I'm just going to go ahead and say this now, do not expect most windows games to run better on Linux than windows. Typically the case is when you find a well optimized game that is CPU bound, or is natively vulkan. Anything else, expect comparable framerates.
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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I will disagree and that's why I made this video. Been benchmarking games for 3 years now, mostly on AMD systems. It went from about same performance, to slightly better, to this. 17% average improvement is nothing to laugh at. It's the difference between a 4090 and a 7900XTX on Windows. So people can literally save $1000 just by using Linux.
What you say, does mostly apply to Nvidia users though.
Not enough people running nvidia realize just how much nvidia does to make sure you stick to their proprietary software. That you can close most of the performance gap with FOSS on AMD is an amazing finding.
Unfortunately it won't convince many who haven't already seen the benefits of a more open system.
Truer words have never been said.
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Man look, I've been using Linux as a daily driver for 18 years, people have been saying exactly what you're saying since before performance was even comparable.
You're not going to get 17% better performance on the GPU just because you're using another operating system, it's not going to happen unless you're running a Linux native version of the game. Often times, that is not even the case.
Performance can be a little bit better if the game is natively opengl or vulkan, but if it is directx (the vast majority of windows games) then it is going to be comparable at best in GPU-bound scenarios, I.E. most of the games people are playing on PC.
You can't just magically put more transistors in a GPU just because you are running a different OS. CPU bound games run better on Linux because of the god-tier scheduler, but a GPU is essentially a computer in itself, all drivers do is tell the GPU to take this information and translate it into something you see on a screen.
By the way, the Nvidia thing has been false for quite some time now. I primarily use AMD on Linux, but the only place you will run into issues with Nvidia is wayland, otherwise it works perfectly fine everywhere else.
"works fine" is very different than "is equivalently optimized."
Valve has done a lot of work to get games to work well on the Steam Deck, and that likely translates to other AMD GPUs. So it makes total sense that Valve would optimize the Proton translation layer for DirectX calls to the AMD driver differently than the NVIDIA driver (or rather, in a way that AMD handles better). A big issue in GPU optimization is keeping it busy, so perhaps the AMD driver working with Valve's patches on the DirectX to Vulkan layer improve utilize m utilization. That could translate to a modest performance improvement even on well optimized games (perhaps 5-10%, probably not more than 20%).
I don't know if that's what's going on here, but it's a plausible explanation.
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It's comparable more often than not, but honestly even if it was 17% worse on average I would still stick to Linux and just build a better computer. Which is what I did before proton.
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Is it linux is faster, or is it dxvk/vulkan is faster?
Could be both. Who knows. For high performance computing Linux is the de facto standard because it has better performances than windows, and Linux distros are usually better, stabler OSes overall when one needs raw performances. In this case, who knows, someone should investigate further
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Combination, and it depends on the game. Dxvk will add latency, but depending on the renderer and how the game runs the reduction in CPU overhead by using dxvk instead of native can provide performance gains, especially on certain CPU's.
On games with a native vulkan renderer, Linux will most often just be faster since you have less system overhead burden. This has been fascinating to see though.
- First the games started to become playable, but framerates weren't so great.
- Framerates started to improve
- Framerates started to become a wash between Windows vs Linux
- We are progressing into this step: it either runs comparably or better.
The results are mixed right now, and it's going to be real hard to nail down predictability as far as performance goes. More often than not, so long as DRM isn't involved, games run really well on day one. Older games are starting to see a performance uplift and reliability improvements through proton/dxvk/vkd3d.
I'm very happy though that what we're talking about is comparable performance metrics. We use to be content if the shit ran at all.
One comment to add to your post, Linux is better on performances not just because of the less overhead, but because manages resources much effectively. You could have a bloated linux, it still would perform better because resources are properly managed
That's an absolutely correct and very relevant point. On any equivalent computational loads, Linux comes out ontop. Better scheduler, better I/O, better stack.
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Proton (DXVK/VKD3D) is faster. The lightness of the system also helps.
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This should get cited every time there's a "I'm waiting to switch until Linux 'gets there' for gaming" post.
They are only sampling ten paaticular games. If they included all games or even just games that run poorly then it would be far behind. I use Linux on my desktop but will still boot into windows rather than fussing with it.
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I don't even check protondb anymore. If it's a single player game with no anticheats involved, I know it'll work.
The only reason I still have a windows Partition, is due to the lack of HDR support on Linux.
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Something to note: if you're VRAM limited, Linux will perform worse and it's an actual issue.
Especially on laptops, where VRAM is halved in comparison to desktop models for whatever reason.
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Everyone called me mad when I told them that I get more FPS in linux through wine/proton than on windows native with my AMD card, look who's laughing now
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See? This is way less ragebait than the last one.
Hahaha, I will admit the previous title was somewhat in people's faces. I just went with a factual title this time. XD
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People criticizing the ability of Linux to play games reminds me kind of like when people criticized solar power back in the early 90's. They would say how it's too expensive or it will never be able to produce the amount of electricity we need. Well, here we are.
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The games I want to play with Linux have 0 framerate aka wont even start.
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Awesome! I can’t wait to generalize the average of 10 cherry-picked games with tons of Linux work against the 2k+ in my library! I bet I can pick up CS2 with this knowledge and get 10%+ better performance!
The video is pretty neat. I’m just not sure what we gain from it.
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I just tested DayZ Standalone and can confirm for this title. Not only do I no longer have visual artifacts but it runs smoother
I find it rather ironic that I can't watch it because of the error of
Error
Too many requests, please try again later.
on a domain named hardlimit.com lol
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It has less overhead so it should
Well in my case I get intermittent audio issues in games like the classic Alan Wake. Audio will disappear for like 4 seconds straight then work as usual for 30 seconds only to repeat again. Can be very infuriating if it's in the middle of an important dialog.
Didn't expect a follow up this quick. Anyway, a few random observations:
- I would've tested Assasins Creed Mirage without adaptive quality, as it might smudge the results. Shouldn't make too much of a difference though, at least at these framerates.
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider compares HBAO+ vs inferior BTAO, so not really that useful.
- The frame graph for Watchdogs: Legion on Windows looks... weird, to say the least. Even though it ultimately comes out on top it might be worth investigating into, as it might have an effect on the other games as well.
- I completely forgot how useless the benchmarks in Final Fantasy games are. At least there's the overlay.
- Yeah Adaptive quality aims for 60 FPS. In this particular situation it shouldn't matter at all.
- Still the difference is quite high to even get close to Linux. I didn't even notice that sorry.
- The aim of this video is to show fresh installs. What a user would do. You install OpenSUSE on an AMD system and fire up the games. You install Windows, run the updates, install the drivers and fire up the games. That's whta most people would do and I think they care about. Both installations are fresh out of the oven and I just ran the game son them. This is the result.
- Yeah without an overlay FF Benchmarks are pretty bad. XD Great series though!
I installed Linux on my old laptop recently because it was impossible to install the drivers for the graphics card in windows. It just kept blue screening. Linux worked out of the box. From 13 fps to 120+
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