A Low-Latency Kernel For Linux Gaming

[ParisStaltic]

One day, we shall have a good OS, and an internet culture without fighting and violence.

I'm not sure if this post is related to anything going on here in this thread or just a nice aside but in case it is a reflection on the thread I'd like to assure you while there does oddly enough exist passion for somethings as mundane as an operating system the only "fighting and violence" that is less than productive is done by those who actually "have a dog in this fight" mainly Microsoft since for them billions of dollars are at stake. For us lowly user/admins we actually have little stake in the Windows /vs Allus Warfare and there certainly is no violence among us that I know of, nor should their be. For us it's just a debate and if done right something each side can learn from.. Conflict is valuable. Violence, not so much.

FWIW it is my best guess that not too far off nobody will know or care about an operating system since computers and their cooperation are just too important for Tower of Babel squabbles at that level.

[ParisStaltic]

Very well.

Majority of Linux fanatics/aplogists-whatever in Phoronix do not make this distinction, putting everything into same kettle and calling the whole shebang Linux. I assumed you are similar.

Isn't that what I just said? or at least a modified version of that? It may end up that due to the overly complicated interactions necessary and inherent to microkernels, that the actual fight at it's most basic is between microkernels and monolithic. It may be worthy of note that despite a massive quantity of man/hours in the Linux world, monolithic won that battle. The KISS method is almost always going to win out.

The exact reason why I used Spiceworks data. W3Techs statistics is purely "online" (showing servers with public access) in it's nature. It does not reflect servers sitting in Intranets at all. Spiceworks data shows Internet-connected and Intranet servers both.

Interesting but one interpretation of that is pandering to the lowest common denominator ie: - dumbing down the intranet for casual users. I don't see how that applies to this thread.

It is shackled in a multiple ways. Unable to use code licensed under incompatible open-source license (like CDDL). Unable to change it's license unless having the agreement of all it's devs.

Nothing is so simple as to be ALL good or ALL bad. In this case I view the above as a well-justified tradeoff.... much more important Benefits relative to Cost.

I do not quite get the PAE talk. Even Windows 2003 supported it as far as I remember it. I used it for a while as a replacement for WindowsXP (there was method for turning Win2003 into "workstation mode")

I don't care to discuss minor details as the point was by nature proprietary comes with more limitations and restrictions in which the User is commonly the one that takes the hit and pays the price, while corporations just repackage and market a "new" product as an "upgrade" that we are expected to pay for..

You should not quote "do one thing and do it well" related to Linux. It applies to BSD's, not to Linux for a long time now.

I agree that on the whole BSD is more consistent with Unix philosophy and I hope your reference to Linux having departed from that path refers mainly to sytsmd and it's dependencies (which BTW doesn't affect me heavily since I use Slackware which uses none of systemd's "solutions" and is more OG BSD than modern BSDs when it comes to package management) but even the most systemd ridden, user friendly distro available is vastly less interdependent than processes in Windows exactly because of both the hierarchical nature of the opsys and also it's microkernel.. You pointed out the advantages of "deep integration" which do indeed exist but the cost of that integration is profound and light years away from "do one thing well".

Please, DO TRY gaming on Linux. Just try. Something competitive online. Online against other human players, all the little issues crawl open fastest. Single player you can put on pause and shrug the problems off, multiplayer you cannot. You can argue endlessly, nothing beats the experience, or frustration of trying.

I find the above an ignorant assumption and not a little condescending. Try? I have been a dedicated and avid gamer for decades and much, if not most of it on Linux. My main box multi-boots and while I did do a lot of re-booting for a few isolated games a decade ago, within that decade it is now to where so many decent games can be played on Linux I just don't miss Windows at all. FWIW I have not only tried Linux I have installed many games that I run in Wine to a 3rd NTFS partition so that I can run the exact same game both Natively and in WINE. Each has it's advantages but more often than not, reduced latency in mouse, keyboard and TCP/IP have Linux feeling more responsive than Windows. Incidentally, for one seemingly well versed in alternatives to Windows how is it that you still refer to WINE as "emulation" when it clearly is not and not just in it's name?

Heh, teach your gramma suck eggs. Question would be, what is your time worth. From certain point, it's easier to reinstall.

IMHO it is easier and valid to reinstall Windows than fix it but I have not been in that condition with Linux in over 15 years. The time factor is one of learning and experience. Since we were specifically talking about borking a graphics driver install, I assure you I can wantonly cause such a problem and fix it without reinstalling before anyone can reinstall-fix a similar Windows problem by a time measured in hours. At the very worst that would take me 10-15 minutes in Linux, commonly far less..

