Former Valve engineer Rich Geldreich has written up a blog post about the state of Linux Gaming. It's an interesting read that's for sure.
When talking about recent bigger game ports:
QuoteSadly, it's pretty clear that if you run these games on Linux your experience isn't going to be as good, and you'll be getting less "gaming value" vs. Windows. We're not talking about a bunch of little indy titles, these are big releases: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Borderlands 2, Tropico 5, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Sid Meier's Civilization V. My take is the devs doing these ports just aren't doing their best to optimize these releases for Linux and/or OpenGL.
Emphasis mine, and I don't agree with him on this. Obviously neither he, nor I have any proof either way that they are/aren't doing their best to optimise, but Aspyr & Feral making a living out of porting games to OpenGL, so why wouldn't they be trying to fix performance issues?
The performance has some way to go sure, but is that really the fault of Aspyr & Feral, or do the drivers still have ways to go to improve their performance? Who knows, I sure don't it goes way over my head at that point.
He does however note how hard it is to get performance on Linux equal to Windows:
QuoteI know it's possible for Linux ports to equal or outperform their Windows counterparts, but it's hard. At Valve we had all the driver devs at our beck and call and it was still very difficult to get the Source engine's perf. and stability to where it needed to be relative to Windows. (And this was with a ~8 year old engine - it must be even harder with more modern engines.) These devs are probably glad to just release anything at all given how alien it can be for Windows/Xbox devs to develop, debug, and ship stuff under Linux+OpenGL.
At least he is pointing out that fact that it's not easy to get decent OpenGL performance to match games on Windows, so he's not completely blasting Feral and Aspyr.
I agree with what he's saying about the Intel drivers 100%:
QuoteThe entire Intel driver situation remains in a ridiculous state. I know Intel means well and all but really, they can do better. (Are they afraid of pissing off MS? Or is this just big corp dysfunctionalism?) Valve is still paying LunarG to find and fix silly perf bugs in Intel's slow open source driver. Surely this can't be a sustainable way of developing a working driver?
No, it's not. Intel ideally needs to be doing this sort of work themselves to find bottlenecks and fix general performance issues in their own Linux drivers. I see this as a stopgap measure while Linux still isn't a focus for many people, and Intel included. This again goes into our marketshare issues, if we had a higher share then Intel would probably be doing it themselves.
His last point is a screen-shot of a slashdot comment where someone is basically saying that SteamOS is done, and that we will never get our hands on the Steam Controller. Their reasoning is that Microsoft snapped and allowed Alienware to create a Windows machine that boots to a Steam UI, and not Windows directly.
I agree that was a bit of a shocker, and I thought it wouldn't do SteamOS any good, but I think SteamOS hasn't even had a chance to have a go at it yet. SteamOS was delayed because Valve decided to revamp the controller again to get it right, so I think we should wait for it to be out before signalling its death.
Read his full blog post here.
What are your thoughts on it? Rich is good at stirring up the hornet's nest that's for sure, but just because he is a former Valve engineer doesn't mean he's going to be right on everything. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Mohandevir Nov 10, 2014
All of this is the reason why they are working on OpenGL-5.
And yes Linux needs more than 1.2% of marketshare to draw the attention of developpers.
As long as there is no true Steam Machine offering, side by side with XBone and PS4, we can't speculate about the SteamOS performances or future.
IMO, if these boxes can get the Linux marketshare at around 5% to 10%, things will change because Linux will become attractive for developpers. From that point, who knows...
It's all about what comes first and somebody (Valve) has to start the whole thing and it's not done yet.
March 2015, they say...
And yes Linux needs more than 1.2% of marketshare to draw the attention of developpers.
As long as there is no true Steam Machine offering, side by side with XBone and PS4, we can't speculate about the SteamOS performances or future.
IMO, if these boxes can get the Linux marketshare at around 5% to 10%, things will change because Linux will become attractive for developpers. From that point, who knows...
It's all about what comes first and somebody (Valve) has to start the whole thing and it's not done yet.
March 2015, they say...
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the mis-information here..
Borderlands2 and Borderlands TPS are excellent ports.
Mid level Nvidia 760 GPU + Lowly Quad AMD CPU = 70 - 90 FPS with everything on apart from FXAA ( cos it looks like dirt )
What's the problem ? The frame rate is smooth, vsync works fine. No lag..
Did anyone who owns an Nvidia card put this in the Steam Launch options for the game:
LD_PRELOAD="${LD_PRELOAD} libpthread.so.0 libGL.so.1" __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 %command%
If you do this you go from a fluctuating 40 - 60fps to my results, it gives another 30fps at least and smooths out all the dips. That command works on many games and offloads CPU calcs to the GPU instead. Some games might be slower or not launch but its easy to try.
FYI: CS:GO on Linux with everything on MAX ( AA is on x4 because its enough ) im getting 170 - 290FPS @1080p
XCOM im getting a solid 60fps and much more no problem.
TF2 im getting 170 - 290FPS with everything on MAX with x4 AA
L4D2 is the same high FPS.
Dead Island isn’t even that good a game but never the less im getting about 40fps @ 1080p with everything on High which isn’t too bad, i don’t expect too much more as its graphically demanding.
