Does really games run faster on Linux?

Message

arturaz · Post by **arturaz** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 2:34 pm

Hello, my fellow gamers.

Just installed Gentoo a week ago, now I'm starting to install games. At first, I installed Americas Army 1.7.0. Ok, installed fine, runs fine, exept speed. Game LAGS. `stat fps` on game console gives me about 10-15 fps on ALL levels, where in windows game ran at ~50 fps all the time.

Running on latest Gentoo (1.4 I think?) with nvidia-glx-1.0.4363 and nvidia-kernel-1.0.4363-r2. Using Gnome2 and metacity as my Desktop Enviroment, ALSA (es1371) for my sound. I'm using gentoo-sources 2.4.20.

I have AMD Athlon XP+ 1700 with 512 266 Mhz DDR and GeForce 4 MX 440. This is way sufficient for Americas Army as I know, but the game lags :/.

GLX gears gives me this : 7998 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1599.600 FPS.

Also, offtopic - I emerged rocksndiamonds and now i have both SDL and X11 versions. SDL works fine (I think), X11 does not see my keyboard until I start game with mouse (btw, in the keyboard setup keys are captured). Thanks for any help.

J.M.I.T. · Post by **J.M.I.T.** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 3:35 pm

Take a look on these benchmark score in glxgears...

http://holarse.wue.de/?content=benchmark

your system seems to be a little bit slow... maybe it's misconfigured...

Aonoa · Post by **Aonoa** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 4:43 pm

In my opinion a properly configured linux system is faster than windows on the same computer.

Take a look at this link for a few ideas of what to do with /etc/make.conf

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http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=43648&highlight=cflags

What filesystem are you using?
In my experience ReiserFS seems fast and stable.

Building drivers in the kernel as modules instead of built-in is a good idea if you haven't done so already.

Furthermore, which kernel sources did you choose?
Maybe try gaming-sources

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emerge gaming-sources

Niek · Post by **Niek** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 7:05 pm

At least on my PC games in Linux run a lot faster than Windows. The difference is about 10%. For example: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=395802#395802
I have to note that Q3 based games (eg Q3A, RTCW, ET) runs smoother than UT-engine based games (UT2003, AA, Postal2 soon). That is because Ryan did the OpenGL port of the engine alone. There are a lot more devvers working on the D3D code of the UT-engine. If you compare UT/OpenGL in Windows with UT in Linux, you see that the game runs a _lot_ faster. Compare UT/D3D and UT in Linux and you see Windows is a little faster.

bsolar · Post by **bsolar** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 7:11 pm

eonic wrote:Building drivers in the kernel as modules instead of built-in is a good idea if you haven't done so already.

Talking about performance is quite the same.

Moled · Post by **Moled** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 7:32 pm

the speed increase in going from windows -> linux in ut is insane

higher framerates, and the loading times are a LOT LOT shorter

arturaz · Post by **arturaz** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 7:55 pm

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USE="3dnow acpi alsa apm -arts avi bonobo cdr crypt encode esd evo firebird gb gd gdbm
gif gnome gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml imap java jikes jpeg -kde mikmod mmx mpeg -mysql
ncurses
oggvorbis opengl -oss -pcmcia perl png quicktime samba scanner sdl slang socks5
ssl
svga X xml xml2 xmms xv zlib x86 aavm evms2 nls sse"

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CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

System built from stage1. For filesystem all my partitions are reiserfs. Which kernel sources i chose i wrote before.. I will repeat it:

I'm using gentoo-sources 2.4.20.

About modules, my kernel is quite modular. modules.autoload:

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de4x5
ide-scsi
sg
sr_mod
fat
msdos
smbfs
vfat
zlib_deflate
nvidia

DMA enabled on both hdds and cdroms. Benchmark:

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/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.51 seconds =249.68 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  1.74 seconds = 36.75 MB/sec

/dev/hdc:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.55 seconds =231.02 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  1.65 seconds = 38.89 MB/sec

An no, i wont change to gaming-sources, i need compiling and regular desktop jobs at the same time.

arturaz · Post by **arturaz** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 8:10 pm

Hmm, tweaked some settings ut2003 runs about 50-70 fps (in win 50 was max), americas army - 20-30.

Did not try any quake based games, but i definatly will.

Stiffler · Post by **Stiffler** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 9:15 pm

Well, your system isn't that great, so don't expect too much more performance than what you're getting. Try turning all the graphical detail settings all the way down if you're looker for better frame-rates.

Malakin · Post by **Malakin** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 10:37 pm

Does really games run faster on Linux?

It depends on the game.

Take a look on these benchmark score in glxgears...

http://holarse.wue.de/?content=benchmark

your system seems to be a little bit slow... maybe it's misconfigured...