Majority of which run over emulation layer with lessened performance. Very few have true Linux clients. Steam Linux gaming seems to be dropping, not increasing

I already addressed the emulation" reference mistake as untrue and since I also noted a AAA game released just 2 months from the beginning of 2017 in Native Linux (but not yet Mac) at worst it remains to be seen whether Steam Linux gaming and it's effect on game devs ! is dropping or not.

If you do not play or have knowledge about gaming outside of what you could google, why argue me. Believe me, I've tried gaming on Linux. Windows works for it most of the time, Linux does not. Not if you want to play against other human beings who use all the little issues you have against you. Single player gaming on Linux is not that bad IF you get the game running.

Outside gaming, for the rest of things I use FreeBSD, Manjaro OpenRC or OpenSUSE. In that order of frequency. OSes I am playing with, just to test them out, do not count.

It appears that for some reason(s) I have been more successful in Linux Gaming as I prefer it and have had very few issues but a large part of that might well be that despite your forays into alternatives, you obviously still view Windows as inherently better and necessary, like an addiction. I broke that bad habit decades ago which is likely why I wonder how I ever put up with it and gladly flourish on Linux that not only lets me do anything I want to do but literally does nothing I don't instigate. That discipline created a situation of extreme performance and stability since any problem is only one step away since I caused it and nothing was done that I didn't know about nor allow..

Again, if you're happy where you are that's great. I prefer Freedom and it's cost, Responsibility to Convenience and it's cost. Indentured Servitude.

[aht0]

Interesting but one interpretation of that is pandering to the lowest common denominator ie: - dumbing down the intranet for casual users. I don't see how that applies to this thread.

Wrong. You are dumbing it down as "only publicly accessible servers count" - "If majority of them run Linux, then it means Linux for you that rules everywhere".

Server remains server, be it serving local infrastructure or being connected to Internet. Former simply does not appear in YOUR statistics at all, although they maybe be 2-3x more numerous as latter in infrastructure of any given organization.

How that applies to this thread? Remember, you brought up W3Tech statistics trying to prove with it that Linux is absolutely everywhere. Which absolutely ignores huge bunch of servers running without public internet access in internal networks.

I agree that on the whole BSD is more consistent with Unix philosophy and I hope your reference to Linux having departed from that path refers mainly to sytsmd and it's dependencies (which BTW doesn't affect me heavily since I use Slackware which uses none of systemd's "solutions" and is more OG BSD than modern BSDs when it comes to package management) but even the most systemd ridden, user friendly distro available is vastly less interdependent than processes in Windows exactly because of both the hierarchical nature of the opsys and also it's microkernel.. You pointed out the advantages of "deep integration" which do indeed exist but the cost of that integration is profound and light years away from "do one thing well".

Not only systemd. Deviation from compatibility and towards Linux-oriented development started years before systemd.

I find the above an ignorant assumption and not a little condescending. Try? I have been a dedicated and avid gamer for decades and much, if not most of it on Linux. My main box multi-boots and while I did do a lot of re-booting for a few isolated games a decade ago, within that decade it is now to where so many decent games can be played on Linux I just don't miss Windows at all. FWIW I have not only tried Linux I have installed many games that I run in Wine to a 3rd NTFS partition so that I can run the exact same game both Natively and in WINE. Each has it's advantages but more often than not, reduced latency in mouse, keyboard and TCP/IP have Linux feeling more responsive than Windows. Incidentally, for one seemingly well versed in alternatives to Windows how is it that you still refer to WINE as "emulation" when it clearly is not and not just in it's name?

Nitpicking. It does not really matter if the "linux game" in question runs in a "wine wrapper" or I call it "over emulator". It's not native client, that's the point. Which means - on top of Windows-specific bugs you are going to get Linux-specific issues too. Be the latter ones whatever.

I already addressed the emulation" reference mistake as untrue and since I also noted a AAA game released just 2 months from the beginning of 2017 in Native Linux (but not yet Mac) at worst it remains to be seen whether Steam Linux gaming and it's effect on game devs ! is dropping or not.

Thats 1 game you make sound like huge success. Count the overall AAA games being released for PC platform for comparison - in order to keep it in perspective.

It appears that for some reason(s) I have been more successful in Linux Gaming as I prefer it and have had very few issues but a large part of that might well be that despite your forays into alternatives, you obviously still view Windows as inherently better and necessary, like an addiction. I broke that bad habit decades ago which is likely why I wonder how I ever put up with it and gladly flourish on Linux that not only lets me do anything I want to do but literally does nothing I don't instigate. That discipline created a situation of extreme performance and stability since any problem is only one step away since I caused it and nothing was done that I didn't know about nor allow..

Probably you play games that work to a degree in Linux.

If I broke that "addiction" I would have nothing to play. If I do not enjoy available games on Linux, they might as well not exist. Gaming's point is to have fun. Not to grind on things you dislike.

