Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Windows

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danboid
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Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Windows

Post by danboid »

For as long as NV have been releasing drivers for Linux and Windows, there's been little between the two platforms performance-wise when comparing similar hardware - until now!

According the the latest Phoronix benchmarks of the new NV drivers, Linux performs up to 20% faster than Windows when comparing their high-end cards like the GTX 780.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... in81&num=1

I've long been of the belief that one of the main things Linux needs to get more widespread support is more and better commercial games. Steam is obviously the saviour here but why should anyone switch to Linux when all its titles get released for Windows too? ~20% better frame rates will certainly be good enough an improvement to convince some to at least try Linux. I suspect there are more optmizations to come too.

Of course, I have no doubt these recent improvements to the Linux NVIDIA driver are precisely because of Valve's recent adoption of Linux.
kawliga
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Re: Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Window

Post by kawliga »

Don't want to sound negative - it is nice that driver performance is improving but here is what the problem is:

Can you play Skyrim on Linux? No
Can you play Batman Arkham City on Linux? No
Can you play Call of Duty Ghosts on Linux? No
Can you play Bioshock Infinite on Linux? No
Can you play Tomb Raider on Linux? No

I could go on but you get the idea.

Eventhough some big titles are starting to come to Linux there are still many that are not. Watchdogs came out recently - is it available for Linux? No, its Windows only.

Unless this changes, gamers are not going to adopt Linux en masse irrespective of how good the benchmarks are.
danboid
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Re: Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Window

Post by danboid »

I totally agree - Windows is still a much better choice for gaming than Linux due to the vastly larger library of games. However, no-one can deny Steam's success in attracting big name games and developers to Linux and improved (GFX driver) performance is only going attract more games, devs and interest in Linux as a gaming platform.

Ubisoft (eg Watchdogs) are one of the few big name devs who haven't openly said they plan to support Linux yet but they have a real bad rep with gamers thanks to over zelous, often problematic DRM / copy protection which would go down even worse with Linux users if they attempted similar tricks on the penguin platform, which you'd expect they would.
danboid
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Re: Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Window

Post by danboid »

I'm wrong - Ubisoft are planning to support Linux it seems but haven't announced anything officially yet so we're not to expect anything from them for Linux soon

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTYzOTI
kawliga
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Re: Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Window

Post by kawliga »

Yes, there have been some big name games Civ 5, EU 4, Metro Last Light coming to Linux, but will that be enough?

There are some gamers who will not even contemplate a platform that Call of Duty does not run on. Games like CoD and The Elder Scrolls have almost religious followings.

Bethesda have shown no interest in Linux as far as I am aware. Not sure about Activision.

I think its a chicken and egg thing - gamers won't move to Linux unless the big titles are available, but some of the big games companies will be reluctant to port their big titles to Linux if there are not many gamers on Linux.

Danboid - I'd be interested to hear what you think of SteamOS.
Are Valve making a mistake by not doing a fully fledged desktop edition? I know many Steam users are saying that as much as they love gaming they also need to use their computer for other things eg. word processing, photography, audio production :mrgreen: etc. SteamOS will not be designed to be a general purpose OS however. Could this be a stumbling block towards adoption? What do you think?
danboid
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Re: Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Window

Post by danboid »

I've not tried SteamOS but I'll be trying it soon, right after I've given the latest KXStudio a test drive.

I think Debian was the right choice of distro to base the OS upon but IIRC they chose GNOME as the default desktop. As its based upon Debian, I presume its easy enough to install alternate desktops but I think they should've chosen XFCE or KDE (or even Cinnamon, which is in sid at least now) as the default mainly because these are closer to 'traditional' desktops and so are less likely to scare off Linux newbs.

Whilst I'd love to see Valve helping improve the Linux desktop, I don't think thats going to happen - at least not directly as in contributing code to GNOME/KDE/XFCE/Cinnamon or whatever. They're a games company so their priority is to make sure Linux is a good gaming platform and I think they've already got their work cut out in improving the graphics drivers, writing better tools for game devs (such as their OpenGL debugger) and tweaking the kernel etc as required.

However, I've been meaning to mention one aspect of SteamOS that should benefit members of the Linux audio and Linux desktop communties, those who aren't gamers. All modern games depend upon sound and music so SteamOS should lead to improved support for consumer audio hardware. Linux generally has pretty good support for consumer audio devices but NOT when it comes to HDMI. I've got a modern i7 laptop with Intel gfx and HDMI audio doesn't work properly (its all high pitched and distorted if you get any output at all) and I've also got an older Core2 duo laptop with Nvidia gfx and HDMI audio doesn't work at all on that. I suppose HDMI audio is of pretty limited use to someone who wants to record music that isn't entirely electronic but I'm sure everyone would welcome such an improvement and Valve are the most likely people to do this.
danboid
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Re: Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Window

Post by danboid »

As for Intel GPUs, with the current latest kernel Linux outperforms the most recent OSX Mavericks in pretty much every benchmark and by a wide margin, at least on a MacBook Air so its not just Nvidia users who gain better performance by running Linux.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... untu&num=1
asbak
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Re: Latest NVIDIA Linux drivers up to 20% faster than Window

Post by asbak »

The perception exists (and there's probably some truth to it) that Linux is an enthusiast & hacker (person who likes to adjust his computer) platform. Not a platform which generates tons of revenue through software & hardware paraphernalia sales to the mass market and consumer.

Mac / OSX is the choice of "arteeests", hipsters and the well-heeled, in other words, those with sufficient credit-line extensions and a love for bling that will line the pockets of the Cult of Apple and the associated Ministry of Software vendors which surround it. The Microsoft behemoth controls its own niche in this market (business users, gamers etc) so a third (or forth) ecosystem such as Linux or the BSD's are very much the poor cousins.

Without more software & hardware vendor support there's less incentive to provide drivers and software, choices are more limited and so forth. The chicken and egg problem as was already mentioned. Steam's entry into the Linux market is obviously very positive news because it will attract a significant revenue spending market segment namely gamers and the spillover effect of this will be that more vendors will be attracted to the Linux ecosystem which again will spawn more investment in improving and extending code.

It's obviously still way too soon to expect massive shifts and improvements in software and hardware support but it's a positive step.
Some Focal / 20.04 audio packages and resources https://midistudio.groups.io/g/linuxaudio
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