Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Valve's L4D2 Is Faster On Linux Than Windows

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by Scali View Post
    And OS X (and FreeBSD, and Solaris)
    http://developer.download.nvidia.com...r-overview.pdf
    That's something I don't know, that osx have the same codebase.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Khudsa View Post
      That's something I don't know, that osx have the same codebase.
      Common sense, isn't it?
      Why would nVidia maintain a separate codebase for OS X, when most of it is the same as for the other OSes? (And if anyone thinks that Apple or Microsoft write their own drivers: n00bs)

      So back to my question: why would linux be any different from OS X, given that they both use the same OpenGL codebase?

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Scali View Post
        Common sense, isn't it?
        Why would nVidia maintain a separate codebase for OS X, when most of it is the same as for the other OSes? (And if anyone thinks that Apple or Microsoft write their own drivers: n00bs)

        So back to my question: why would linux be any different from OS X, given that they both use the same OpenGL codebase?
        Well, I know that windows and linux have the same codebase but I never heard anything about osx, and going on it's own opengl version and not following that the driver support don't help in that matter. It's common sense that the driver is made by nvidia and maybe apple puts some layer or something like that.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Khudsa View Post
          Well, I know that windows and linux have the same codebase but I never heard anything about osx
          Well, it's right there in nVidia's own docs. In the exact same sentence that also explains that Windows and linux share the same codebase... So how could you (or anyone else) possibly have missed that? Selective reading much?

          Originally posted by Khudsa View Post
          and going on it's own opengl version and not following that the driver support don't help in that matter. It's common sense that the driver is made by nvidia and maybe apple puts some layer or something like that.
          The difference is mainly that afaik only Apple distributes the drivers, instead of just downloading the latest ones directly from nVidia.
          Aside from that, Apple has some custom extensions (then again, so do X and Windows in the form of GLX and WGL), and Apple wants to keep the OpenGL version the same across all vendors, to avoid compatibility issues. So their OpenGL versioning is lowest-common-denominator pretty much. Even though nVidia and AMD have OpenGL 4.2 support in their codebase, they only expose version 3.2 on OS X (but they do expose their extensions).
          But again, that's still plenty for a 10-year old DX9 game.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Scali View Post
            Common sense, isn't it?
            So back to my question: why would linux be any different from OS X, given that they both use the same OpenGL codebase?
            Because OGL implementation is shared between all manufacturers. Check fig. 1-5 https://developer.apple.com/library/...1987-CH208-SW1

            The common OpenGL framework layer is the software interface to the graphics hardware. This layer contains Apple's implementation of the OpenGL specification.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by kwahoo View Post
              Because OGL implementation is shared between all manufacturers. Check fig. 1-5 https://developer.apple.com/library/...1987-CH208-SW1
              I guess you missed the part where they explain the driver layer:
              Originally posted by Apple
              The driver layer contains the optional GLD plug-in interface and one or more GLD plug-in drivers, which may have different software and hardware support capabilities. The GLD plug-in interface supports third-party plug-in drivers, allowing third-party hardware vendors to provide drivers optimized to take best advantage of their graphics hardware.
              That's where the actual hardware-accelerated vendor driver plugs in. Which is what you'd normally be using under OS X. Apple does provide a software implementation as a fallback, but it is not suitable for playing games like L4D.
              They even drew you a picture:
              Last edited by Scali; 04 August 2012, 07:40 AM.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by elanthis View Post
                It would still be so much nicer if someone would just publish a replacement API for OpenGL that worked more like any other API designed in the last 15 years. And did so without tethering it to the clusterfuck that is Khronos. And spent time integrating Mesa's software renderer into a steppable shader debugger. Linux with Gallium is the perfect place for this since you can write a new API and get direct hardware acceleration without needing to wait for any hardware vendors to get on board. Just sayin'. Nudge nudge.
                Is there anyone with interest in replacing OpenGL(Linux or not)?? In case there is such a big demand for D3D on Linux they can write a State tracker and be done with it. Can't they??

                Comment


                • Originally posted by 89c51 View Post
                  Is there anyone with interest in replacing OpenGL(Linux or not)?? In case there is such a big demand for D3D on Linux they can write a State tracker and be done with it. Can't they??
                  I believe they already did a D3D tracker as a proof-of-concept, using Gallium to build a Windows driver.
                  That should easily be portable to linux.
                  But the biggest problem is that most linux drivers don't make use of Gallium. Certainly not the only two drivers that really matter: AMD's and nVidia's binary drivers.

                  Comment


                  • There was and there will not be any major migration to MAC for the simple reason that Apple (at least here in my country) was looked at as an Elite Hardware vendor with very high prices for what you get.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by AJSB View Post
                      There was and there will not be any major migration to MAC for the simple reason that Apple (at least here in my country) was looked at as an Elite Hardware vendor with very high prices for what you get.
                      What I pointed out however, is that people had been playing Steam games on Mac through Bootcamp, and because of the poor quality of the Mac port, many of them continue to use Bootcamp rather than the native Mac versions.
                      They already had the Mac hardware to begin with.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X