Thursday, August 2nd 2012
L4D2 Runs Faster on Linux than Windows
Valve's hit online multiplayer game, Left 4 Dead 2, which was recently ported to Ubuntu along with the Steam client, is found to play faster on the platform than even Windows. The game generates higher frame-rates on Ubuntu with the new OpenGL renderer for Source engine than the Direct3D renderer it uses on Windows.
The disclosure comes as part of Valve's ongoing efforts to optimize the Source engine to the Linux platform, following which, it plans to port more of its game franchises, such as Half Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, and Portal. The games will be available on Ubuntu with SteamPlay, allowing users who already own a license for the Windows or Mac OS X versions to simply download and play the game on Ubuntu, without any purchases.
Source:
Phoronix
The disclosure comes as part of Valve's ongoing efforts to optimize the Source engine to the Linux platform, following which, it plans to port more of its game franchises, such as Half Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, and Portal. The games will be available on Ubuntu with SteamPlay, allowing users who already own a license for the Windows or Mac OS X versions to simply download and play the game on Ubuntu, without any purchases.
107 Comments on L4D2 Runs Faster on Linux than Windows
:roll:
LC
/would care more if it was a title less than 2.5 years old.
Its sad really that My machine scores nearly 2000 points extra on 3Dmark06 in a WinXP boot than it does in Win7.
Newer versions of windows don't really give a shit if your perfectly standard sound card works or not anymore or where your GPU juice goes - its FAAR FAR FAR more important that your title bar is transparent so you can barely tell one window from the other, that your mouse has shadows, and that EVERYTHING slides around and wooshes in and out like you just bounced a bag of spoiled weed
But that's the world we live in, Fluff & Front End are way more important than form and function anymore, It needs to sparkle and twinkle and whirrrrrl and whizz to hold the 20 second attention span of the new ADD Justin Beiber generation, just look at that cross-eyed inbred hill-billy 8 year old child's interface "Metro" for gods sake. ITS A COMPUTER NOT A FUNKING CELL PHONE!
Its as tho they just don't want us using computers at all anymore.
But that's off topic, so let's just not go there, I guess WELL DONE to Valve - I can see Linux definitely becoming a more and more viable OS for me as I am one of those lost forgotten cave people who actually USE A COMPUTER AND RUN PROGRAMS AND WORK WITH FILES, and that is simply not what the future of Windows is about anymore apparently.
The ONLY thing that has really kept me away from Linux is its overall terrible gaming support track record, but this article just proves what a rapidly evolving landscape that is, and clearly I need to start paying closer attention.
Edit:
Also. Can't wait for the penguin hat.
In fact, this should be a downright embarrassment to Apple if they'd even care about that. Shows just how crappy OpenGL in OSX is thanks to Apple.
Now the question is, how many bugs does it have in Linux GL. That was always an issue with Apple OpenGL games was the number of bugs they had. Mostly because of the incomplete or archaic Open GL drivers Apple would use. Linux OpenGL may be getting a buff if it isn't having to render everything that DX is.
BTW about openGL, if image quality is your goal you can reach a very high one these days Erocker, much hugher than any PC game thesedays can supply.
:rolleyes:
Last time I checked the latest version of DirectX* is faster and provides better image quality than OpenGL.
d3d11.1/11
Ah well, I'll take the totally minor hit for the ease of use, huge application library, and compatibility that Windows 7 offers.
that's why i said this is very positive :)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenGL#OpenGL_4.2
and the comperison should be dx11
Problem?
DirectX performance really is crap and has gotten worse since Vista, even with DX9 (and lower) games. I benched it myself a couple of years ago and posted about it on TPU. BazookaJoe a few posts back is quite right about the performance drop. I reckon it's the protected media path drm that's baked into Vista and later that does it, but I've never seen anything to support or negate this to say for sure.
It's developments like this that will hopefully give Microsoft a kick up the backside and make them improve. I can't wait for Linux gaming to take off and driver and apps support to improve. Then it's goodbye Windows and your f* product activation and high cost.
It just makes sense to me. Instead of spending money on an o/s the gamer has more money to spend on games.
12.2% gain also isn't thing to gawk at when you're already well over 100 fps.DirectX is easier. Even The Sims 3 and Spore, which were ported to OGL on Mac, they still use DirectX on Windows. Ubuntu and Apple address driver concerns with OGL on their OS. Microsoft addresses driver concerns with DirectX. You're more likely to get fewer issues using DirectX on Windows than using OpenGL.
I bet Steam/Valve are just twisting the numbers in their favor, they openly hated windows 8 And wanna be the first to concentrate on Linux gaming.
I call clever marketing ploy on this one