It is a widely known and accepted fact that the proprietary Nvidia drivers offer the best gaming performance in the Linux world. But can you live without them on Nvidia hardware?
I've messed with the open source Nouveau driver once in a while but recently I decided I'd like to properly test how well Nouveau would be able to handle my day-to-day computer activities.
For the next two weeks I will be using Nouveau exclusively on my desktop to do any and all gaming. I have upgraded my kernel to 3.16 and gotten Nouveau and Mesa from the Oibaf PPA so I have access to some levels of GPU reclocking. It's a bit experimental (and manual) but it should allow me to push games a bit harder than before.
I'll try to play all kinds of games and test most of my Steam library during this 2 week period and record some gameplay material to show you how well various games run on Nouveau. I will also use Nouveau during both of my Friday livestreams.
Just to give you an idea what kind of a computer I'm going to be using, here are the specs of my rig:
- Intel i5-2500k at 3.3GHZ
- GTX 760 with 2GB of VRAM
- 8GB of RAM
My expectations are not extremely high but my initial testing has shown that it won't be completely horrible.
What kind of stuff would you like to see me test during these two weeks? Make sure to let me know in the comments! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I've messed with the open source Nouveau driver once in a while but recently I decided I'd like to properly test how well Nouveau would be able to handle my day-to-day computer activities.
For the next two weeks I will be using Nouveau exclusively on my desktop to do any and all gaming. I have upgraded my kernel to 3.16 and gotten Nouveau and Mesa from the Oibaf PPA so I have access to some levels of GPU reclocking. It's a bit experimental (and manual) but it should allow me to push games a bit harder than before.
I'll try to play all kinds of games and test most of my Steam library during this 2 week period and record some gameplay material to show you how well various games run on Nouveau. I will also use Nouveau during both of my Friday livestreams.
Just to give you an idea what kind of a computer I'm going to be using, here are the specs of my rig:
- Intel i5-2500k at 3.3GHZ
- GTX 760 with 2GB of VRAM
- 8GB of RAM
My expectations are not extremely high but my initial testing has shown that it won't be completely horrible.
What kind of stuff would you like to see me test during these two weeks? Make sure to let me know in the comments! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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there are bunch of game, but dota 2, will be the first one, as what about the fan speed is good on the opensource way. Another games will be cities skylines, torchlight 2 and any fps.
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Is there any way to monitorize the temps and / or performance level with Noveau?
I don't care so much about framerate, but I'm a bit concerned about get my card at maximun performance level all the time (and eventually get burn).
I've got a GTS 250 and a GTX 260.
I don't care so much about framerate, but I'm a bit concerned about get my card at maximun performance level all the time (and eventually get burn).
I've got a GTS 250 and a GTX 260.
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upgraded to 3.16? you on debian stable or something? 3.19 is current stable and 4.0 just around the corner.
my last experiments with nouveau were quite disastrous ... nothing really worked.. didn't had time to investigate much either..
but try Borderlands 2 or similar Triple A games as well if you testing it.. would be nice to see.
Metro Redux and Dying Light is probably out of question due to no gl4 support.
my last experiments with nouveau were quite disastrous ... nothing really worked.. didn't had time to investigate much either..
but try Borderlands 2 or similar Triple A games as well if you testing it.. would be nice to see.
Metro Redux and Dying Light is probably out of question due to no gl4 support.
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upgraded to 3.16? you on debian stable or something? 3.19 is current stable and 4.0 just around the corner.Not everyone uses Arch, my friend. Ubuntu 14.04 uses 3.13 by default and now I'm using a kernel backported from 14.10.
my last experiments with nouveau were quite disastrous ... nothing really worked.. didn't had time to investigate much either..
but try Borderlands 2 or similar Triple A games as well if you testing it.. would be nice to see.
Metro Redux and Dying Light is probably out of question due to no gl4 support.
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Ya, try Borderlands please! The Borderlands games and XCOM run perfectly under the AMD open source drivers, so gogogogo, test them!
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More importantly than seeing games run, I'd like to know how often you had to open a Terminal, and enter commands or change admin-level files to get things working. Or fix issues that arise.
I'm interested in the difficulty or ease of using it. (Maybe record on paper the number of times issues arose per-day)
I'm already on 3.19 in Ubuntu 15.04 and the experience is stable if you're interested in upgrading to this for the duration of the test :)
I'm interested in the difficulty or ease of using it. (Maybe record on paper the number of times issues arose per-day)
I'm already on 3.19 in Ubuntu 15.04 and the experience is stable if you're interested in upgrading to this for the duration of the test :)
3 Likes, Who?
In my experience 3.16 might be better with proprietary drivers than 3.18 (just a feeling, nothing to substantiate it with) so I think it's a good choice.
Games: Torchlight 2, Trine 2, Witcher 2, XCOM, EU IV, Portal 2, Metro: LL, indies...
Games: Torchlight 2, Trine 2, Witcher 2, XCOM, EU IV, Portal 2, Metro: LL, indies...
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Segata Sanshiro Mar 15, 2015
This is a very good idea! Looking forward to see what happens.
