AMD Catalyst Linux OpenGL Driver Now Faster Than Windows Driver In Some Tests

[justmy2cents]

am i the only one who looked at benchmarks and only thought of "HOLY SHIT! OSS driver is getting fucking awesome". i couldn't care about win/catalyst, windows is nono in my book and if i wanted closed driver, i'd go with NVidia.

this benchmark said something else, OSS driver is getting competitive and if it get newer GL, i'd swap all NVidia cards for AMD. i don't even care if i would have to buy more expensive card for same performance, freedom has its value too. but, right now i'm stuck with NVidia blob for many reasons

[dungeon]

The facts are : on Windows nobody care about OpenGL

Nope, Microsoft does not care... then users "Nobody" is strong word, all Minecraft users are users of OpenGL, etc... Funny thing it is bought by MS, but not because it uses OpenGL, but because it is popular

So what exactly is your problem? 6% vs 10% really!?

Nothing, just said it is 6% fps rate diff between OpenGL vs Direct3D 11 for me That means, i don't really care about that diff, it can be just for about 4 seconds 25% faster on one single scene in Unigine Valley and made that diff

[edoantonioco]

In other words, gaming on linux on amd is (finally) as good as gaming on windows. Bad ports are another thing.

[anda_skoa]

Yes, but most people programming games/etc for Windows are using D3D.

Sure, but they are obviously not the target audience for an OpenGL comparison between different platforms.

Its like reading a comparison of browser JavaScript engines and complaining that there is no comparison to native C/C++ code because most native applications are written that way.

A comparison of different technologies can be valuable as well, of course, but that doesn't make a multi platform comparison of a single technology less interesting or less complete.

Cheers,
_

[GreatEmerald]

am i the only one who looked at benchmarks and only thought of "HOLY SHIT! OSS driver is getting fucking awesome". i couldn't care about win/catalyst, windows is nono in my book and if i wanted closed driver, i'd go with NVidia.

It's not just you. Also, I noticed that Catalyst on Linux is comparatively faster than on Winddows mostly on SI+ hardware. And then also that r600g and radeonsi don't seem to have much of any difference at this point.

It's interesting to see how the graphics landscape changes.
Not too long ago it was that on desktops, Intel was the choice for FOSS drivers, NVIDIA for fast performance but closed drivers, and AMD for the flexibility of switching between both (or higher performance but more lackluster FOSS compared to Intel); on mobile it was AMD on the low end (Intel used PowerVR), Intel on the middle end and NVIDIA on the high end.
Now Intel gained some speed (but still not enough ? yet), nouveau gained reclocking, radeonsi became just as good as r600g, AMD announced even easier switching between the drivers... On desktops, the above still mostly stands, but AMD is doing a really good job displacing Intel on the FOSS front. On mobile, the landscape is much different: Intel is now on low-to-medium end (because Atom is no longer using PowerVR), and AMD is medium-to-high end (because NVIDIA is using Optimus and it's still a pain last I checked; otherwise medium-to-high end would be equal to the desktop situation).

So good times. Now only if AMD stepped on those GCN 1.2+ parts. Tonga alone isn't enough; it's also kind of mystical on mobile, because technically there's R9 295 that's Tonga, except it's not for sale anywhere. Hopefully by autumn they'll have the Rx 300 series ready, as I might need a new laptop at that point.

[Xaero_Vincent]

I think Windows has the upper hand as far as graphics driver performance goes. Direct3D 11 does offer some performance advantage in some games and in benchmarks, such as Unigine. This is mostly because Direct3D graphics drivers are highly optimized for gaming. With Direct3D 12 and Mantle, Windows is poised to extend that lead even further by enabling game developers to get lower to the metal and avoid most of the graphics API abstration overhead, potentially greatly improving game performance to console-level efficiency.

Frankly, OpenGL Next cannot arrive fast enough on Linux and it's probably at least a couple years away and even longer before games target it and drivers have stable support it.

I'd be interested in seeing some real-world performance comparisions between Direct3D 11 Windows games vs OpenGL Linux games (via proprietary drivers).

[molecule-eye]

The facts are : on Windows nobody care about OpenGL

They should, though. It would make porting unnecessary if developers forgot about D3D and just stuck to OpenGL from the get-go.

[drSeehas]

In other words, gaming on linux on amd is (finally) as good as gaming on windows. ...

This is only true if you limit it to OpenGL (ignoring DirectX and Mantle).

[Hamish Wilson]

Considering that the free radeon drivers are easily within spitting distance of the Windows performance in these tests with my Radeon HD 6870, I really do not see any need to give up the convenience that they offer me in exchange for the very slight performance gain I would attain from using Catalyst.

[dungeon]

This is only true if you limit it to OpenGL...

Which is fine, that is all what we want

(ignoring DirectX and Mantle).

If Microsoft and AMD wants to put those on us, that should be fine... also PS4's API if Sony wants to put that on us, that should be fine too