Is The Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Fast Enough For Steam On Linux Gaming?

[Luke]

What is your card, and what do you consider a "decent framerate" on the desktop?

Well nouveau lack the power to even render my desktop on a decent FPS. Using a 1080p 144Hz monitor.

That's over double the load of a normal 1080p/60HZ monitor like mine. Why does a desktop need to render at 155Hz anyway? No video has a
framerate that fast, because the human eye is not that fast. Desktop effects in Compiz at 60fps seem to be perfectly smooth. Sure you don't
have other issues than the GPU, such as bugs in the code?

There have been development versions of Cinnamon that would develop stutter in both video playback and in resizing windows once Firefox had
been run. The only fix was to restart Cinnamon. That bug seems to be gone in the released version 2.4 code, but similar bugs could exist in other
DE's. I had this with an AMD 6750 on the open driver on a 60Hz 1080p monitor-even if I disabled both CPU and GPU power management for
testing purposes. Thus, the video stutter and rough window resizing did not appear to be related to the amount of GPU capability at all, and in
fact, gaming framerates were not even affected by this at all. It was code bugs pure and simple in a development version of the DE.

[gens]

with mesa 10.2.6
on a 8800GT (that has no reclocking in nouveau) i get 16-25 fps in dota2
same thing on proprietary 60-75 fps

though dota2 now runs without bugs on nouveau

[GreatEmerald]

Oh come on, Betteridge's Law of Headlines demands that the answer be "no"

[Veske]

That's over double the load of a normal 1080p/60HZ monitor like mine. Why does a desktop need to render at 155Hz anyway? No video has a
framerate that fast, because the human eye is not that fast. Desktop effects in Compiz at 60fps seem to be perfectly smooth. Sure you don't
have other issues than the GPU, such as bugs in the code?

There have been development versions of Cinnamon that would develop stutter in both video playback and in resizing windows once Firefox had
been run. The only fix was to restart Cinnamon. That bug seems to be gone in the released version 2.4 code, but similar bugs could exist in other
DE's. I had this with an AMD 6750 on the open driver on a 60Hz 1080p monitor-even if I disabled both CPU and GPU power management for
testing purposes. Thus, the video stutter and rough window resizing did not appear to be related to the amount of GPU capability at all, and in
fact, gaming framerates were not even affected by this at all. It was code bugs pure and simple in a development version of the DE.

That is a known myth But sadly there is no way someone can prove it to you until you have tried a 120+ Hz monitor your self. You can feel the difference instantly even when just moving a window around on the desktop.
After you have tried it, it's almost impossible to go back to a 60Hz monitor. It just feels too sluggish.

[Luke]

60HZ good enough for me, new monitor NOT worth paying for

That is a known myth But sadly there is no way someone can prove it to you until you have tried a 120+ Hz monitor your self. You can feel the difference instantly even when just moving a window around on the desktop.
After you have tried it, it's almost impossible to go back to a 60Hz monitor. It just feels too sluggish.

I'm perfectly happy with the monitor I have and have never noticed an issue from it. No way in hell I would pay for another one, especially not being employed. With my video camera shooting at 30fps it would be a waste of money even if I had it to spend, given my machines are first and foremost video editors. Good enough is good enough and always will be, a machine either can or cannot do the job it is built for properly.

[david_lynch]

2 very old games and without comparion with official driver, pointless..

Actually it is quite on point. As long as the Nouveau driver has sufficient performance to enable me to play the games I want to play, I don't really care how many more FPS the binary blob can generate.

[pal666]

Most monitors can only show 60fps and most desktops and drivers enable vsync so the game won't render more than 60fps anyway.

sure, but some monitors are bigger than 1080p
and benchmark shows average fps, while user is intrested in minimal, which is less than average

[pal666]

given my machines are first and foremost video editors

on the other hand, given this topic is about gaming ...

[profoundWHALE]

sure, but some monitors are bigger than 1080p
and benchmark shows average fps, while user is intrested in minimal, which is less than average

If you want it smooth, lower the resolution or drop the rendering quality. It's as simple as that.

Although I ended up having BF4 at less than 480p so it was playable before I got a GPU. Good times, good times.

[artivision]

Phoronix: Is The Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Fast Enough For Steam On Linux Gaming?

Following the recent articles about the open-source AMD Linux OpenGL performance for gaming (16-way Open-Source Radeon Linux Driver GPU Comparison and AMD Radeon Gallium3D Is Catching Up & Sometimes Beating Catalyst On Linux), here's a look at the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2 performance when testing the games on the latest open-source NVIDIA (Nouveau) Linux graphics driver code.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=21158

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_nouveau_linux316&num=2

I think that something is missing here. Yes the strong GPUs are behind by far, but the 650 is like 70%. So can you include at future test a middle one like 650 or 740m, there is an entire category with laptops like that. Can you also test Nine's usability with Nouveau, not benchmarks just if it works. Thanks in advance.