To those who played with Windows and with Linux

[browserice]

Just wondering about something. I have windows XP and also as dual boot, Ubuntu (Linux).

If anyone every played Ryzom in windows AND in Linux, is it more performant on the graphic side while in Linux ?

I'm asking because my ATI drivers is still at Catalyst 6.4 because of a bug with VIA Chipset motherboards vs Windows XP when installing drivers 6.5 and up.

So if its more performant on Linux, I could maybe do it but I don't want to invest to much time and effort for nothing.




bug link = http://support.ati.com/ics/support/defa ... onID=22933

[cloudy97]

Nah, it doesn't run faster in Linux. It looks about the same, but feels a bit faster in Windows. I've only used Nvidia cards, no idea how ATI performs.

[fadebait]

ATI's linux drivers are a pretty poor offering. Windows will be faster, and probably more stable too.
Linux really is not a good gaming platform, and it probably never will be - its simply not designed for that. UNIX (which linux was built from, and still shares a lot in common with) was designed as a server platform. Linux is more gerneral purpose - but still has a heavy slant towards enterprise server applications - if you want gaming anything that ends in *nix will probably be slower.

Having said that - I have played many games on Linux and will continue to do so - just dont expect it to be as easy or as fast as windows xp.

[iceaxe68]

ATI's linux drivers are a pretty poor offering. Windows will be faster, and probably more stable too.
Linux really is not a good gaming platform, and it probably never will be - its simply not designed for that. UNIX (which linux was built from, and still shares a lot in common with) was designed as a server platform. Linux is more gerneral purpose - but still has a heavy slant towards enterprise server applications - if you want gaming anything that ends in *nix will probably be slower.

Having said that - I have played many games on Linux and will continue to do so - just dont expect it to be as easy or as fast as windows xp.

OK, I'm getting off topic here, and haven't played Ryzom on Linux (yet) but felt an urge to pontificate.

This may describe the current situation from a subjective point of view, but there's nothing inherently "slow" about the various unix derivative OSes. Indeed, some very fast realtime systems are derived from the same place.

The relative slowness of Linux games is due primarily to the unavailability of device drivers and graphics libraries which have been tested and optimized as thoroughly as those available for Windows. A self-perpetuating problem, unfortunately.

The OS itself is *typically* more capable of high performance, given that it carries less mandatory overhead. Custom Hot rod vs. Factory sports car.

Thankfully, at least in my opinion, the graphical capabilities of both platforms are beginning to outstrip the ability of human eyes and reaction speed to tell the difference anyway. I look forward to seeing what the next 20 years will bring.

OK, sorry to go astray there. More relevant posts will doubtless follow...

(Sasi turns from her windows system and goes back to fiddling with her Ubuntu laptop...)

[katriell]

Maybe I'll install Ryzom on my Windows and see.

[fadebait]

I think you slightly misunderstood Linux and UNIX are very very fast. at certain things.
True UNIXes such as AIX and HPUX are very very server-centric and do not perform well for desktop tasks. These operating systems are highly optimised for server preformance, as noone in their right mind would actually use these for anything other than server tasks.

Linux (and to a lesser extent some of the more desktopish BSDs) Is much more general purpose, and in theory is designed to be good for everyone.
But if you acutally look at how the CPU scheduler works, and how the memory management works, there is an obvious bias towards certain types of tasks. There has been work done to make it more desktop-friendly, some of which has had great results. But if you look where the *vast* majority of work is done in kernel optimisations, it is enterprise server apps not desktop apps that gets the love.

I'm not trying to say that its slow on the desktop, rather than partly due to where it came from (UNIX) and partly due to the emphasis of the kernel developers, it has a bit of a handicap for desktop environments compared to an operating system which has been designed almost soley for desktop applications, with server scheduling tacked on almost as an after-thought.


"The OS itself is *typically* more capable of high performance"

There really is no such thing as simple 'high performance' and 'low performance'. For many things Linux is and will always be, faster than Windows. But they are different operating systems with entirely different emphasies.
Windows is very good at 3D games - Microsoft have had years to work on this, and ATI and nVIDIA spend many, many more hours making Windows drivers than they do making Linux drivers.
End result: Linux ends up being noticeably slower as a gaming platform.
But then it was never originally designed with this in mind so can you blame it?

Even if you ran Linux with the bare minimum of running daemons, and recompiled everything specifically for your processor (d/l Gentoo if you want to do this), then ran ryzom in a lone X session with no window manager or desktop environment, even then when apart from ryzom there is almost nothing to take up system resourses, Ryzom will still be slower on Linux. really.

If you want to understand why, quite a lot of the blame lies at the feet of ATI and nVIDIA, but also check out the linux kernel mailing log and see where all the time gets spent. If you look back enough you might see some -ck patches, have a look at why they were not incorporated (despite the significant boost in performance they gave to desktop apps in general)

[iceaxe68]

"The OS itself is *typically* more capable of high performance"

There really is no such thing as simple 'high performance' and 'low performance'. For many things Linux is and will always be, faster than Windows. But they are different operating systems with entirely different emphasies.

touché, you caught me in an oversimplification.

Unix type OSes, particularly those with source code available, CAN be optimized for many tasks, graphics performance being one of them. Given enough effort. The lack, as you have pointed out, has been the effort put into gaming and desktop performance.

I would love to see what a gaming-specific Linux distro could do, but as you said, the hardware manufacturers have not provided the environment for such a thing to succeed as it could.

Back to the OP - if you want max performance under current conditions, stick with Windows. If you want to be one of the cool kids, use your Ubuntu. It has better juju.

[katriell]

Ryzom runs very well under my Windows, but other apps are extremely laggy while it's running unless I set a particular app's process priority to High. On Ubuntu, I still get good Ryzom performance, but with good performance in other apps at the same time.