Open-Source GPU Drivers Show Less Than Ideal Experience For SteamOS/Linux Gaming (phoronix.com) 109
An anonymous reader writes: Phoronix's recent 22-Way SteamOS Graphics Card Comparison showed that NVIDIA wins across the board when it comes to closed-source OpenGL driver performance. However, when it comes to the open-source driver performance for Steam Linux gaming, no one is really the winner. A new article, "Are The Open-Source Graphics Drivers Good Enough For Steam Linux Gaming?" answers that question with "heck no" by its author. While AMD is generally regarded as having better open-source support, their newer graphics cards still can't run at their rated clock frequencies due to lack of power management support, the lack of enough OpenGL 4.x support means many AAA Linux games simply cannot run yet, not enough QA means regressions are common, and other issues were noted when it comes to testing a number of modern graphics cards on the open-source drivers.
Re:Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
You say catch-up, I say ketchup.
I don't see the problem with using closed-source binary blobs for a SteamOS box. What would be the point of an open-source gaming system? As long as nobody can hack into your system and delete your saved games or whatnot, I think it's more than good enough. It's free and it removes the need to buy a Microsoft Windows license just to be able to play videogames.
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Honestly, it's been a while since I even attempted to get 3D cards and gaming working on a Linux box. I pretty much always use Linux for dedicated server "appliances" in the workplaces these days, and stick with a Mac or Windows box for general purpose use at home like gaming.
But I remember in the past, the closed source nVidia graphics driver bundles were perfectly fine, as long as you ran one of the Linux distros they supported. Otherwise, you were sometimes out of luck. That's probably the single biggest
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Otherwise, sure.... I don't think Linux gamers or even people doing heavy 3D editing/animation feel a big need to have access to the source code for the graphics drivers. Maybe a VERY small percentage would prefer it, because they're knowledgeable enough of a coder to tweak a driver to fix a specific problem they're encountering?
AMD stopped supporting my on-board graphics some time back. A while later, a kernel change broke their final driver release for that chip. If the fix wasn't a code change in the part of their driver that's open source, I'd have been screwed.
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You're not screwed. You're inconvenienced by running old non-supported hardware. Take a moment, and upgrade to something current, that suits your needs. If you can't, I have an old 300 Baud Acoustic Modem you can use to connect to the internet. It still works and is easily programmed.
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Except what qualifies as "old" on the GPU world is nowhere as old as you think.
I have a small media center built around a Zotac Mini-ITX mobo using nVidia ION hardware, which was released late on 2009. Last years they dropped support on their binary blob driver and the chipset support will effectively end by 2016. The hardware performs fantastic, is dead quiet (no fans) and can handle any kind of video i throw at it, but i'm now forced to stick with an aging video driver which might stop working altogether
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I do sympathize with you, until a year ago I was running a fanless HTPC (AMD E350) myself.
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It cannot handle a webserver, SSH, torrents, print server and NFS file server as the ION board does without breaking a sweat though.
Division of labor (Score:2)
You know what else is dead quiet and can handle almost any kind of video? Plex and a $30 android 'stick'.
It cannot handle a webserver, SSH, torrents, print server and NFS file server as the ION board does without breaking a sweat though.
I fail to see how any of those need a GPU. You could try using "Plex and a $30 android 'stick'" for playing video and the ION board for everything else. It's called division of labor.
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They all integrate neatly on a tiny box under my TV rack. You mean to tell me i need to plug an android stick to do the job this hardware is more than capable of?
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1) PrinterServer - get a network laser/inkjet no need for a server
2) SSH - Why ? (See following comments)
3) WebServer - Why? (For a home?)
4) NFS Server - Why? (use cloud storage or a NAS)
Of the case scenario you have given, it just looks like dick waving. And non of that requires GPU. You're talking about a headless Server, and you want a GPU? Hell, you could do all that on Arduino if you wanted (and earn more dick waving AP)
And 2009 is five years ago, time to upgrade anyway. You run your custom stuff on a
Consoles that claim to only do everything (Score:2)
And if you're running Gaming rig, you're going to want high end current CPU, GPU lots of ram, lots of fans and ventilation, which isn't the same rig as a quiet HTPC.
