DOOM 3 Linux faster than win32?

[ganja_guru]

I have a geforce 7800GTX (NON SLI) on an ASUS K8N-SLI with an Athlon FX-55 and 2GB of Ram..

In windows, with all options at max, including 16x anti aliasing at 1600x1200, I'm able to get only around 10-15 FPS.. 60FPS is reached only if I reduce antialiasing to 4x

However, in Linux, 16x antialiasing works at full 60 FPS

Note that both linux and windows have the latest NVIDIA drivers installed.(windows - 78.01 and linux-7676)

Both OS's are running in 32 bit

No performance tweaks on either OS

Does this mean that Linux works better than windows or does it mean that linux is not anti aliasing properly?

thanks for your help!

[LinuxRocks]

My personal experiance with Linux and Windows is exactly what you are seeing. I have always had better performance with Doom3 and UT2004 in Linux with higher AA settings...

I have not noticed any difference in image quality either, so I would speculate that AA and AF is working proporly in Linux.

Enjoy!!!

Joe

[ganja_guru]

Nice to hear..but why is it that any "Doom3 Linux vs. Windows" comparison does not highlight this important point? Do you think that the newer Linux drivers are so much better than what the reviewers used that there's such a boost in the FPS?

The only possible explanation I can think of (If Linux is truly anti aliasing at 16x), is that Doom3 wins out in Linux due to superior memory management. Another reason is I'm running Arch Linux which is an i686 optimized minimalized distro with only essentials installed, as so this probably frees up CPU/Ram for the game.

[LinuxRocks]

Originally Posted by ganja_guru

Nice to hear..but why is it that any "Doom3 Linux vs. Windows" comparison does not highlight this important point? Do you think that the newer Linux drivers are so much better than what the reviewers used that there's such a boost in the FPS?

The only possible explanation I can think of (If Linux is truly anti aliasing at 16x), is that Doom3 wins out in Linux due to superior memory management. Another reason is I'm running Arch Linux which is an i686 optimized minimalized distro with only essentials installed, as so this probably frees up CPU/Ram for the game.

I think that it has alot to do with the optimized Arch disto. I use Arch as well with the archck kernel and games just run butter smooth on my box. I have also ran Mandrake, Red Hat (Fedora), and others, and they also run games smoother than Windows. But Arch does have the edge for performance (Along with Gentoo because you can optimize there as well)

Even thought you will see a slight improvement in FPS score with Windows, for me it still runs choppy. Also, when I exit a game, it takes 5 to 10 secs before I reagain control over the machine because of swapping. So I think Linux has a better memory manager and IO scheduler as well.

Joe

[arokh]

GCC optimization might give a couple of FPS, the CK patchset does not. It only helps keep your game smooth when running background tasks. The difference you are seeing in FPS is surely because of something wrong in your Windows installation. The Linux version IS slower, mainly due to lack of MMX/SSE support (or has this been implemented in the last version?).

I have yet to see any benchmark of a 7800GTX/Doom3 where the FPS is down to 10-15, no matter which settings.

[ganja_guru]

http://www.tcmagazine.info/articles....ge=1&pagenum=8

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Ha...preview/9.html

Both these reviews only seem to crank up settings to 4x AA for some reason..I get similar results in Windows as these reviews with 4x AA..but my problem is that 16x AA in windows is much slower than linux, which make me wonder whether linux is actually doing 16x AA at all..

[arokh]

That does indeed sound more likely ganja_guru.

[LinuxRocks]

Originally Posted by arokh

GCC optimization might give a couple of FPS, the CK patchset does not. It only helps keep your game smooth when running background tasks. The difference you are seeing in FPS is surely because of something wrong in your Windows installation. The Linux version IS slower, mainly due to lack of MMX/SSE support (or has this been implemented in the last version?).

I have yet to see any benchmark of a 7800GTX/Doom3 where the FPS is down to 10-15, no matter which settings.

It appears that there is a bug or something with Windows and the AMD X2 chips. That is why I was seeing bad performance in Windows. According to this thread at HardOCP there appears to be a new CPU driver on the AMD website that is supposed to fix the issue. Look at this thread there for more info; I was the original poster...

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=956898

Linux doesn't seem to suffer from this issue.

Thanks!!!

Joe

[ganja_guru]

fx-55 does not have the set affinity thing, cause its single core. are you guys getting good FPS with 16x anti aliasing and NON-SLI in 1600x1200 in windows?

[ganja_guru]

I did a small screenshot comparison study and AA 16x in Windows looks better than Linux..I think that the NVIDIA drivers are limiting Linux to doing 4x AA . 4xAA on Linux looks better than Linux with No AA, which obviously means that at least some antialiasing is going on. Bad NVIDIA.Can anyone confirm these results?

[LubosD]

I can't reproduce any limit.

lubos@ares ~ $ glxgears
54757 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12951.400 FPS
lubos@ares ~ $ __GL_FSAA_MODE=2 glxgears
26178 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5235.600 FPS
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
lubos@ares ~ $ __GL_FSAA_MODE=4 glxgears
20665 frames in 5.0 seconds = 4133.000 FPS
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
lubos@ares ~ $ __GL_FSAA_MODE=8 glxgears
14417 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2883.400 FPS
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).

[arokh]

No limit here either. Perhaps it's 7800 specific?

Note that 7 is 16x, whilst 8 is actually 8x (6 is 8x as well, two different techniques).

~ $ __GL_FSAA_MODE=0 glxgears
73296 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14659.109 FPS

~ $ __GL_FSAA_MODE=2 glxgears
37641 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7528.028 FPS

~ $ __GL_FSAA_MODE=4 glxgears
28356 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5671.143 FPS

~ $ __GL_FSAA_MODE=6 glxgears
18317 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3663.333 FPS

~ $ __GL_FSAA_MODE=7 glxgears
6398 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1277.864 FPS