Every time we get OpenGL hate its a Dev that left some company all butt hurt. Every mobile game in existence and the majority of console games use a form of OpenGL.
sigh ....
Borderlands2 and Borderlands TPS are excellent ports.
Mid level Nvidia 760 GPU + Lowly Quad AMD CPU = 70 - 90 FPS with everything on apart from FXAA ( cos it looks like dirt )
What's the problem ? The frame rate is smooth, vsync works fine. No lag..
Did anyone who owns an Nvidia card put this in the Steam Launch options for the game:
LD_PRELOAD="${LD_PRELOAD} libpthread.so.0 libGL.so.1" __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 %command%
If you do this you go from a fluctuating 40 - 60fps to my results, it gives another 30fps at least and smooths out all the dips. That command works on many games and offloads CPU calcs to the GPU instead. Some games might be slower or not launch but its easy to try.
FYI: CS:GO on Linux with everything on MAX ( AA is on x4 because its enough ) im getting 170 - 290FPS @1080p
XCOM im getting a solid 60fps and much more no problem.
TF2 im getting 170 - 290FPS with everything on MAX with x4 AA
L4D2 is the same high FPS.
Dead Island isn’t even that good a game but never the less im getting about 40fps @ 1080p with everything on High which isn’t too bad, i don’t expect too much more as its graphically demanding.
Every time we get OpenGL hate its a Dev that left some company all butt hurt. Every mobile game in existence and the majority of console games use a form of OpenGL.
sigh ....
4 Likes, Who?
Quoting: mr-eggthe mis-information here..
Borderlands2 and Borderlands TPS are excellent ports.
I can only speak for BL2 and I must say - from the perspective
of an AMD GPU user - it is NOT a good port.
Performance is abysmal compared to the same computer running BL2 on Win7.
Yes, they stated that at release time and even marked AMD "unsupported".
Still, *I* want an update on that matter. What's the reason for the bad performance?
Is it really just the well known "it's AMD drivers quality and we're waiting for a fix"?
When can we (AMD user) expect an update which *significantly* improves performance?
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QuoteWhen can we (AMD user) expect an update which *significantly* improve performance?This depends entirely on AMD, and knowing them, it will be a good 5 years or more down the road if at all. I remember asking this question in 2008, and only in 2013 was my question answered for the games I asked that question for in 2008.
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Quoting: subQuoting: mr-eggthe mis-information here..I can only speak for BL2 and I must say - from the perspective
Borderlands2 and Borderlands TPS are excellent ports.
of an AMD GPU user - it is NOT a good port.
Performance is abysmal compared to the same computer running BL2 on Win7.
Yes, they stated that at release time and even marked AMD "unsupported".
Still, *I* want an update on that matter. What's the reason for the bad performance/
Is it really just the well known "it's AMD drivers quality and we're waiting for a fix"?
When can we (AMD user) expect an update which *significantly* improve performance?
I am little interested here. I am nvidia user so I do not know. Was there a good AMD port for AAA games?
1 Likes, Who?
Mohandevir Nov 10, 2014
AMD proprietary drivers are a nightmare. Never been able to correclty use an AMD GPU on Linux except if I could use the FOOS driver and, in that case, it rarely supports the latest GPUs.
So, for AMD, no matter what you do, it's all about compromises. Too bad, being Canadian, I was a big AMD fan (ATI was a Canadian company).
I decided to switch to NVidia and XCom, The Witcher II and Borderlands II are just awesome, all maxed out (Gigabyte, GTX 750 TI).
I don't know what M. Geldreich is talking about... :)
So, for AMD, no matter what you do, it's all about compromises. Too bad, being Canadian, I was a big AMD fan (ATI was a Canadian company).
I decided to switch to NVidia and XCom, The Witcher II and Borderlands II are just awesome, all maxed out (Gigabyte, GTX 750 TI).
I don't know what M. Geldreich is talking about... :)
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Quoting: ImantsI am little interested here. I am nvidia user so I do not know. Was there a good AMD port for AAA games?
Source games run perfect on my 7950.
XCOM runs fine.
However, it's hard to compare. When it comes to XCOM, given by the gameplay,
you wouldn't notice bad performance that much compared to Borderlands 2.
Leaving aside the performance, the BL 2 port is indeed excellent,
i.e. no visual artifacts or crashes.
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Quoting: SabunQuoteWhen can we (AMD user) expect an update which *significantly* improve performance?This depends entirely on AMD, and knowing them, it will be a good 5 years or more down the road if at all. I remember asking this question in 2008, and only in 2013 was my question answered for the games I asked that question for in 2008.
I was referring to a Borderlands 2 update. :D
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He is probably right. Except for Nvidia, the Linux graphics drivers are not in good shape. People won't switch to a new system if they do not even get the same performance.
The only hope would be pre-configured Steam machines but will people really buy them? Why buy a Linux Steam machine if you can buy a Windows Steam machine for a few more bucks. With Windows you can at least play every game in your library.
The only hope would be pre-configured Steam machines but will people really buy them? Why buy a Linux Steam machine if you can buy a Windows Steam machine for a few more bucks. With Windows you can at least play every game in your library.
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Mohandevir Nov 10, 2014
Anyone runs an AMD R9 or R7 GPU, on Linux?
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