Graphics on linux - nvidia v AMD performance

mortals · 26 Sep 2014 at 19:25

I'm looking at upgrading my graphics card on my main system so have been looking into linux performance before buying

I was going to go AMD R9 290 until the nvidia GTX 970 came out.

Anyway, here is a comparison benchmark from CSGO (now available on linux)

It seems like the AMD R9 290 is only a tiny bit faster than a nvidia 750ti :eek:

I thought AMD were improving their linux drivers?
I know in the past they were a lot worse than nvidia but I've had little problem with the catalyst drivers on my HD5770 since I've had it.

Not sure if anyone has a R9 280 or 290 and can confirm this as it seems really weird.

If these benchmarks are accurate I might have to go nvidia.

handofbod · 26 Sep 2014 at 22:13

I'm a user of Linux but not on my gaming machine and I'm shocked at the performance difference between linux and windows! I'm using a stock 7970 and get over 200fps on CS:GO.

Relative to the thread, though, I think the whole difference between the two manufacturers is due to AMD's lack of cooperation with linux developers. Speaking of which, my friends and I have always had issues with getting AMD stuff to work on Linux, no matter the ease of getting the drivers there always seems to be some issue with getting them running smooth.

Personally, I'd recommend nvidia on Linux every time.

I know I'm not much help!

Rroff · 26 Sep 2014 at 22:15

CS generally isn't the greatest overall judge for performance - it tends to be extremely sensitive to CPU grunt and how good the low level efficiency of the driver pipeline is, other games may show a different story.

That said I can't really recommend anything other than nVidia if you want to do any real gaming on linux.

mortals · 26 Sep 2014 at 23:15

Rroff said:
CS generally isn't the greatest overall judge for performance - it tends to be extremely sensitive to CPU grunt

I think all the tests were on the same system (says i7 4770k on bench page) so should be pretty fair :confused:

I noticed the linux performance was bad when I tried dota2 on linux, on windows I have a lot of settings on high and get over 120fps (have it capped to 120) but on linux even with everything on low I was getting drops below 60fps

I used to play quake3 on linux years ago and always remember having nvidia back then (2000?)

Just seems pretty shocking that the performance would be so different.

The table doesn't look quite right tho as it shows a r9 290 being only 7fps different to a r7 260x.

CEUOTC · 26 Sep 2014 at 23:41

Having run a R9 290, GTX 750 Ti, GTX 770 and GTX 780 under Linux l can safely say Nvidia prove in real use to be faster.

Tuvoc · 24 Oct 2014 at 20:15

I've also struck problems with AND video cards in Linux, so I will certainly go nVidia next time. I have no current install of Linux though.

jake108 · 24 Oct 2014 at 21:15

Mirror the same thoughts, my AMD R7 250 was actually slower than my Nvidia Quadro FX 1400 in certain games. The new 3.17.x kernels have helped the situation but there are still major issues with AMD Linux drivers. One of the reasons I'm back running Windows 8.1.

Mirror Handofbod's view

Relative to the thread, though, I think the whole difference between the two manufacturers is due to AMD's lack of cooperation with linux developers. Speaking of which, my friends and I have always had issues with getting AMD stuff to work on Linux, no matter the ease of getting the drivers there always seems to be some issue with getting them running smooth.

If you really want you the card to fly it's the 3.17.x kernels at the minimum for AMD. What 3.17 brings here

My FX 1400 just worked smooth from Ubuntu install, the AMD R7 250... Well took a lot of changing drivers, kernel revisions, tweaking the hell out of the settings to get it stable. Hoping 3.18 kernel and better drivers will make it better.

D.P. · 25 Oct 2014 at 01:28

Ever since the Big Bang AMD Linux drivers have sucked. They just don't care about Linux.

I've been using Linux for 15 years and the biggest reoccurring issue has always been ATI graphics drivers. Time and time again they just don't work, break, have glitches and cause endless head banging.

The performance issues are the least of the issues.

Tuvoc · 25 Oct 2014 at 06:22

D.P. said:
I've been using Linux for 15 years and the biggest reoccurring issue has always been ATI graphics drivers. Time and time again they just don't work, break, have glitches and cause endless head banging.

The performance issues are the least of the issues.

Exactly !

