Administrator DKT27 Posted August 2, 2012 Administrator Share Posted August 2, 2012 Valve's distaste for Windows 8 has led the company to take on an increasing interest in Linux, and the new Valve Linux blog shows that, with some work, the Source Engine actually runs faster on it than it does on Windows. The company used a testbed with an Intel i7 3930k, Nvidia GeForce GTX 680, and 32GB of RAM to pit Left 4 Dead 2 on Windows 7 against Ubuntu 12, and the results are rather interesting. At first, Valve's Linux port of Left 4 Dead 2 ran at only 6 FPS on the i7 machine, but after tweaking the game to make effective use of the efficient characteristics of the Linux kernel and OpenGL, the Valve Linux team was able to eke out a much higher 315 FPS. Using the same machine running Windows 7 and Direct3D, the same game ran at 270.6 FPS, or roughly 14 percent slower. After optimizing the Source Engine for the Linux platform, Valve wondered why OpenGL was outperforming Direct3D at a technical level. Their research found that, on the same hardware, there are "a few additional microseconds [of] overhead per batch in Direct3D which does not affect OpenGL," indicating that Direct3D may not be as efficient as Microsoft would like developers to believe. There are still challenges ahead for the Valve Linux team, however, as the state of Linux graphics card drivers is still a tumultuous affair. The team has yet to work with AMD and Nvidia, but collaboration with Intel's engineers took place just last month. :view: View: Original Article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ck_kent Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 I really hope that other game developers will follow suit in porting their games to Linux as this will make AMD and Nvidia give much better support for Linux distros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudrax Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 Interesting..Just wondering, why the test is not performed using OpenGL with windows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted August 3, 2012 Author Administrator Share Posted August 3, 2012 Interesting.. Just wondering, why the test is not performed using OpenGL with windows? It seems that they did. From what I understood from the blog: Direct3D (on Windows): 270.6 OpenGL (on Ubuntu Linux): 315 OpenGL (on Windows): 303.4 For the first time ever in my life, I've seen someone challenging MS on it's DirectX, and rightly so. What does this say? It says that, one, DirectX isn't as great as people think and it isn't optimized well, two, Linux kernel has a lot of power in it, three, OpenGL is underrated. Think it this way, Valve has worked on Windows and DirectX for years, still they reach 270FPS. On the other hand, they started optimizing things on Linux for such a small time now, and they are already getting better performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T4C Fantasy Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 Interesting.. Just wondering, why the test is not performed using OpenGL with windows? It seems that they did. From what I understood from the blog: Direct3D (on Windows): 270.6 OpenGL (on Ubuntu Linux): 315 OpenGL (on Windows): 303.4 For the first time ever in my life, I've seen someone challenging MS on it's DirectX, and rightly so. What does this say? It says that, one, DirectX isn't as great as people think and it isn't optimized well, two, Linux kernel has a lot of power in it, three, OpenGL is underrated. Think it this way, Valve has worked on Windows and DirectX for years, still they reach 270FPS. On the other hand, they started optimizing things on Linux for such a small time now, and they are already getting better performance. that doesnt say much at all seeing as how when programming for games first started it was extremely shitty, linux users have a good template to start with because of windows thats all. efficiency after 60fps (a constant 60fps) will NOT be noticed on a 60Hz monitor (common Hz) so if windows gets 270FPS it doesnt matter if linux gets 5000 you wont notice a differance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudrax Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 It seems that they did. From what I understood from the blog: Direct3D (on Windows): 270.6 OpenGL (on Ubuntu Linux): 315 OpenGL (on Windows): 303.4 For the first time ever in my life, I've seen someone challenging MS on it's DirectX, and rightly so. What does this say? It says that, one, DirectX isn't as great as people think and it isn't optimized well, two, Linux kernel has a lot of power in it, three, OpenGL is underrated. Think it this way, Valve has worked on Windows and DirectX for years, still they reach 270FPS. On the other hand, they started optimizing things on Linux for such a small time now, and they are already getting better performance.You have presented some very good info here.. :thumbsup: OpenGL, something better than DX, I knew it..It has more power inside it..And it seems, MS have to be worried now, they have recently suffered lose in market for the first time after long 24 years. :naughty: This thread tells only