Source Engine and Linux (Intel CPU/AMD GPU)

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eumoria
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Source Engine and Linux (Intel CPU/AMD GPU)

Post by eumoria » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:34 pm

I've been trying to get my home computer over to Linux for a long time but games are really just awful with an AMD GPU. This is the system I'm trying to run Left4Dead2 and TF2 on with Xubuntu 14.10 64-bit (also vanilla Debain, Ubuntu and Linux Mint same performance):

Processor:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 4.00GHz Socket 1155 LGA

Motherboard:
ASUS P8Z77-V LX

Chipset:
Northbridge Intel Sandy Bridge rev. 09
Southbridge Intel Z77 rev. 04

Memory:
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 8 GBytes
Memory Frequency 2133.0 MHz

Display adapter:
Name AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series
Board Manufacturer Hightech Information System Ltd. (HIS)
Memory size 1024 MB


For the 2D games I play (like FTL, Crypt of the Necrodancer) the Linux Steam client works awesome and the games run great. I use Xubuntu 14.10 at work and on my netbook and it is amazing for productivity.

On the source engine games though:
On Windows 7 @1080 I average above 175fps but I do have to turn some stuff down my video card is just meh.
On Xubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint I get around 40-50 fps.

The game engine on Linux is using an OpenGL hybrid while in Windows it's DirectX so it's really two different games in a sense... still a big drop. Does anyone have nvidia for their GPU or AMD CPU and tried the native Linux client? I'm just curious if the nvidia drivers are better, I've read in they are but the video card market is just all fanboys and everyone lies about the numbers. I would buy an nvidia as my next video card if I could run it well in Debian.

TIA if anyone has tried it!

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Re: Source Engine and Linux (Intel CPU/AMD GPU)

Post by kkpyro » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:53 pm

Wow, this is Greek to me! I'll pass it along to someone who used to teach tech and see if he can help!

Good luck!
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Re: Source Engine and Linux (Intel CPU/AMD GPU)

Post by kkpyro » Tue Dec 30, 2014 2:13 pm

I tried something very similar, but with an AMD processor and graphics card when Steam ported TF2 to Linux a year or so ago. I am not the biggest Microsoft fan and was excited to be able to play the games I love on Linux and flip the bird to Microsoft for all time (have migrated much other computer activity to Linux). But like you I found that the stranglehold that Microsoft exhibits over games with DirectX resulted in significantly lower frame rates (like the 25% you are getting) and the resulting less fun that comes with those frame rates and the changes you must make to your graphics just to get those frame rates. Anyway, my conclusion was that till games are made to natively use OpenGL, I think we are out of luck for real playability on Linux.
greybeard *using kk's account cause we are on vacation and we only brought her computer :) *
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eumoria
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Re: Source Engine and Linux (Intel CPU/AMD GPU)

Post by eumoria » Wed Jan 14, 2015 8:53 pm

Thanks greybeard! Yea it seems like the ported games will continue to have issues...

I did cave in and upgrade (kinda side-grade) to an Nvidia 750 ti so I'll have to reinstall the distro and give it another shot. Have a feeling it probably will only be marginally better, I'll post the performance difference when I do.

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Re: Source Engine and Linux (Intel CPU/AMD GPU)

Post by eumoria » Wed Feb 04, 2015 7:55 am

Soooo the nvidia binary blob does a better job than ATI as far as configuration goes... but it still is a performance reduction.

I won't be able to hit the 144fps target with my current setup in Linux so it's a failure. Granted Nvidia has done a better job making a binary than ATI, even though the psychotic open source community hates them (WARNING! Language)
Feel like I need to clarify here for people who don't understand the underlying problem. Nvidia, ATI and Intel are competitors trying to gain advantage in the market so their VERY complex hardware/software interaction is proprietary. Some are better than others but the FOSS community believes that all of the lock and keys to this performance wonder should be free for everyone to use and see. Anyone with a general education can see why this would be a ruinous concept for anyone making something so specific to sell to people who need it. Nvidia is not making things difficult for the FOSS community... they are the leader of 3D rendering and their market share is based on their internal engineering skill. Seriously screw the idea that "ubiquity=all access" if you're so phenomenal at it MAKE YOUR OWN THEN... GO NAIL SOME HUBCAPS TO A TREE ( to barely quote Louis CK )
It just doesn't make it worthwhile for the changeover. [Total side note ATI is trying to help the FOSS community yet their performance is worse... funny, no?]

I'm sure at some point it'll catch up enough where I won't care but as for now the performance reduction isn't worth it with my new hardware.

Please support open source software, I'm not a FOSS maniac but I like my computer to do what it needs to for productivity, client/server interaction and some games and open source software is better in almost every way but bleeding edge. For high performance 3D it just isn't yet. Time will tell I suppose.

Thanks for the input if anyone else here has experience please let us know :D

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