Are The Open-Source Graphics Drivers Good Enough For Steam Linux Gaming?

[log0]

I tried Insurgency in my 290x (Arch Linux), it runs over 60 in some maps, but in others (the ones with big open spaces) it can drop to less than 20. This is with everything maxed out.

Borderlands 2 has the same problem, but it only drops to 35-40 when a lot of stuff is going on. But most of the time is locked at 60fps. Again, all graphical settings maxed out at 1080p.

I suppose Mesa has high-cost draw calls, and the CPU can't keep up. The GPU doesn't heat up much (very silent too) in Linux, while in Windows is like a plane ready to take off... the reference cooler of my 290x is quite bad in that.

Run GALLIUM_HUD ( http://lists.freedesktop.org/archive...ch/036586.html ). Make a screenshot of the fps drops.

[Kano]

I tried several games with mesa, nice ones are Killing Floor (Unreal 2.5 mod), all Source engine based (Goldsrc of course too). Then there are Unity ports which run, but may need a modified config file for the res or just do not have achievements like Larry Reloaded (I had to play the Win variant to get those). Unreal 3 engine games differ a bit but mainly they work (even Borderlands 2 is UE3 based). Metro Last Light (not Redux!) basically can run with Intel but crashes a lot, no real fun. I miss the Intel benchmarks in this article as these drivers power 20 % of all Steam installs and the most used card is Intel HD 4000 (Ivy Bridge).

[F1esDgSdUTYpm0iy]

The GPU doesn't heat up much (very silent too) in Linux, while in Windows is like a plane ready to take off... the reference cooler of my 290x is quite bad in that.

That is so interesting because for me, my HD6870 behaves the exact opposite way -- I can't get its cooler to stay quiet in Linux, no matter which kernel version I use and across all versions of the OSS drivers while in Windows, it is perfectly fine functioning under load without spinning to 100%. Which is in part why I've resorted to executing most of my online activities on the secondary PC, which has no discrete GPU and as a result is substantially more silent. The alternate solution would be to switch back to Windows but that is an option I'm not willing to consider at this time.

[bibaheu]

I tried Insurgency in my 290x (Arch Linux), it runs over 60 in some maps, but in others (the ones with big open spaces) it can drop to less than 20. This is with everything maxed out.

Borderlands 2 has the same problem, but it only drops to 35-40 when a lot of stuff is going on. But most of the time is locked at 60fps. Again, all graphical settings maxed out at 1080p.

I suppose Mesa has high-cost draw calls, and the CPU can't keep up. The GPU doesn't heat up much (very silent too) in Linux, while in Windows is like a plane ready to take off... the reference cooler of my 290x is quite bad in that.

[Michael]

Yes the problem with Dota 2 is that you record a demo yourself, for some reason when you update the client for some reason the demo is stop working. Well at less happen to me one time with the reborn.

That happens with all Source Engine games is that the demos routinely break with new updates as shaders change, etc..... But the issue I have is that I can't get the timedemoquit functionality working right from start-up to begin with, although from the in-game console it works.

[profoundWHALE]

Personally, I had to bring down the resolution of Bioshock: Infinite to 720p and almost all of the settings at the lowest possible to make it playable with OSS. I beat the whole game like that and since I had a 120GB SSD, I deleted the files, so I never tried that page/pool size fix for the UE 3 games.

Insurgency runs anywhere between 20 fps to 130+ fps on OSS.

[moilami]

An interesting article.

[raonlinux]

its timed demo mode for Benchmarking isn't working...

Yes the problem with Dota 2 is that you record a demo yourself, for some reason when you update the client for some reason the demo is stop working. Well at less happen to me one time with the reborn.

[Michael]

No Dota 2 test? Such a shame, it runs on the Source 2 engine.

its timed demo mode for Benchmarking isn't working...

[hahahafr]

No Dota 2 test? Such a shame, it runs on the Source 2 engine.