Color depth makes a large difference and isn't even mentioned on this site.

aethyr · Post by **aethyr** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:34 am

I don't play America's Army, but I think it's quite possible that the Linux client for this particular game is slower (nobody else in this post seemed to be able to compare it in Linux and Windows).

However, from personal experience, I can say that there are some games that run faster under Linux than Windows.

helmers · Post by **helmers** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:42 pm

Like the panda a while up there said, it depends on the game. Linux disadvantage is that it only supports OpenGL games(mostly, anyway), and games like UT2k3(which was a favorite of mine) had a much better D3D than OpenGL implementation. Quake 3 is (IMHO) and example of how it should be done. It is just as fast. Tenebrae is also about the same speed.

Then there is the matter of AGP speed. Only the "beta" kernels supports 8x AGP speed, which is a standard on more recent cards. This gets more important at higher resolution/texture/fsaa/aniso levels. Also, not all cards/mobos are as stable with SBA and FW enabled as their Windows counterparts.

And then there is the matter of sound. On my Windows box, I now have 64 voices mixed in hardware with virtually no overhead, but in most linux games this is still done in software. On a fast machine the mixing overhead isn't enormous, but it still matters when there is a lot of action.

So what it boils down to, is that I don't agree it is a lot faster. The only hardware I have used is nvidia, but I have tried four different nvidia cards, and the tests(games, like ut2k3, shogo & quake) show the same. It is NOT faster.

However, GNU/Linux does have two advantages.

#1, I can run it from fluxbox and save a lot of ram if you are low on it
#2, Good filesystems like ReiserFS makes loading faster in most instances.

Niek · Post by **Niek** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 1:03 pm

helmers wrote:(...)

So what it boils down to, is that I don't agree it is a lot faster. The only hardware I have used is nvidia, but I have tried four different nvidia cards, and the tests(games, like ut2k3, shogo & quake) show the same. It is NOT faster.

However, GNU/Linux does have two advantages.

#1, I can run it from fluxbox and save a lot of ram if you are low on it
#2, Good filesystems like ReiserFS makes loading faster in most instances.

With the tests I've done (read the earlier posted link), games run faster. The diff is ~10% more frames using the same config.
ReiserFS (or XFS) indeed makes load times a lot shorter: 20% in my tests with ET. That's very handy when playing on servers without warmup time: I'm already building objectives when most of the users are still loading the level

Oh BTW, a small tip for pushing your fps in AA (should also work on UT2003 I think): edit your $HOME/.armyops/System/ArmyOps.ini and set CacheSizeMegs to your amount of memory of your video card. For example: I have a GF4Ti4200 64MB, so CacheSizeMegs should be 64 instead of the standard 32. It bumped my fps from 25 to 40

static · Post by **static** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 3:11 pm

All my quake games (Quake 3 especially) is A LOT faster. Not trolling here - I get 90 fps instead of 68, and the load times are way better. I don't touch winex because I don't believe in it, so I wouldn't know there. My UT on the odd day I bother playing it is a lot faster, too.

helmers · Post by **helmers** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 3:19 pm

Niek, my first comment would be "it is faster for you".
I find it really strange that it is slower, but it uses the Q3 engine, doesn't it? Because that should be just as fast on GNU/Linux as on Windows.

Of course, it matters what version of Windows you are comparing against, what motherboard drivers/features are enabled in Windows, the amount of fragmentation under Windows/disk optimization, and so on.

For me the latest beta drivers made a huge difference, but I am using a GFX after all.

Finally, FPS does not=performance/experience. Because if you have a slow AGP bus/high latency texture RAM, it will be choppy, even with a steady 60 fps or more. I get it myself in UT2k3.

arturaz · Post by **arturaz** » Mon Jul 21, 2003 10:15 am

Thanks, the game runs really faster now, but it crashes!

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x11@h2o x11 $ playamericas-army
Xlib:  extension "XiG-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD" missing on display ":0.0".
Received invalid actor class
Received invalid actor class
 