Then how do Sony and Microsoft succeed at promoting PlayStation and Xbox family devices for both gaming and home theater applications?
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Of the case scenario you have given, it just looks like dick waving. And non of that requires GPU. You're talking about a headless Server, and you want a GPU? Hell, you could do all that on Arduino if you wanted (and earn more dick waving AP)
The fuck i am. My HTPC is also my main home server, handling anything from remote SSH access to torrenting to backups - is that really such an impossible scenario to you?
And if you're running Gaming rig, you're going to want high end current CPU, GPU lots of ram, lots of fans and ventilation, which isn't the same rig as a quiet HTPC.
Gosh. Wish i knew. Guess Playstations and XBoxes are impossible then.
Suffice it to say, you're being unreasonable in your expectations.
Still waiting on an explanation of how. My unreasonable explanations have plugged to my TV and running non stop for several years now.
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Then continue using that? Your hardware works now. Your drivers work now. If they stop, downgrade your OS/drivers to something that works, or upgrade your hardware to something that works. This isn't rocket science.
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Yes, because we should all throw away perfectly good hardware just because the manufacturer decides to make it obsolete.
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I offered up my 300 baud modem. You missed the point of why.
New VOD boxes aren't 160 times better (Score:2)
I offered up my 300 baud modem.
Obsolete because the new tech (v.90) is literally 160 times better, pushing practical 48000 bits per second over the same line and providing substantial practical benefits. Old HTPC gear isn't quite as necessarily obsolete, as hardware that used to be able to push 1080p can still push 1080p.
You missed the point of why.
Then for the benefit of other readers, could you explain in more detail the point of why?
Re:Linux (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think Linux gamers or even people doing heavy 3D editing/animation feel a big need to have access to the source code for the graphics drivers. Maybe a VERY small percentage would prefer it, because they're knowledgeable enough of a coder to tweak a driver to fix a specific problem they're encountering? But that's got to be far less than 1% of the user-base.
I have little interest in hacking my own video drivers, but I would still very much prefer that they were open source. Because I want the very small percentage of users who would hack their own video drivers to be able to, so that I can benefit from their work. That's the beauty of open source, and it's the reason why we put up with all the considerable ugliness of open source.
Cheating? (Score:1)
Care to explain how? If you mean by hacking a driver such that it produces more fps, then (by that logic) simply plugging in a faster GPU would qualify as cheating too. Note that the 'faster-GPU-cheat' is considered perfectly acceptable for online gaming, only exception being pro gaming tournaments where I'd expect all participants to have same-configured machines.
In case you were thinking about see-through-wall hacks, mods that help with aiming etc: those things are in game engines not graphics drivers.
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Actually the driver could enable those things. I don't have enough knowledge to implement it myself, but the driver does control everything that goes to the GPU in some form or another. The GPU does what it is told, the driver tells it what to do. The short version is that if you control the driver you own the card.
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Maybe add nomodeset to GRUB.
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Maybe a VERY small percentage would prefer it, because they're knowledgeable enough of a coder to tweak a driver to fix a specific problem they're encountering? But that's got to be far less than 1% of the user-base.
just like a kernel, maybe 1% is knowledgable enough to understand & contribute to kernel code, but i'm sure happy linux has an open sourced kernel so those 1% can continue to improve it.
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Something I don't understand (I'm no a kernel developer) is why, given that AMD released the complete register reference for the cards, can't the open source driver compete with the proprietary one?
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That doesn't answer anything. It would make sense if the driver wasn't feature complete (i.e. support for x, y, and z is missing) however it doesn't explain why the performance is bad, unless the code optimization is just non-existent.
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That doesn't answer anything. It would make sense if the driver wasn't feature complete (i.e. support for x, y, and z is missing) however it doesn't explain why the performance is bad, unless the code optimization is just non-existent.
