Ubuntu 12.04 vs. Windows 7: Intel Sandy/Ivy Bridge Loses On Linux

[Kivada]

Ubuntu is no longer the most used distro - Mint is, and Mint doesn't use Unity.

Oh not this kind of crap again, go on a random forum or linux gaming site and ask what people are using, it's almost always Ubuntu. If you are going by sites like distrowatch our numbers are heavily skewed as its a distro hopping geek site, most users don't distro hop, ever.

And I'm saying this as a Mint user. When I did run Ubuntu and I'd play games like Regnum Online back when the ONLY server was Ra, almost everyone on Linux ran Ubuntu, there was like 20 guys on the server that ran fedora and like 3 nuts on Gentoo, no other distro was used by anyone that was playing that in the year and a half I was playing Regnum.

Linux users where pretty well represented on Regnum at the time as it was pretty much the only native client MMO on Linux at the time.

[yossarianuk]

Shocking the superior OS won.

You mean Arch Linux ?

Thats my point - thanks to unity people are going to get the wrong impression on Linux as a whole.

KDE4/gnome2/cinnamon would get faster results - on my machine (nvidia) win7 is slower than Arch/Fedora/Ubuntu (as long as you don;t use unity) in any benchmarks I do.

[soupbowl]

Shocking the superior OS won.

[yossarianuk]

Unity is 50% slower than any other DE - could you repeat using Mate/Cinnamon/KDE ???

Hi

I really quite liked testing Ubuntu 12.04 however I simply can't run it as my main desktop as ALL 3d full screen games are roughly 50% slower than in KDE4(with/without desktop effects) , Mate , Cinnamon,.

All the tests have proved is that Unity is crap (the absolute worst DE) for running games - if your a gamer avoid like the plague (or just have really slow games)

It is due to the fact you can't enable '"unredirect fullscreen windows" in compiz - if you do the FPS will be vastly improved (so unity is actually capable of running well) but on reboot unity will be broken... You can't enter the desktop

You either have to go in via unity 2D and disable it or manually edit ~/.gconf/apps/compiz-1/plugins/composite/screen0/options/%gconf.xml

At present I get about 40-50% extra fps in Fedora 16 (KDE), and Arch (Kde + Gnome3) than I do in Ubuntu 12.04 (unity) - unless I enable ' "unredirect fullscreen windows' - then if I forgot to disable it before logging out unity won't load.....

Ubuntu 12.04 with mate (gnome classic) is also fine - it is 100% a unity/compiz issue.

At present on an out the box 12.04 install a windows user will take one look at a 3d game in ubuntu and think - Well Linux is 1/2 the speed of windows.... (which is not true)

Also - unless I enable that option some graphics have anomalies

There is a bug report here

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...iz/+bug/980663

Your article suggests 'Linux' is slower - its not its is unity that is at fault,

Please re-test in a different DE and see if the results have changed

[mitcoes]

Lol, Arch? Sabayon? How about pure, 100% Gentoo?

The benchmarks would mean something for comparisons the system it runs on. Doubt Michael wants to spend that much time on perfection, though.

I do not think is a lot of time to install Sabayon a run the Phoronix suite - about half to 1 hour, if you use unetbootin or Multisystem - and Gentoo is, to have a 1000 Hz kernel running game tests.

Of course there are no PPA with a Ubuntu 1000 Hz kernel to test it fast.

It would be a great idea, I suggested it to Lorenzo Carbonell, el atareao, that does some pretty staff for ubuntu as contact lens, freecache, or google reader indicator. I hope he or any other one else would make a 1000 Hz kernel for ubuntu at his PPA.

But making a 1000 Hz Ubuntu kernel and add it to the benchmark is also a less than 30 minutes - 1 hour procedure, and you will have it done for future benchmarking - or at least a script to do it faster and easily-.

And of course, if you let Gentoo compiing, while you do other things, or all night it would be a great test.

The gentoo compiling time is a great indicator of how fast is a computer.

But Sabayon is a great aproach for desktop users, unfortunately there are no a PPA system for it, perhaps PPA developers should add arch, sabayon, debian and rpm packages letting the users to choose the distro.

And distros agreee to use a similar names for packages with different "surnames" or extensions, But that is other issue.

I want fair benchmarks and linux kernel for gaming compiled at 1000 Hz is far better, Ubuntu choose to compile the kernel at 100 Hz, gaming benchmark is unfair for Linux vs MS WOS if there are no other kernels compiled at 1000 Hz at the charts.

[curaga]

WHat level of the difference is due to this?

None of where Windows won. S3TC - usually a wash. Float textures - slower.

So if the game actually used float textures, it'd have worse performance.

[gururise]

Linux is always a 2nd class citizen. While I applaud Intel's open source efforts, and they probably do have the best Open Source driver out of all the gfx manufacturers (Intel, AMD, Nvidia), even their OSS driver falls far short of the closed-source performance. 50% is a big hit to pay for OSS drivers, and yes, I know that AMD and Nvidia suffer more, but still, here's hoping that Intel can close the gap.

[allquixotic]

Honestly, these numbers are not that disappointing. The "50%" number is pretty exaggerated, because there were quite a few tests where Ivy Bridge's performance gap on Linux was under 50%. And frankly I think that is just fine for a driver that has only been in use by the general public on GA hardware for, at most, 2 weeks. I know that things will improve.

The Intel OSTC team is amazing. They deserve all the kudos in the world for basically shaping the foundations of the open source graphics stack in the mid-2000s and for bringing it full circle to being on the order of only 50% the speed of the proprietary Windows driver (which we'll assume utilizes the hardware pretty much to its fullest).

I have to admit that I was pretty frustrated with the churn, the bugs and the problems that were plaguing my 965GM chipset, but now that I have an Ivy Bridge desktop processor, I'm in love with Intel graphics again. I can't wait for OpenCL; until then I am VERY pleased with where the graphics stack is right now.

To the Intel folks out there: you guys are open source heroes! And it must be nice to completely corner the market as far as robust open source graphics drivers -- your competition doesn't even come close.

[WorBlux]

The open-source Intel Linux driver also still is not able to ship with support by default for S3TC texture compression or floating-point textures due to patent fears.

WHat level of the difference is due to this?

Also have the deeper and deepest rc6 states been enabled for intel on linux?

[johnc]

I'm glad I don't drink the Intel kool-aid.

We'll see how the nvidia benchmarks go, but I'd be surprised if there's a significant difference between the two operating systems.