I use Windows purely for gaming and office. It works better there. For the rest (multimedia, web) I use open source which has pretty much quality comparable to windows with some advantages even (Win10 for example does not allow ripping my DVDs using Handbreak - FreeBSD allows me)

[Paradox Ethereal]

I'm not sure if this post is related to anything going on here in this thread or just a nice aside but in case it is a reflection on the thread I'd like to assure you while there does oddly enough exist passion for somethings as mundane as an operating system the only "fighting and violence" that is less than productive is done by those who actually "have a dog in this fight" mainly Microsoft since for them billions of dollars are at stake. For us lowly user/admins we actually have little stake in the Windows /vs Allus Warfare and there certainly is no violence among us that I know of, nor should their be. For us it's just a debate and if done right something each side can learn from.. Conflict is valuable. Violence, not so much.

FWIW it is my best guess that not too far off nobody will know or care about an operating system since computers and their cooperation are just too important for Tower of Babel squabbles at that level.

I am just trying to make a nice point. But indeed if low-jitter was understood, as the thread was about, I think OS wars would be much less common, since it is a very ultimate thing. Maybe at some point, this will generally be understood.

[Paradox Ethereal]

PS: The Unreal 4k + 128x AA video is now here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dx6dbiTm8w&t=1s

Plays well on a low-jitter tuned windows

[inf3rno]

Most serious competitive gamers will attempt to reduce latency and minimise jitter in latency. Course, those gamers won't be using linux because the platform simply doesn't support their games, but if it was they'd be looking for ways to minimise input lag.

It has nothing to do with FPS, but it's fairly trivial to see the difference in input lag between 250fps and 125fps whilst playing a q3 engine game. There may be more to it, but actual mouse pointer consistency can get seriously messed up from a gamer reacting to whats happening on his screen without a consistant system.

The average person denies its possible for a couple of ms difference to actually affect performance, but almost every high end gamer (ie, the people who win money at tournaments) would agree with what I said above.

For the record, playing a windows game with rawinput usually mean you're got a consistant gaming experience which leads to a much higher level of skill, and is obviously noticeable when you look at the people playing the games.

On the other hand, without directinput / rawinput the entire windows pointer system seems to be awful and crappy, and inconsistant in windows 7 to the point where I can be successful in XP with no acceleration fixes, but not so in windows 7.

I'm hoping steam for linux games have some kind of rawinput, because despite being a linux fanboy, I won't be gaming with it if I can't aim.

FYI, if we're seriously talking about 30ms kernel, I'd suspect we're seriously being way too slow already. We're talking about a group of people who raise their USB polling rates from 8ms to 1-2ms, using monitors than need to have < 10ms lag, and playing at high FPS (thus meaning < 10ms delay between screens) with generally 100hz+ refresh rates. A 30ms responce time is already way too slow, though I suppose thats a maxiumum as opposed to an average.

I agree. I was a pro gamer with XP in a game with a modified Q3 engine. Ever since I changed the opsystem to Win7 my acc dropped from 50-55% to 25-45% and I can barely reach the medium skill. I have no clue what's going on with this game. Everything happens in a few hundred msecs delay on the screen. So for example when somebody crouches, then the hitbox crouches in close to real time and the person croches on my screen a few hundred msecs later, so I shoot in the air according to the server, but not according to my screen. Another interesting thing that by close fights my hitbox is a few hundred msecs behind me. So people on my screen usually shoot the wall in the direction I was a few hundred msecs before, and they hit me. Sometimes people on the screen doesn't seem to care much that I am shooting on them, but suddenly they start to shoot and 1-2 hit kills me (note that you need at least 3 headshots with SMG to get killed). Sometimes I go in a room it looks like if it were empty, but people appear a few hundred msecs later from thin air. I have no idea what's the cause. This is a many years old problem, and it started in 2009 when I changed everything: the PC, the ISP, the monitor, the mouse and the opsystem. It feels lik a huge lag, but my ping is stable <50 with 2ms jitter. I thought that the server's CPU cannot handle the game, but according to other players there is no problem with the server. I have an i5-4670k, gef gtx 750ti, 16GB RAM, using 2 SSD-s, so I doubt hat the hardware is not enough. I checked, benchmarked, reinstalled, configured everything possible, but everything seems to be ok according to all of the tests, so it is beyond hope.

I realize that this topic is a few years old, but maybe somebody gets a notification. I am writing here, because I am curious whether you have any recommended Linux distros with low-latency kernel for playing old games like Q3. I want to try out my game with Linux and check whether the problem is with the opsystem. I have already checked most of the hardwares except the monitor. So I decided to check the OS, maybe the problem is there. I played BF4 and BF1 (raw input) and this problem does not seem to appear there. Maybe a little bit, but not at this extent. After the OS I'll check the monitor and after that the ISP will be the last suspect.