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

[dacool]

Poor performance on Intel? 965GM x86/MMX/SSE2

It seems that the poor performance in Ubuntu is caused by this bug: Poor performance on Intel? 965GM x86/MMX/SSE2? If anyone else is experiencing the same issue please go and vote for it as shown here: how to vote (you have to be logged in). Hopefully it will get fixed sooner.

[mitcoes]

Thanks I did not know it

Thanks a lot,

I have just discovered this method, after being happy with the Sabayon 1000 Hz kernel and looking an easy way of having it at ubuntu. I did not know this.

[Kano]

Then use the metapackage name as well: linux-headers-lowlatency

[mitcoes]

with the metapackage there are a warning

I installed the metapackage alone at first and I had a warning asking for isntall headers, then I removed it ,and did it this way and there was no warnings, the update-grup is done, twice, as you say, this way, but I do like to be sure all is ok, and i can read the output - and be sure all will be ok when i will reboot.

[Kano]

Usually update-grub is called via hook, no manual execution needed. also it sounds a bit strange to install a specific headers package when you install the kernel via a meta package.

[mitcoes]

test ubuntu with its lowlatency kernel too - it is at repos -

http://mitcoes.blogspot.com.es/2012/...in-kernel.html

As easy as this, and test the both kernels, not only the 100 Hz one.

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.2.0-23-lowlatency
sudo apt-get install linux-lowlatency
sudo update-grub

[johnc]

Isn't Unity just compiz?

We'll see when Michael posts the nvidia benchmarks. If there's a dramatic difference from Windows, then it's probably a DE thing.

[gerrywastaken]

Unity 15-20fps ... Metacity 95-105fps

Wasn't Unity one of the worst performers of all DEs, including KDE?

I play quakelive a lot. On fullscreen (when I'm not even able to interact with the DE) in 12.04 Unity I get an unplayable 15-20 frames per second. A simple "metacity --replace &" and I'm running at 95-105fps or higher at times.

I like the look of unity but it kills fps on games for me. I don't know why it needs to be consuming so much when I'm in a fullscreen app, while Metacity doesn't. Hell even if they automatically switched to Metacity for fullscreen games and then back to Unity when exiting fullscreen, but it seems strange that such a thing would be necessary.

[Kano]

The most interesting point in win tests on ivb is that the opengl version is NOT 4.x but 3.x. But ivb is DX11 compatible, that means that the intel win developers are not really good at opengl... at least they can beat the linux team

[Ansla]

And because of that, Windows has rightfully earned a reputation as "bloated". But, despite that, games always seemed to be able to draw out far, far better results than on Linux. Back in the olden days, when I was still running XP, I got the impression that when a game runs, it sort of "shuts down" everything else. But, that has never been the case on Linux.

All versions of Windows have an option somewhere in control panel that tells the OS whether to give higher priority to the foreground application or to the background tasks, and it defaults to foreground. Recently Linux has gained something similar, but it mostly works for text based applications ran from the console, when X11 is active I believe the X server will be getting the higher priority, not your game, as the kernel has no way to know which X application currently has the focus.