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Proprietary vs Open Source drivers
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Commander Godsmack
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2011-10-22 19:27:19 UTC
So I'm wondering from those with more experience in this how do open source and proprietary drivers stack up against each other in terms of performance especially to eve but other games as well and between ATI and Nvidia who has better support for linux gaming?

In windows my ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB card gets a comfortable 60 FPS in eve whether in space or station (CQ turned off) and even with a few windows open. In Linux (Ubuntu 11.10) the FGLRX driver that comes packaged in (i think its version 11.8) I can get 70+ FPS IF I do ctrl+F9 however we know you cant play eve like this and need the HUD and w/e windows you use to interact with in the game and so for me when I im just in station with all the windows i have up my performance tanks to an agonizing 5 FPS.

Discuss+thougts+ideas and for me do i need to wait until the drivers is better supported or get a new card entirely to have a functional card for gaming in linux or anyone with same or similar card to mine that it working w/o problems?
Isometric Isotope
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2011-10-23 01:16:53 UTC
Commander Godsmack wrote:
So I'm wondering from those with more experience in this how do open source and proprietary drivers stack up against each other in terms of performance especially to eve but other games as well and between ATI and Nvidia who has better support for linux gaming?

In windows my ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB card gets a comfortable 60 FPS in eve whether in space or station (CQ turned off) and even with a few windows open. In Linux (Ubuntu 11.10) the FGLRX driver that comes packaged in (i think its version 11.8) I can get 70+ FPS IF I do ctrl+F9 however we know you cant play eve like this and need the HUD and w/e windows you use to interact with in the game and so for me when I im just in station with all the windows i have up my performance tanks to an agonizing 5 FPS.

Discuss+thougts+ideas and for me do i need to wait until the drivers is better supported or get a new card entirely to have a functional card for gaming in linux or anyone with same or similar card to mine that it working w/o problems?


sorry IM a bit dyslexic so i had trouble reading your post
But from what I gathered your asking which is better Id say Nvidia's proprietary drivers because Nvidia from what I gather does tests when the release drivers for linux Ati aparenty does nothing of the sort

I just like to own the official drivers rather then the open source ones (little bit less hassle that way but dont take my word for it :)

My cup Overfloweth with stale coffee!
Jaxon Grylls
Institute of Archaeology
#3 - 2011-10-24 10:41:31 UTC
At the moment the only game in town is to use an Nvidia card with a proprietary driver. ATI have real problems with drivers for Linux and I have seen lots of complaints, workrounds and just plain nastiness connected with ATI stuff. Nouveau works but not really well enough for EVE.

The secret is to get a decent spec. card and a modern distro, that way you will have the best chance of decent framerates in the game. For example I have a main box with a good setup, 64 bit dual core, 4Gb memory but only a so-so video card. EVE runs but not well. An older box with a much better and newer card and distro runs well, it's just that I have to use a smaller card and older distro as I have had resolution problems with my main box which is used for work related stuff, thus preventing me from going the whole hog and running an optimum setup on my big machine.

Hope that helps.
Ravow
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2011-10-26 05:10:14 UTC
EVE work perfectly well on ATI card with Open Source drivers. And the bonus with that : Supported drivers on everything(kernel with XEN patchs, Xorg Git-what-you-want) (it's open source) and you get tear-less video playback without hammering performance like with FGLRX tear-free mode.

I have more than 100FPS with one client and I can run with 3 client without any problem.

With proprietary drivers (FGLRX) I got ... 7FPS with one client and everything to low since Incarna.

So yeah, I consider AMD/ATI far more superior as they work very well without any proprietary blob. They really support the Linux community as they release there specs/documentation... unlike Nvidia, who is releasing buggy drivers and telling me to disable SMP to fix a race condition in there blackboxed driver...

I dont know about Ubuntu, you may need to add special repository because you need latest GIT MESA/libdrm/ddx plus you need kernel 2.6.39+ (you can patch the 2.6.38 command checker too)

