NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080/4090: Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu 23.04 Performance

[virr]

I could say almost Valve homemade game could run better on Linux than Winshit, not bias. But the funny is that some game from Astyr could run native on Linux but shitty perf compare to Proton version.

[F.Ultra]

That's not how it works. Windows 10 and Linux were pretty neck in neck when it came to gaming performance in general. Windows 11 is what's pulling ahead of linux. Something has changed.

Yes that is how it works, we are not talking about "gaming performance" we are talking about the performance of "games made for Windows". A game optimized for Linux will run miles around a game optimized for Windows, but that is not what we are talking about here. That said there might be some recent regression with the software used in this particular benchmark that made them perform even worse in Linux but there have never (or extremely seldom) been a game optimized for Windows running better on Linux under WINE/Proton unless something was broken on the Linux side.

[rabcor]

There is nothing defensive about it. Windows will "always" be faster for those games due to what I wrote in my original comment. As a developer myself I write completely different code if I want to optimize for Windows or if I want to optimize for Linux and the devs of those games most definitely optimized them for Windows (for obvious reasons).

Linux isn't a better Windows, they are two completely different systems and you have to approach them differently when it comes to squeezing out the very last performance of either. And there is not a single model that is best for both at the same time.

That's not how it works. Windows 10 and Linux were pretty neck in neck when it came to gaming performance in general. Windows 11 is what's pulling ahead of linux. Something has changed.

[F.Ultra]

Let's not fool ourselves, Linux has over the past couple of years been able to easily compete with windows in performance, we've even seen Wine/Proton actually outperform native windows quite a few times. Windows 11 is also faster than Windows 10 in this area, something has changed, don't get defensive about it, we'll never fix a problem if we don't admit it.

There is nothing defensive about it. Windows will "always" be faster for those games due to what I wrote in my original comment. As a developer myself I write completely different code if I want to optimize for Windows or if I want to optimize for Linux and the devs of those games most definitely optimized them for Windows (for obvious reasons).

Linux isn't a better Windows, they are two completely different systems and you have to approach them differently when it comes to squeezing out the very last performance of either. And there is not a single model that is best for both at the same time.

[rabcor]

Pulling ahead? These games are optimized for Windows and that is mostly what we see here.

Let's not fool ourselves, Linux has over the past couple of years been able to easily compete with windows in performance, we've even seen Wine/Proton actually outperform native windows quite a few times. Windows 11 is also faster than Windows 10 in this area, something has changed, don't get defensive about it, we'll never fix a problem if we don't admit it.

[ryao]

Those websites test more games, but they mostly test at max settings only, which is unrealistic for most users who do not buy $1000 video cards.

Many of them also test at 1080p with low quality too.

[yump]

The game selection is too sparse, which limits how interesting these results are. A wider selection like what the websites benchmarking exclusively on Windows use would be best:

https://www.techspot.com/review/2099-geforce-rtx-3080/

Those websites test more games, but they mostly test at max settings only, which is unrealistic for most users who do not buy $1000 video cards.

[Amarildo]

This difference in performance is most likely due to Fedora having a newer kernel/packages

I've observed the contrary, too

Ubuntu Kernel: 5.15 (NVIDIA 515)
LMDE Kernel: 5.10 (NVIDIA 470)

Same on Debian 11. Faster than Ubuntu with newer packages, same speed as Fedora with newest packages.

[sarmad]

I noticed a slight performance difference between Ubuntu and other distros, not only in gaming but in 3D production as well.
I don't remember the exact FPS difference in games, but it was something like 5 to 15% slower.

So even if Ubuntu is already showing to be equal or better than Windows, using a distro more optimized for gaming would be a nice way of comparing "the gaming OS" to the best of what Linux has to offer.

On another note, 3D production performance for my 3060 is this: (Blender classroom scene, GPU)
- Windows: 30.5 - 31.5 seconds
- Ubuntu: 30.5 - 31.5 seconds
- LMDE/Fedora: 28.2 seconds

It may not look like much, but 11-12% faster renders make a noteworthy difference in render times when you have hundreds or thousands of frames to render.

NOTE: The Ubuntu benchmarks were done in the default DE, but also on Kubuntu and UbuntuMATE (all 22.04 versions);
NOTE: The LMDE5 benchmark was done in Cinnamon with the very old 470 NVIDIA driver;
NOTE: The Fedora benchmark was done with Fedora 37 with the 530.41.03 driver.

This difference in performance is most likely due to Fedora having a newer kernel/packages, but that doesn't mean it'll be a good representative of the Linux install base. Ubuntu itself already has much higher install base than Fedora or any other distro, and if you count Ubuntu derivatives like Mint, PopOS, etc then the difference is even bigger.

[F.Ultra]

Things aren't looking too good on linux right now with windows pulling ahead this much. But I'm a bit curious if it's just the nvidia drivers or if this is something that we'll see across other vendors as well.

Pulling ahead? These games are optimized for Windows and that is mostly what we see here.