Valve's L4D2 Is Faster On Linux Than Windows

[Khudsa]

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.

[Scali]

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?

[Khudsa]

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.

[Scali]

Valve is targeting right now the binary blobs, these blobs have a common base between windows and linux.

And OS X (and FreeBSD, and Solaris)

http://developer.download.nvidia.com/assets/gamedev/docs/nvidia-driver-overview.pdf

The code base for the NVIDIA graphics driver leverages the majority of the source code
across all the operating systems we support. Everything that is specific to a particular
operating or windowing system is abstracted behind interface layers. In other words, the core
OpenGL driver source code is used on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, and
Mac OS X. Similarly, most of the code for the NVIDIA kernel module is common across all
of those operating systems.

[Khudsa]

Why not? This is a DX9-game. Apple's OpenGL may not entirely be up-to-date, but it is well above DX9-level (again, we are talking 10-year old technology here). That is not the issue.
I see no reason why it would be any different on linux.
I also find Valve's figures highly suspect in light of my own OpenGL code, as well as other benchmarks that are cross-platform and/or cross-API, such as Unigine Heaven.

Valve is targeting right now the binary blobs, these blobs have a common base between windows and linux. I said that 'a priori' it will not have, but obviously I don't know, only with a direct comparison when the game is released we will know.

[Scali]

Linux will not have these problems, a priori.

Why not? This is a DX9-game. Apple's OpenGL may not entirely be up-to-date, but it is well above DX9-level (again, we are talking 10-year old technology here). That is not the issue.
I see no reason why it would be any different on linux.
I also find Valve's figures highly suspect in light of my own OpenGL code, as well as other benchmarks that are cross-platform and/or cross-API, such as Unigine Heaven.

[Khudsa]

That was not the point I was responding to however.
Let's face it, it's obvious that linux is a complete dead end for any commercial company at this point. That does not need to be discussed.
I responded to someone using the words "huge impact".
Now what you're saying about Gabe feeling that the Valve linux project is a success just because the games exist... Fine, but that doesn't give the gaming world a 'huge impact'.
It would just mean that there are more (versions of) games that are ignored by the majority of gamers. Just like Valve's OS X ports have made 0 impact on the Windows gaming world. Or has there been a mass exodus from Windows to OS X since Steam and various Source games appeared for OS X in the past 2 years that I somehow missed? On the contrary. I have seen on Steam forums that even OS X users still prefer to use Bootcamp to run the Windows versions of the games: http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1710069
(So please excuse me for being skeptic about Valve's publication of linux performance figures...)

I think the bootcamp question was more about of the poor ogl performance of osx, worse graphic quality ( blame to apple poor ogl implementation ). Linux will not have these problems, a priori. But I'm not so naive to think that will be a huge migration, but it can make a trend towards a more big marketshare among young people.

[Scali]

The purpose of Valve in this endeavor is also not exactly "make more monies by selling to the vast 1% of the market that is Linux." The project is partly just Gabe being very very interested in Linux and, being rich and having an entire company of his own that makes games, he can damn well port his stuff to Linux if he wants to. And he does. So he is.

That was not the point I was responding to however.
Let's face it, it's obvious that linux is a complete dead end for any commercial company at this point. That does not need to be discussed.
I responded to someone using the words "huge impact".
Now what you're saying about Gabe feeling that the Valve linux project is a success just because the games exist... Fine, but that doesn't give the gaming world a 'huge impact'.
It would just mean that there are more (versions of) games that are ignored by the majority of gamers. Just like Valve's OS X ports have made 0 impact on the Windows gaming world. Or has there been a mass exodus from Windows to OS X since Steam and various Source games appeared for OS X in the past 2 years that I somehow missed? On the contrary. I have seen on Steam forums that even OS X users still prefer to use Bootcamp to run the Windows versions of the games: http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1710069
(So please excuse me for being skeptic about Valve's publication of linux performance figures... Valve couldn't even get their code to perform well in 64-bit Windows either: http://techgage.com/article/half-lif..._get_excited/2 The 64-bit version just silently disappeared from Steam at some point...)

[elanthis]

Yes, but my point was that with DirectX, everything is in one nice little package. With OpenGL you'd have to pick and choose different frameworks (SDL, etc.). Sure it gives you choice, but at the same time it's not so clear and straightforward sometimes on how to do things.

DirectX doesn't actually solve the same set of problems as those frameworks. DX doesn't handle window management, doesn't handle certain parts of input, doesn't handle file I/O, networking, etc.

Granted, as DX games aren't meant to port to non-Win32 platforms, the vast majority of them just directly use the Win32 API for all that stuff.

The good engines, of course, still abstract everything, and can use D3D9, D3D11, OpenGL, GL|ES, and several console rendering APIs all in addition to being ported to the various other non-graphics platform-specific APIs out there.

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.

[blackout23]

Just Gabe mentioning that Half-Life 3 will be available for Linux, Mac...and Windows. Instead of Windows,Mac and Linux would be enough for me to giggle like a little schoolgirl lol.