destroyfx@tanith ~ $ glxinfo32
...
direct rendering: Yes
...
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV770
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.12-devel (git-d06cc42)
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20
OpenGL extensions:
GL_ARB_multisample, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra, GL_EXT_blend_color,
GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_copy_texture,
GL_EXT_polygon_offset, GL_EXT_subtexture, GL_EXT_texture_object,
GL_EXT_vertex_array, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_texture,
GL_EXT_texture3D, GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip, GL_ARB_point_parameters,
GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_EXT_point_parameters,
GL_EXT_rescale_normal, GL_EXT_separate_specular_color,
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap,
GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp, GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp,
GL_SGIS_texture_lod, GL_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB, GL_ARB_multitexture,
GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB, GL_IBM_multimode_draw_arrays,
GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_ARB_texture_cube_map,
GL_ARB_texture_env_add, GL_ARB_transpose_matrix,
GL_EXT_blend_func_separate, GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays,
GL_EXT_secondary_color, GL_EXT_texture_env_add,
GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias,
GL_INGR_blend_func_separate, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_light_max_exponent,
GL_NV_texgen_reflection, GL_NV_texture_env_combine4, GL_S3_s3tc,
GL_SUN_multi_draw_arrays, GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp,
GL_ARB_texture_compression, GL_EXT_framebuffer_object,
GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc, GL_EXT_texture_env_combine,
GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3, GL_MESA_window_pos, GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil,
GL_NV_texture_rectangle, GL_ARB_depth_texture, GL_ARB_occlusion_query,
GL_ARB_shadow, GL_ARB_texture_env_combine, GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar,
GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3, GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat,
GL_ARB_window_pos, GL_EXT_stencil_two_side, GL_EXT_texture_cube_map,
GL_NV_depth_clamp, GL_APPLE_packed_pixels, GL_APPLE_vertex_array_object,
GL_ARB_draw_buffers, GL_ARB_fragment_program, GL_ARB_fragment_shader,
GL_ARB_shader_objects, GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_ARB_vertex_shader,
GL_ATI_draw_buffers, GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3, GL_ATI_texture_float,
GL_EXT_shadow_funcs, GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_MESA_pack_invert,
GL_NV_primitive_restart, GL_ARB_depth_clamp,
GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow, GL_ARB_half_float_pixel,
GL_ARB_occlusion_query2, GL_ARB_point_sprite, GL_ARB_shading_language_100,
GL_ARB_sync, GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object,
GL_ATI_blend_equation_separate, GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate,
GL_OES_read_format, GL_ARB_color_buffer_float, GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object,
GL_ARB_texture_compression_rgtc, GL_ARB_texture_float,
GL_ARB_texture_rectangle, GL_ATI_texture_compression_3dc,
GL_EXT_packed_float, GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object,
GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1, GL_EXT_texture_compression_rgtc,
GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_rectangle,
GL_EXT_texture_sRGB, GL_EXT_texture_shared_exponent,
GL_ARB_framebuffer_object, GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit,
GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample, GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil,
GL_ARB_vertex_array_object, GL_ATI_separate_stencil,
GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once, GL_EXT_draw_buffers2,
GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters, GL_EXT_texture_array,
GL_EXT_text
Ravow
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#5 - 2011-10-26 05:16:01 UTC
For eve-online and open source drivers, you also need a library for S3TC texture compression support. Without S3TC support, you get white/grey station/ships/gates and missing icons.

> libtxc_dxtn /!\ May violate patents in you country /!\
COMM4NDER
Legendary Umbrellas
#6 - 2011-11-11 08:32:11 UTC  |  Edited by: COMM4NDER
Does it work well on the opensource ones? Last time I tried pixel shader was a bit out dated (GLSL) aswell as OpenGL

All drivers till 11.8 gives me random Xorg crashes with infinte loop that is traced to the driver so I cannot do anything "real" with eve without wondering if I will crash in a lowsec pocket or Incursion/lvl4


About the "Holy" nVidia drivers that are tested and stable and got awesome performance I call it total Bullsh...

Got nVidia 6600go and nVidia GTX260. First one don't have support by the nVidia drivers and the opensource drivers don't even have full 2d support or 3d for that matter. GTX260 does not give me potential of gnome3 or gnome-shell. And the need patching the kernel for each driver verson is outrageous.

All in all, nVidia AMD/ATI, Intel gpu drivers suck.

[url=https://github.com/CommanderAlchemy/.bin/blob/master/eve] EVE - Online Launcher [Linux] [/url] Installs, launches character prefixes (both SISI & Tranquility). Simplescreenrecorder shm inject
Ravow
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2011-11-15 17:38:36 UTC
Open source drivers work perfectly for EVE (Tested on a Radeon 4870HD).

I run actually two client without lag. (FPS 45-60. Of course, 60 is the limit of my LCD screen)

No X crash, can switch to "text TTY" and back to X without any problem too.