Linux 3D AGP GPU Roundup: More Cutting Edge Penguin Performance
by Kristopher Kubicki on October 4, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Wolfenstein acts as the cornerstone of our OpenGL benchmarks. The program uses very simple GL calls, and runs on virtually any configuration that we could find. There is an unusual bug in Wolfenstein when used in conjunction with FrameGetter; occasionally after running the modified executable, the original executable uses the libFG libraries anyway.
Let's take a specific look at the performance between our Radeon X800 Pro and the GeForce 6800 (Non-Ultra). You can download the CVS file of the graph below here.
We expect relatively older games like Wolfenstein to be fairly CPU bound. A two and a half minute cross-section of the radar timedemo reveals very little difference in performance between the two cards - but keep in mind that for this timedemo, we captured our FPS on two second intervals. Unreal Tournament on the previous page was taken at half second intervals. There are still some interesting phenomena, however. At the 109th second of the timedemo, notice how the Radeon X800 ramps very slowly before peaking at the 115th second. The NVIDIA card peaks almost immediately at the 111th second, stays level and then peaks again at the 115th second. Here is a screenshot of that particular scene.
Click to enlarge.
Our player has just walked out of a hut and onto the field. The global scene that seems to have punished our graphic cards (~43rd second) the most can be seen below.
Click to enlarge.
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adt6247 - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
Good article. The one thing that I thought was lacking is the comparison to FPS's under Windows. That would be incredibly useful.One more thing -- nVidia actually has a graphical configuration panel for Linux. I forget what it's called; I use it all the time to set AA/AF settings on my box, but my machine is at home, and I'm at work now. I'll post later with the name of the binary.
adt6247 - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
KristopherKubicki - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
Ziast: Fixed.Kristopher
Ziast - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
Nice article except for this glaring mistake:"All in all, just getting the ATI drivers on something that isn't Red Hat feels like way too much work for basic OpenGL support. Keep in mind that we even run SuSE, a Red Hat derivative."
SuSe Linux was first released in 1993. Red Hat Linux was not released until 1994. Just because SuSe uses RPM doesn't mean it's a Red Hat derivative.
Papineau - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
Two RFEs, one for the article, the other for FG.For the article: Would it be possible to graph the ratio of FPS from one card to the other one over time? That would help to know if a card is "always 1.5 times faster than the other", or "sometimes even, sometimes faster, usually slower than the other".
For FG: Why modify the executable file? Why not use LD_PRELOAD/LD_LIBRARY_PATH to load the lib you want to insert (libFG), and then have it call the system's libGL and libSDL? It seems a bit "bad practice" to modify the benchmarked executable.
Term - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
#6I get more FPS with Linux in both Quake1(World) and Quake3 (single and dual cpu) then with Windows2000. Thow I suspect that if you have a newer card then you might not, due to the drivers.
Cygni - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
When 64bit Windows finally ships, and the entire Athlon64 and Opteron user base switches over, including many gamers, the pressure will be on for ATI, and judging by how good their driver team has been in the 32bit Win sector these last few months, hopefully they can rise to the challenge.As far as Linux drivers for speed? I hate to break the news to alot of people, but gaming on Linux is a HUGE chore with little payoff. Ive spent HOURS with clean installs of Mandrake to play games I already have for Windows... only to, of course, see that they are slower than their windows counterpart. Linux is great for alot of stuff, and ive always got a computer somewhere running Mandrake 9.1... but it just ISNT for gaming right now, which I think the review helped illustrate nicely.
ViRGE - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
I wouldn't be too excited about ATI's 64bit Linux plans, let alone even their 64bit Windows plans. Their only 64bit drivers are over 4 months old, and don't support any of the X-series of cards, which really limits their usefulness. ATI has said before that they may not ship another build until some time in 2005.raylpc - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
"we received some information from ATI about some upcoming Linux announcements which they are working on"I remember ATi is working on some "plan", so the actual driver release could be way after. Well, nvidia is probably the next card I'm going to get.
Saist - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
my first thought was:how in the world can an Geforce FX MATCH and BEAT the R300 architecture. I guess if you ever wanted empirical proof that ATi has ignored Linux, this is it.