I spoke with Jens from LunarG recently about their work on the graphics driver for Intel, and the news is really good. They have worked for quite a while to find out what was making the Intel driver slower, and they sent off a test program to Intel who managed to find an issue!
Some important gains have been made thanks to their work:
1. Left4Dead2 with frames that have hordes of zombies we’ve seen an increase of 17-25%
2. Counter-Strike GO: 16-20%
3. Lightsmark increased on a GT2 by 60% (HD4600) 4770
That is without using their Glassy Mesa technology which could give even more gains. Those are some seriously impressive performance improvements even without it though.
Of course for everyone to benefit from it all this has to be included in the graphics drivers included with distributions, but even if the people in charge of the mainline don't approve it I'm sure Valve will create their own packages for SteamOS. Let's hope a patch is made so that all Intel users can benefit from the findings.
See their full blog post on it here.
For those that don't know: Valve have given LunarG funding to see if they can improve the Mesa driver using their own "LunarGLASS" technology. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some important gains have been made thanks to their work:
1. Left4Dead2 with frames that have hordes of zombies we’ve seen an increase of 17-25%
2. Counter-Strike GO: 16-20%
3. Lightsmark increased on a GT2 by 60% (HD4600) 4770
That is without using their Glassy Mesa technology which could give even more gains. Those are some seriously impressive performance improvements even without it though.
QuoteThe Intel DRM driver in Linux is the place to set this bit correctly, so a kernel patch is needed in order to see the base bottle neck addressed, then you can get yourself a GlassyMesa driver and see the improvements, too.
Of course for everyone to benefit from it all this has to be included in the graphics drivers included with distributions, but even if the people in charge of the mainline don't approve it I'm sure Valve will create their own packages for SteamOS. Let's hope a patch is made so that all Intel users can benefit from the findings.
See their full blog post on it here.
For those that don't know: Valve have given LunarG funding to see if they can improve the Mesa driver using their own "LunarGLASS" technology. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I read this earlier today. I'm struggling to direct my love towards a) Valve for funding them OR b) LunarG for bringing such awesome driver improvements to Linux. I think I'll need to ponder this some more...
I have an Nvidia card, but Intel Mesa drivers on my laptop are fast becoming a favourite. Having an open source driver makes a huge difference in terms of quality of integration and general out-of-the-box usability.
I have an Nvidia card, but Intel Mesa drivers on my laptop are fast becoming a favourite. Having an open source driver makes a huge difference in terms of quality of integration and general out-of-the-box usability.
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I love to see this as well, maybe my next laptop will actually be decent at playing games!
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Quoting: drmothI have an Nvidia card, but Intel Mesa drivers on my laptop are fast becoming a favourite. Having an open source driver makes a huge difference in terms of quality of integration and general out-of-the-box usability.
With Intel's work on stuff like LunarGLASS and AMD now backing a more unified driver strategy on Linux things should also only get better for the FOSS drivers in the future.
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Quoting: drmothI read this earlier today. I'm struggling to direct my love towards a) Valve for funding them OR b) LunarG for bringing such awesome driver improvements to Linux. I think I'll need to ponder this some more...
I have an Nvidia card, but Intel Mesa drivers on my laptop are fast becoming a favourite. Having an open source driver makes a huge difference in terms of quality of integration and general out-of-the-box usability.
It's making life particularly delightful for me. I have an Nvidia Quadro K2100M, which I used to use exclusively, with Optimus disabled, for performance reasons. Since then, bumblebee and libgl-switcheroo have entered my life, and the Intel driver just keeps getting better and better as well! If AMD genuinely does manage to get their Linux driver sorted, I can switch one of those in later, as well! Hate to sound like I'm crowing, but it's a great time to be a Linux advocate and gamer!
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