Backtrace:
[ 1]  ./Core.so [0x4087034a]
[ 2]  /lib/libpthread.so.0 [0x40c42fea]
[ 3]  /lib/libc.so.6 [0x40a2feb8]
[ 4]  /opt/americas-army/System/OpenGLDrv.so(__19FOpenGLVertexStreamP19UOpenGLRenderDeviceUxi+0x2c) [0x4582fff0]
[ 5]  /opt/americas-army/System/OpenGLDrv.so(SetVertexStreams__22FOpenGLRenderInterface13EVertexShaderPP13FVertexStreami+0x4d8) [0x4582c75c]
[ 6]  ./Engine.so(Render__21USkeletalMeshInstanceP13FDynamicActorP15FLevelSceneNodePt5TList1ZP13FDynamicLightPt5TList1ZP20FProjectorRenderInfoP16FRenderInterface+0xedc) [0x40353e3c]
[ 7]  ./Engine.so(Render__13FDynamicActorP15FLevelSceneNodePt5TList1ZP13FDynamicLightPt5TList1ZP20FProjectorRenderInfoP16FRenderInterface+0x20a) [0x402ce372]
[ 8]  ./Engine.so(Render__15FActorSceneNodeP16FRenderInterface+0x9a5) [0x402dac11]
[ 9]  ./Engine.so(DrawActor__7UCanvasP6AActoriif+0x22b) [0x40424bdb]
[10]  ./Engine.so(execDrawActor__7UCanvasR6FFramePv+0x22d) [0x40424e81]
[11]  ./Core.so(execHighNative1__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0x75) [0x40814781]
[12]  ./Core.so(execContext__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0xd0) [0x407f936c]
[13]  ./Core.so(ProcessInternal__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0x16a) [0x4081775e]
[14]  ./Core.so(CallFunction__7UObjectR6FFramePvP9UFunction+0x2cf) [0x40817573]
[15]  ./Core.so(execVirtualFunction__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0x45) [0x407f9435]
[16]  ./Core.so(execContext__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0xd0) [0x407f936c]
[17]  ./Core.so(ProcessInternal__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0x16a) [0x4081775e]
[18]  ./Core.so(CallFunction__7UObjectR6FFramePvP9UFunction+0x2cf) [0x40817573]
[19]  ./Core.so(execFinalFunction__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0x36) [0x407f947a]
[20]  ./Core.so(ProcessInternal__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0x16a) [0x4081775e]
[21]  ./Core.so(CallFunction__7UObjectR6FFramePvP9UFunction+0x2cf) [0x40817573]
[22]  ./Core.so(execVirtualFunction__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0x45) [0x407f9435]
[23]  ./Core.so(execContext__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0xd0) [0x407f936c]
[24]  ./Core.so(ProcessInternal__7UObjectR6FFramePv+0x16a) [0x4081775e]
[25]  ./Core.so(ProcessEvent__7UObjectP9UFunctionPvT2+0x18c) [0x408179d8]
[26]  ./Engine.so(ProcessEvent__6AActorP9UFunctionPvT2+0x36) [0x401a851e]
[27]  ./Engine.so(Render__16FPlayerSceneNodeP16FRenderInterface+0xa57) [0x402d98f3]
[28]  ./Engine.so(Draw__11UGameEngineP9UViewportiPUcPi+0x2f45) [0x4021137d]
[29]  /opt/americas-army/System/SDLDrv.so(Repaint__12USDLViewporti+0x33) [0x457f09a7]
[30]  /opt/americas-army/System/SDLDrv.so(Tick__10USDLClient+0x77) [0x457ef3cb]
[31]  ./Engine.so(Tick__11UGameEnginef+0x2c89) [0x4021534d]
[32]  ./armyops-bin(wvsnprintf__FPwiPCwPv+0x7aa) [0x804ce0e]
[33]  ./armyops-bin(main+0x25d7) [0x8050947]
[34]  /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xc7) [0x40a1c747]
[35]  ./armyops-bin(GetFullName__C7UObjectPw+0x5d) [0x804c6e1]
Signal: SIGILL [illegal instruction]
Aborting.
x11@h2o x11 $

Unixmonkey · Post by **Unixmonkey** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 10:03 pm

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but since I've upgraded Americas-Army to 1.9, I've been getting this:

Xlib: extension "XiG-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD" missing on display ":0.0".
Received invalid actor class

in my terminal after quitting. After playing anywhere from 10 seconds to 2 minutes on a net server, I get dropped with "Unixmonkey_1 kicked from the server for an unidentified reason" or something like that in the in-game console.

Google doesn't help much. I'm not running the XiG X server, I'm running regular X with the Nvidia drivers.

blueworm · Post by **blueworm** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 12:46 am

Niek wrote:
helmers wrote:(...)
Oh BTW, a small tip for pushing your fps in AA (should also work on UT2003 I think): edit your $HOME/.armyops/System/ArmyOps.ini and set CacheSizeMegs to your amount of memory of your video card. For example: I have a GF4Ti4200 64MB, so CacheSizeMegs should be 64 instead of the standard 32. It bumped my fps from 25 to 40
Outstanding Tip Thanks.
It works a treat.

tehjap · Post by **tehjap** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 11:40 pm

did you emerge nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx, infinitely better than the x11 nvidia driver.

Phreakazoid_ · Post by **Phreakazoid_** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 11:32 pm

I find that all Quake engine games run higher fps in linux, and also NWN.
Enemy Territory for example is so slow in windows that it is unplayable, yet in linux it runs fine.

UT2003 on the other hand, runs ok in Windows, but is completely unplayable in Linux (~5fps compared to ~30fps in windows).

jaska · Post by **jaska** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 9:58 am

@ helmers, which "beta" kernels do you mean have 8x agp support? Just wondering because im going to buy a radeon 9700 later on.