about one game..what about other games? :ermm: Well, I don't think that it is the test between graphics cards like for some games looser is the winer :omg: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudrax Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 efficiency after 60fps (a constant 60fps) will NOT be noticed on a 60Hz monitor (common Hz) so if windows gets 270FPS it doesnt matter if linux gets 5000 you wont notice a differanceWell, may be the difference between 270 and 315 FPS won't be distinguishable for normal eyes but don't think the same for 5000 FPS.. B) Being neglected in the market, Linux and OpenGL shows such improvements, that should be considered. :huh: Now the hardware manufacturer and the programmers really should pay attention to linux and OpenGL ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T4C Fantasy Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 efficiency after 60fps (a constant 60fps) will NOT be noticed on a 60Hz monitor (common Hz) so if windows gets 270FPS it doesnt matter if linux gets 5000 you wont notice a differanceWell, may be the difference between 270 and 315 FPS won't be distinguishable for normal eyes but don't think the same for 5000 FPS.. B) Being neglected in the market, Linux and OpenGL shows such improvements, that should be considered. :huh: Now the hardware manufacturer and the programmers really should pay attention to linux and OpenGL ;) they should only pay attention to linux if it doesnt slow down development for windows, if it slows down for windows then its simply not worth it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudrax Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 they should only pay attention to linux if it doesnt slow down development for windows, if it slows down for windows then its simply not worth itBest will deserve the best..it's not about windows and linux. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted August 3, 2012 Author Administrator Share Posted August 3, 2012 Think it this way, Valve has worked on Windows and DirectX for years, still they reach 270FPS. On the other hand, they started optimizing things on Linux for such a small time now, and they are already getting better performance. that doesnt say much at all seeing as how when programming for games first started it was extremely shitty, linux users have a good template to start with because of windows thats all. efficiency after 60fps (a constant 60fps) will NOT be noticed on a 60Hz monitor (common Hz) so if windows gets 270FPS it doesnt matter if linux gets 5000 you wont notice a differance What templates? Valve had to do things from scratch. As for OpenGL and Linux, both are different architectures than DirectX and Windows respectively.. It has inspired on the GUI side, not so much backend. Read the blog, they have done it on a very powerful computer. Now, if they can show this improvements on normal computer systems, the improvement can be HUGE. You have presented some very good info here.. :thumbsup: OpenGL, something better than DX, I knew it..It has more power inside it..And it seems, MS have to be worried now, they have recently suffered lose in market for the first time after long 24 years. :naughty: This thread tells only about one game..what about other games? :ermm: Well, I don't think that it is the test between graphics cards like for some games looser is the winer :omg: OpenGL needs to better, that's for sure. Nothing is best. I've noticed this on OpenGL that it's not the best when comes to proper brightness. This is just an example. But there's a big room for improvement. Will see if this can re-produced in other games. :) Being neglected in the market, Linux and OpenGL shows such improvements, that should be considered. :huh: Now the hardware manufacturer and the programmers really should pay attention to linux and OpenGL ;) Indeed. they should only pay attention to linux if it doesnt slow down development for windows, if it slows down for windows then its simply not worth itBest will deserve the best..it's not about windows and linux. Exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudrax Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 OpenGL needs to better, that's for sure. Nothing is best. I've noticed this on OpenGL that it's not the best when comes to proper brightness. This is just an example. But there's a big room for improvement. Will see if this can re-produced in other games. :)The bugs like brightness etc. are obvious as OpenGL architecture is not parallel with any OS out there..These bugs can be rectified easily if proper attention is paid to it..Now valve is doing that :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted August 4, 2012 Author Administrator Share Posted August 4, 2012 lol. Just found this today going through the interwebs. Just incase you didn't know, that's Gabe Newell, founder and director of Valve. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudrax Posted August 4, 2012 Share Posted August 4, 2012 Oh man! it's really amazing. :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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