It's not the code that controls GPU performance, it's the GPU. When I worked on drivers years ago, most of the work was not getting the GPU to do what the software told it, it was detecting the retarded things the software was asking the hardware to do, and generating the same output in a more efficient manner.
In some cases, that required disabling features once we detected a RetardoSoft program was running, so they'd fall back to a different code path that ran faster on our hardware than the one that incor
Why keep Catalyst around? (Score:1)
What I don't understand is why AMD bothers to keep Catalyst around, when a) they've already shown to be supportive towards open source, b) Catalyst drivers have always been considered crap compared vs. their Nvidia counterpart (by most gamers anyway), and c) the open drivers have made leaps & bounds of progress in the last few years.
Supporting both the open and closed source drivers will surely take more resources than focussing the effort on one of them. And I kind of doubt that AMD has much resourc
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They're moving in that direction. Specifically, catalyst will be moved to a userspace program running above the kernel, while the OSS radeon driver will be an alternative userspace program running above the kernel.
The name of the unified kernel driver is "amdgpu".
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You don't see the problem? What happens if/when Valve starts to behave like Microsoft/Sony? I have a 12+ year old STEAM account but I definitely see the open source thing as good and free as in beer as better. Having said that I'm willing to bet less than 10% of my library will run without Windows. So for the time being, it's the Win 7 lifeboat for me.
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Yet Nvidia is there and Valve is there.
In other words, the real world is the EXACT OPPOSITE of your stupid trolling.
So the Linux gamer buys the same card that his Windows counterpart would. What's the tragedy? Certainly no one is using Intel for gaming. So at worst you are only losing one option (rather than two).
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Not sure where "there" is nVidia.
Valve is doing it because they are afraid Windows Store could take on their monopoly. (I give them credit for saving PC market, but having only one major store still sucks).
So the whole rushed "SteamOS" thing is to get away from Windows.
Also, about 20% of Valve's clients are using Intel's GPUs.
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nVidia is investing in making Linux drivers, that is how they are 'there'. Now how much of it pertained to desktop gaming versus how much gaming benefits from them having to do drivers anyway for workstation and HPC. The point stands that in spite of some folks demanding a purist open source experience, reality is a compromise.
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I don't get their point on a gaming machine though because most of the games they run will be closed source.
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So? What good does Steam market dominance do for Linux, when 99% of the games available on it are Windows or Mac only?
Re: Linux (Score:1)
There are at least 1500 games on steam for Linux compared to 6464 games for windows. That's approaching 25%. I admit it's still a long way from overthrowing windows, but its a lot more than 1%.
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And how many of those 1500 are serious triple-A titles, compared to the 6464? Even with Valve's initiatives, you could probably count the number of newer triple-A titles released on Linux on two hands. 99% of Linux games are either small indie titles that no one gives a fuck about, or ancient AAA titles like Half-Life 2 (many of them released by Valve themselves). To argue that Linux titles make of 25% of the gaming market is ridiculous. It's comparing apples and oranges.
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Because someone disagreeing with your choice is the same as preventing you from exercising it?
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"Freetards" wouldn't use Steam.
Linux is a fully capable desktop OS and has been for a quite a while.
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Yes, but almost no one really cares...
Price isn't the reason people will move to Linux, and frankly Windows 10 isn't either...
Linux has less than 2% of the desktop OS market and that hasn't moved in a long time...
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:) No, it isn't movement, it is a rounding error...
It is quite possible that the number was 1.5% 7 years ago and remains 1.5% today.
But regardless, it is nothing to be jumping up and down about. Even Mac, with its 5% (give or take) desktop market share isn't exciting.
Frankly, if we were going to see a major challenge to Windows, I'd expect it from Mac before Linux, Apple has something to gain there.
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I'm an outlier, but I am very happy with using Linux as my desktop OS.
