Wine 2.3 Released, Still Prepping For The Direct3D CSMT

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Wine 2.3 Released, Still Prepping For The Direct3D CSMT

Wine 2.3 is out as the latest bi-weekly development snapshot...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...e-2.3-Released

[Filiprino]

So, how comes Wine can get better performance than "native" GNU Linux ports?

[DMJC]

Wine has had 20+ years of performance optimisations and continual bug fixes applied to it. Most native games have not.

[ldo17]

So, how comes Wine can get better performance than "native" GNU Linux ports?

I guess that says something about the quality of the port.

It could very well be that they have licensed some proprietary Linux/POSIX compatibility layer put together by some company or other. Typical proprietary software: without lots of eyes looking at it to spot problems, its quality turns out to be crap.

[leipero]

So, how comes Wine can get better performance than "native" GNU Linux ports?

Well, it can't, that's the only truth. If you take into account "used resources per performance", then clearly wine is behind even poorest Linux ports (I doubt there's exception, but if you can name one, please do so, I can't). For sure, when resources are plentiful, it would seem like it does gets "better performance", but when resources are not plentiful, you would see true picture of code optimizations, and how behind wine is.

[geearf]

Well, it can't, that's the only truth.

Why can't it? With nine, it can even be faster than in Windows per mannerov's numbers.

As for the original question, some comparison of port vs wine were unfair, as the port was of the D3D11 render and wine could only use the D3D9 one. (Though if quality seems the same to the user....).

[ldo17]

Why can't it?

No reason why it can’t. Remember the Win32* API is itself an emulation layer on top of the Windows NT kernel.

*What happened to Win64?

[leipero]

Why can't it? With nine, it can even be faster than in Windows per mannerov's numbers.

As for the original question, some comparison of port vs wine were unfair, as the port was of the D3D11 render and wine could only use the D3D9 one. (Though if quality seems the same to the user....).

In some cases with nine, but nine is another thing..., and some cases do not change the rule, and rule is, most applications, even with nine, have performance loss. With nine it's reduced to few percentage (anywhere from 1% to 30%+), but with D3D wine trnslation layer, it simply can't come even close, and if it does, it does at the cost of CPU cycles.

Don't get me wrong, I can give you (at least) one example where nine works "even faster" than native Windows on this very PC i'm typing now, but I can also give you tons of examples where it doesn't, or where it goes into negative due to the bugs with drivers. The reason why i used quote for "even faster", is because it can't magically become faster than native system for what it is written, it comes at penalty on some features, it is just a matter of time, and if you can notice it or not. So from example i can give you I know there are some "les rendering" of watter, so it is actually faster, but at penalty of graphic quality (not as visible to regular users), otherwise, it would be on pair or few percentages lower.

Still, it's awsome we have such options, I'm just stating the obvious (that wine layer can't be faster than native, and i was thinking about wine D3D when I wrote that, not nine).

[geearf]

but with D3D wine trnslation layer, it simply can't come even close, and if it does, it does at the cost of CPU cycles.

Where do you get that figure from? I'm pretty sure when I played McGee's Alice with Wine (or maybe it was WineX) it was faster than in Windows for me, that was more than a decade ago though so I have no FPS to share anymore That was on Nvidia proprietary drivers. That was with an OGL engine though, I don't remember a similar case with a D3D one.

As @ldo17 stated, especially for older games on newer Windows, Wine shouldn't necessarily be slower.

Also you're forgetting native ports with stuff like eon, it's not so different from wine.

[leipero]

Where do you get that figure from? I'm pretty sure when I played McGee's Alice with Wine (or maybe it was WineX) it was faster than in Windows for me, that was more than a decade ago though so I have no FPS to share anymore That was on Nvidia proprietary drivers. That was with an OGL engine though, I don't remember a similar case with a D3D one.

Maybe with OpenGL, but with D3D it's not the case tho (except nine).