great driver for their FreeBSD kernel.

Somebody is lying. I've got an APU -- e450 -- and it just midway through last year got a decent driver where XBMC would play 1080p without stuttering.
It's a beta driver.
I had to hack out the watermark. Fantastic!

Quality work.

I also have an e460 based HTPC, and like you I used to use the Xvba version of XBMC. However, the open source driver is absolutely crushing it now. It uses much less power, and supports more video formats. See here:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174854

Right now it relies on 3.13 kernel and Git Mesa, but this stuff will be out in normal channels in the next release cycle. Open Source drivers on lower power APUs is a really great choice for an HTPC now.

[GreatEmerald]

lot of people is using that spanglish term "libre software" to avoid confusion

"libre" is actually French (who took it from Latin, but it came to English through French).

[malkavian]

Question for anyone who knows. What's up with this "privative" word? Is that some kind of common slang in europe?

I've been seeing it used all over the place recently, from a bunch of different people. It can't be people just copy/pasting, i don't think.

I was wondering the same thing so duckduckgo'd it and got "Causing deprivation, lack, or loss." From that I assumed it was some kind of pun, but then again maybe it wasn't intentional.

"Privativo" (ending with "o") is the spanish translation for "propietary" in the context of free software. Somewhere "propietary" is bad translated in this context as "propietario", wich means "owner" (correct for other context), so "privativo" is recommended in spanish.

"Privative" is a valid english translation of "privativo" and maybe people use it to avoid confusion to spanish speakers. Maybe you also read the term "libre software". "Free" have two meanings, free as in freedom, and free as in free beer. In spanish we have "gratis" for "free as in free beer" and "libre" for "free as in freedom", so lot of people is using that spanglish term "libre software" to avoid confusion (Moreover, in spanish the correct term is very similar: "software libre").

ONTOPIC HERE:

To go intopic, I have a Radeon 6850 card wich I bought because of AMD helping to make open source drivers. The wait was long, but well, now libre<--->privative drivers are near parity. I suffered seeing perfomance loss, but enjoyed the libre one's support of compositing and kernel-mode-setting. Next card will be an AMD one for sure, the parity is near. I like games, but I'm not a gamer, more a gnulinuxer and I have a Winbugs partition for games that doesn't work at GNU/Linux.

[johnc]

Care to post some links that would indicate that nVidia driver on Linux may be getting worse?

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/638521/linux/gnome-terminal-problems-ctrl-c-and-exit/

[GreatEmerald]

Exactly my experience but sadly your post will be drowned in wave of nvbots claiming that magic NVIDIA driver has no issues

Yea, I've had less than stellar experience with it as well.

Care to post some links that would indicate that nVidia driver on Linux may be getting worse?

Here you go: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/t...-the-desktop/1

[Bucic]

Exactly my experience but sadly your post will be drowned in wave of nvbots claiming that magic NVIDIA driver has no issues

Care to post some links that would indicate that nVidia driver on Linux may be getting worse?

[Ramiliez]

As much as I love to throw sunshine and lollipops NVIDIA's way... I have to admit that I feel that the driver quality has been regressing a lot in recent years. It seems like every driver version introduces some new esoteric bug and they don't really give the impression that they care much to fix it.

The codebase must be a complete trainwreck if simply touching one area makes the whole thing fall apart.

Performance is kinda good... but only when the driver kinda works. So I can get 1,000 fps in L4D2 until the game hangs in the safe room. That's the sort of thing that doesn't show up in the benchmarks.

Exactly my experience but sadly your post will be drowned in wave of nvbots claiming that magic NVIDIA driver has no issues