To stave off holy wars I won't bring up my distro and I must mention that while I dislike using Windows I respect things like Powershell (monad! AHHH!) and the administrative capabilities.
Mostly I like Linux because I can get things done. I code professionally and have become accustomed to the tools at my disposal. Everything from a first class shell to being able to install utilities with a few keystrokes. For me this is the desktop expe
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I'm glad that you have the option to run Linux. We'd all be worse off if that option didn't exist.
My only point is that it isn't going to give Windows a run for its money in the marketshare dept anytime soon.
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Well, we could play leapfrog if people would just reverse engineer the stuff and post the results anonymously. Don't let the law impede progress.
Closed-source drivers (Score:1)
So what?
The closed-source drivers run on Linux and they run fine. I don't see what's the problem with switching to them while gaming - the games aren't going to be Open Source either, for the most part.
Re: Closed-source drivers (Score:2)
Why are you assuming he isnt playing only free software games ?
What was the question again? (Score:2)
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What does licensing have anything to do with performance?
Nothing. Learn to read: "A new article, "Are The Open-Source Graphics Drivers Good Enough For Steam Linux Gaming?" answers that question with "heck no" by its author." The question isn't "Are Open-Source...", it's "Are The Open-Source...". HTH, HAND.
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Bad logic, NVIDIA could release an open source driver that is inferior to their closed source one. They could even release a driver inferior to reversed engineered one. Plenty of companies do similar, release an open source product as advertising for their closed source one that costs money and has more features and capabilities.
Re: What was the question again? (Score:2)
In fact they have done so. The nv driver released by nvidia is open source and inferior to either the nvidia closed driver or nouveau as it has no 3d support at all.
Ever consider maybe the licensed code helps? (Score:2)
With nVidia alone maybe the argument is that they won't release open source drivers just because they are dicks. Ok, yet AMD has thrown in with open source, however they still have a faster proprietary driver. Why? Perhaps the licensed code has something to do with that. They license various things they can't open source, and those things are some of what help make it faster. AMD didn't just release the Catalyst source because they can't. It contains code they paid licenses for and can't open up.
The situati
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Sadly a lot of people just don't understand that by buying random 'cheap' hardware it makes these problems unfixable too.
You are under the assumption that "a lot of people" give a damm.
They don't, they just want something that works and is cheap, the rest is just background noise.
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Windows brings in more than $10 billion dollars for Microsoft each year.
Some of that money goes to development and R&D towards the next version, but part of it goes towards making sure that Windows remains on top.
How much money did Linux bring in last year?
I think I found the problem. It is also why Linux is never going anywhere on the desktop, there just isn't any money in it.
Zen "Path of Happiness" (Score:1)
not enough QA means regressions are common
Regression testing is borrrrrrrrring! I wanna do the fun happy path stuff!
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there anything stopping me from just using the drivers that actually work? When the OSS drivers catch up we can revisit them - until then I'll use what works.
Whew, I have a Nvidia (Score:2, Interesting)
Preamble:
Just started using linux Mint - with no internet connection only one CUBE runs well on http://itsfoss.com/cube-lets-i... [itsfoss.com].
Long story short Charter.com hacked me, keylogger (firewall caught that one) and much more
all because they thought I owned them $100 (I had auto payments setup). Cell phone number was reused and flagged.
Turned off the system and now in the process of using linux chntpw capturing what they did, and will send it to the appropriate people.
My windows era is over.
---
Haven't played any
And yet... (Score:1)
The Free Code purists in the Linux community are so dedicated to their cause that they intentionally make it hard for the average user to use the proprietary drivers.
They place hooks in the OS that may only be used by open-source code - yeah, they check the code to see if it's open source and if not this extra junk code added to the kernel refuses to cooperate..... so much for "freedom" for the end-user.
They do not place easy-to-use buttons on the install screens to let the user select to install a manufact
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They elected a new speaker and passed a budget this week. Or didn't CNBC mention that?
No, CNBC was too busy trying to sabotage the latest presidential debate...