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Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 3:07 pm
by Flatfingers
Gamasutra posted an interesting overview today of the benchmark finding by Ars Technica that games - pretty much all kinds of games -- ran slower under Linux than under Windows 10.

And it's speculated that this is behind Valve removing Linux games from Steam distribution. This also affects the distribution of games for Steam OS on the new Steam Machines.

With Josh developing LT under Linux first, and with the possibility of distributing that version, as well as the PC version, via Steam, I thought others here might find these articles interesting.

Is anyone planning on getting a Steam Machine? That could be useful during beta testing of LT, assuming there's a way to install LT there.

Re: Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 3:43 pm
by Dinosawer
Also worth remarking - the default drivers in SteamOS are not the newest and I'm not sure the arstechnica people know that and know how to get the newest version, in which case conparing to windows with newer drivers is a bit moot...
But yes, most games are developed with DirectX in mind and ported after the fact, and will perform worse. I'm curious about some tests for games that have been developed multi-platform from the start - there don't seem to be any of those in the test.

Re: Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 5:06 pm
by Flatfingers
Dinosawer wrote:I'm curious about some tests for games that have been developed multi-platform from the start - there don't seem to be any of those in the test.
Agreed, along with how much additional labor was required beyond simple or automated ports to Linux.

In other words, how much does comparable performance cost?

Re: Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 5:36 pm
by Dinosawer
Actually, I'd think making a game multiplatform from the start would be less work than building it for Windows and then having someone else port it (which is usually what's done now). Not necessarily easier, but less work in the long run.

Re: Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 6:15 pm
by Silverware
Dinosawer wrote:Actually, I'd think making a game multiplatform from the start would be less work than building it for Windows and then having someone else port it (which is usually what's done now). Not necessarily easier, but less work in the long run.
All you need to do this is build using OGL and OAL, instead of touching the mess that is dX.
This way it's very easy to port, as the GFX and SFX directly port, and the FS interaction is the only thing you need to work on.

Re: Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2015 10:50 am
by DWMagus
As a gamer who at one point before Win7 spent quite a bit of time trying to see if I could only survive on Linux could attest to, many of the issues I had were driver related.

My question is, if there were "decent" (and Linux users know what I mean by 'decent') drivers for the OS, would that make up the difference?

Re: Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2015 1:34 pm
by Dinosawer
No, cause NVidia's Linux drivers are already on par with the Windows ones.
(source:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... 1504&num=1
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... nlin&num=1
older: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... orce&num=1 )
So at least with Nvidia's stuff, the main drawback is the offering and not the underlying OS and drivers.

AMD is... less positive. :problem:
(INB4 mad Cornflakes :ghost: )

Re: Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 8:39 pm
by darker70
This may not be regarding Steam OS,but recently installed Linux Mint as 2nd OS,having not used Linux for a while mainly the odd distro,I was flabbergasted by how reliable and solid it was compared to say a few years back,to me this stems from a very solid driver base for Mint built over a period of time.

So I would assume Steam OS will get better just takes time to get the drivers to spec but rest assured I will be joining the Linux crowd may even get Wine up and running and definitely will give LT a whirl in Linux at some point in time. ;)

Re: Linux (Steam OS) Performance vs. Windows 10

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2015 11:11 pm
by DarkCrescent
IIRC Josh is developing on Linux currently, so I would expect Linux performance to be roughly on par with Windows (if optimized correctly, Linux in theory could surpass Windows due to generally less overhead). Fortunately, that means he's probably developing on OpenGL. Unfortunately, Mac performance will probably suffer due to Apple's horrible OpenGL support... I get that they want people to use Metal but... really?

Also, the Linux performance comes with one major caveat - you'll get good performance iff you use an nVidia card with the proprietary drivers. AMD performance is still terrible and Nouveau still can't compete on the nvidia cards.