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More importantly than seeing games run, I'd like to know how often you had to open a Terminal, and enter commands or change admin-level files to get things working. Or fix issues that arise.
I'm interested in the difficulty or ease of using it. (Maybe record on paper the number of times issues arose per-day)
I'm already on 3.19 in Ubuntu 15.04 and the experience is stable if you're interested in upgrading to this for the duration of the test :)
Ah, I remember my ubuntu days... then I switched to Fedora and lastly to Arch. No more time-wasting. Sure, installation is a bit of a hurdle for some, but after that you got a nice clean Linux without all that clutter.
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Mmm, debian stable might be best for testing nouveau -- when I used to use it on Arch, you could flip a coin on whether you could successfully boot or not following a kernel update. This was a couple of years ago, but the sour taste it left in my mouth still persists.
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Interesting experiment, but according to phoronix benchmarks, most of the games are unplayabled.
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Mmm, debian stable might be best for testing nouveau -- when I used to use it on Arch, you could flip a coin on whether you could successfully boot or not following a kernel update. This was a couple of years ago, but the sour taste it left in my mouth still persists.
Never had this problem. But then again, the only nvidia card I have left in my household is in my old (gaming) laptop from 2007. Never had a problem there tho.
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BabaoWhisky Mar 15, 2015
I use Debian Jessie actually and unfortunatly, i can't try Nouveau with my games on Steam...
Why ?
Because my laptop's card is not recognized for the moment ... I have a GeForce 970M :-)
Why ?
Because my laptop's card is not recognized for the moment ... I have a GeForce 970M :-)
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How about some Gallium Nine test? As far as I know Nine is not supported by proprietary drivers; requires open source drivers. Yaroslav Andrusyak keeps making some Nine vs native OpenGL vs Windows comparison with open source AMD/ATI drivers but I wonder the performance of open source Nvidia drivers with Nine. Testing Source Engine games as OpenGL would not be the best idea, cause Source Engine uses ToGL for D3D to OpenGL transform. But Unreal Engine 1/2/3 offers both pure OpenGL and DirectX 9 support. I suppose it is worth to try. :-)
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Well, this gave me the idea to try out the OS drivers for AMD for the first time. Last night I added the PPA for the latest version of the open source driver and also updated my kernel to 3.19. I've to say the performance on my 290x was surprising. Although the max fps seem to have dropped, the minimum have increased and the games seem to be running more consistently now. Hand of Fate sticks to about 45fps, while before it was all over the place. Torchlight II seems to perform about the same as before. Borderlands II actually increased in performance, but sadly, probably due to lack of official support of AMD hardware by the port, it's still too choppy to play properly. I'll check out Dead Island later tonight and get back with an update.
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Well, this gave me the idea to try out the OS drivers for AMD for the first time. Last night I added the PPA for the latest version of the open source driver and also updated my kernel to 3.19. I've to say the performance on my 290x was surprising. Although the max fps seem to have dropped, the minimum have increased and the games seem to be running more consistently now. Hand of Fate sticks to about 45fps, while before it was all over the place. Torchlight II seems to perform about the same as before. Borderlands II actually increased in performance, but sadly, probably due to lack of official support of AMD hardware by the port, it's still too choppy to play properly. I'll check out Dead Island later tonight and get back with an update.
1) Please tell us about Dead Island. Can't get it to work on my HD6950 since the last update (that works for everyone but me it seems)
2) Borderlands 2 and TPS both run at no less than 45FPS on my outdated HD6950 (2GB version) with Mesa and the open source drivers. May be due to Arch and some other components?
What Mesa version do you use? Your 290x is _FAR_ stronger than my graphicscard, but I can play both games just fine (1920x1200 [yes, more than full-hd] resolution and most things maxed out)
3) Yes, the open source drivers run perfectly on AMD. For me they run _MUCH_ better than the proprietary ones. I get less stutter, more fps and as a bonus no problems during x-server-updates with my rolling release distro :D
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Running OS drivers on my Radeon HD 7770 is terrible, X-COM:EU keeps locking up my CPU after about 30 minutes of gameplay. Happens both under Arch and under OpenSUSE 13.2.
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philip550c Mar 16, 2015
upgraded to 3.16? you on debian stable or something? 3.19 is current stable and 4.0 just around the corner.Not everyone uses Arch, my friend. Ubuntu 14.04 uses 3.13 by default and now I'm using a kernel backported from 14.10.
my last experiments with nouveau were quite disastrous ... nothing really worked.. didn't had time to investigate much either..
but try Borderlands 2 or similar Triple A games as well if you testing it.. would be nice to see.
Metro Redux and Dying Light is probably out of question due to no gl4 support.
True but you can still upgrade it anyway. Im running 3.19.1 in Mint 17.1. http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2015/03/upgrade-kernel-3-19-1-ubuntu-linux-mint/
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Running OS drivers on my Radeon HD 7770 is terrible, X-COM:EU keeps locking up my CPU after about 30 minutes of gameplay. Happens both under Arch and under OpenSUSE 13.2.
Sounds strange. Played through the whole game on my HD6950 without any problems and constant framerate.
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