OhEsEcks · 25 Oct 2014 at 06:44

I'm willing to pay extra just to get a card with drivers that work. So I will always go with NVIDIA when it comes to a *nix system that needs a dedicated card. I'd rather waste my time playing games and not dealing with configuration and driver headaches just to get the damn card to work properly in the first place.

And when it comes to laptops, I'd rather use an Intel CPU / GPU combo than AMD APU combo because again, graphics drivers and overall performance.

Which is unfortunate, because AMDs prices are always very appealing.

mortals · 25 Oct 2014 at 12:56

D.P. said:
I've been using Linux for 15 years and the biggest reoccurring issue has always been ATI graphics drivers. Time and time again they just don't work, break, have glitches and cause endless head banging.

The performance issues are the least of the issues.

I have also been using linux on my desktop systems for years (since 1997). I had problems with the ATI drivers back when I had a x1900 (2005-2006?).

In more recent years I haven't had any problems relating to AMD GPU drivers. (other than poor performance)
I've had a HD5770 for the past 4 years without a problem (running dual monitors using xrandr)
I also have a sempron laptop with x600 integrated GPU and have had no problems with the GPU drivers :confused:

I am probably going to get an nvidia card soon (the last nvidia card I had was a 8800GTX) so I guess I will see the difference.

OhEsEcks · 25 Oct 2014 at 13:01

When they're stable, they're fine. But performance has been the problem. I remember when the kernel hit 3.12, some games saw more than 50% improvement just going from 3.11 to 3.12 because of the changes they'd made in the DRM driver.

Edit: Just checking the Phoronix article of the AMD tests and instead got the follow up. Apparently the changes weren't due to the AMD driver. It was CPUFreq. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_312_performance&num=5

stopper · 25 Oct 2014 at 13:31

CS:GO isn't the best of programs to be testing the drivers really, performance is still suffering quite bad on it.
They should be testing with a Unigine benchmark as they are just as stable on Linux as it is on Windows now.

On another note, after seeing that chart I'm glad I bought a 760, doesn't make much sense going for anything higher.

jake108 · 25 Oct 2014 at 21:37

OhEsEcks said:
When they're stable, they're fine. But performance has been the problem. I remember when the kernel hit 3.12, some games saw more than 50% improvement just going from 3.11 to 3.12 because of the changes they'd made in the DRM driver.

The only concern there is, how bug is the DRM driver going to get? The kernel modules and drivers for AMD have always been a bit of a resource hog. I had heard most of the AMD Linux driver was more userspace based than kernel, however the recent increase in size of the kernel modules leaves much to be desired.

<RANT>A bit of a rant following...

We don't really want to end up with a huge DRM module slowing down the rest of the kernel and taking userspace with it. I remember a talk with Linus a number of years ago talking how too many or too large kernel modules was a very bad thing for performance, believe it was one of his rants along the lines of "not reinventing the wheel" in kernel space.

If the DRM module needs addressed consistently on top of the driver, then I/O and pipeline will take a hit. Once you're addressing kernel space in userspace through this driver<=>kernel you're already into the dangerous processor pipeline problem, instruction allocation execution in the pipeline and race conditions slowing down the system. </RANT>

Little bit more info here http://superuser.com/questions/492297/modern-gpus-how-intelligent-are-they

From what is gathered userspace=good, kernel=bad. It's why we should be little concerned about this newer DRM module for AMD. Wish they could find a way to fix it in the driver rather than this hacky DRM module.

*EDIT* Spent WAYYY too much time trying to fix my R7 250 performance in Linux before going back to Windows

Tom B · 26 Oct 2014 at 17:56

I replaced a 5870 with a 750ti. I had all sorts of weird slowdowns on the desktop with the catalyst driver. On paper the 5870 should be faster in a lot of cases than the 750ti... in reality, the 750ti was roughly twice as fast in linux.

jake108 · 1 Nov 2014 at 13:28

If anyone is interested here is the currently state of the R9 290 on different kernels with RadeonSI Gallium3D. Appears 3.17 / Mesa offers the best performance with a small amount of tweaking, sadly those numbers look dire for a brand new card.

I imagine Catalyst would have been worse, still even those numbers are not great.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1410_hawaii&num=1

Guess my next cards will be Nvidia for Linux.