In the first R7 370 article I did I mentioned Gallium Nine, a project which brings DirectX 9 support directly into the open source drivers which use the Gallium framework. That includes all the newer AMD open source drivers (R600, RadeonSI and AMDGPU) and Nouveau. What that project has been aiming to do is to reduce the overhead of Wine by taking out the DirectX → OpenGL translation layer. I observed some great performance benefits and noted them in that article.
I have been hesitant to release further test results because I consider buying Windows games to be potentially harmful to Linux gaming as a whole. You might have seen my article on harmful buying habits where I mentioned the topic of buying early. I still stand behind my words and I recommend that you take a look at that article if you haven't done so in the past. I want to preface the following tests by warning you that Wine gaming, despite the arguments of some, is not beneficial to native Linux gaming and I would advice against buying new Windows games. It's practically impossible to say if (insert awesome game here) is going to come to Linux in the future and if you decide to buy it now your money quite possibly isn't going to the people that brought the game to Linux.
So, now that we have settled that matter, let's get on with the testing. My Wine selection is a little bit limited so decided to use two Source games we already have natively, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Team Fortress 2, and two games that haven't been released on Linux, Far Cry 2 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I had planned to use other games to test but, because Wine is Wine, those plans were met with crashes of epic scale, registry hack requirements and compatibility problems.
Let's start with the Source games. The Wine version used in these tests was 1.7.55 and on RadeonSI and Nouveau Mesa-git from Oibaf was used because of its Gallium Nine compatibility. The Nvidia proprietary driver used is 355.15 and the AMD driver used is Crimson 15.12.
In my opinion, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast demonstrates the problems of Wine quite well. Crimson, RadeonSI and even the mighty Nvidia blob performed more or less on the same level without Gallium Nine. I imagine this could be because of the DX → GL translation, which is often imperfect. When Nine was enabled, RadeonSI very quickly jumped ahead and saw a 57% performance increase to stock RadeonSI and a 42% improvement to the Nvidia proprietary driver. Nouveau refused to run the game with Gallium Nine and the performance without Nine was simply bad.
In TF2 the situation was slightly different. The performance wasn't that great to begin with and quite surprisingly RadeonSI jumped ahead of Crimson, though not by a huge margin. Gallium Nine showed an improvement but the Nvidia blob still came ahead in the end. Nouveau was having a bad time once again.
Far Cry 2 is one of those games where Gallium Nine seems to steal the show. Both proprietary drivers had trouble with the game and RadeonSI and Nouveau didn't do much better. However, Gallium Nine brought even Nouveau ahead of the Nvidia blob and on RadeonSI the game ran at a very acceptable 60 FPS.
Skyrim is a very similar tale to Fallout 3. Once again, the game was struggling on all drivers, though the Nvidia blob was able to force itself ahead of other drivers. However, when Nine was activated on RadeonSI the R7 370 simply crushed other drivers by effectively doubling the Nvidia performance. On Nouveau Gallium Nine had next to no effect on the performance.
So, that's it for Wine/Gallium Nine results. These results pretty much verify what I said about Gallium Nine before. Multiple games see a performance boost with Gallium Nine and often that boost is big enough to outrun or at least reach the closed source drivers. If you want to have the optimal Wine experience, Gallium Nine can definitely deliver it. Do note that Gallium Nine is still being developed and it doesn't like some games too much. I have seen system freezes and graphical glitches with Gallium Nine in various games, though I have also noticed cases where graphical glitches have been fixed by running the game on Gallium Nine. All in all, Gallium Nine is very cool but don't expect any more miracles than you have already seen. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I have been hesitant to release further test results because I consider buying Windows games to be potentially harmful to Linux gaming as a whole. You might have seen my article on harmful buying habits where I mentioned the topic of buying early. I still stand behind my words and I recommend that you take a look at that article if you haven't done so in the past. I want to preface the following tests by warning you that Wine gaming, despite the arguments of some, is not beneficial to native Linux gaming and I would advice against buying new Windows games. It's practically impossible to say if (insert awesome game here) is going to come to Linux in the future and if you decide to buy it now your money quite possibly isn't going to the people that brought the game to Linux.
So, now that we have settled that matter, let's get on with the testing. My Wine selection is a little bit limited so decided to use two Source games we already have natively, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Team Fortress 2, and two games that haven't been released on Linux, Far Cry 2 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I had planned to use other games to test but, because Wine is Wine, those plans were met with crashes of epic scale, registry hack requirements and compatibility problems.
Let's start with the Source games. The Wine version used in these tests was 1.7.55 and on RadeonSI and Nouveau Mesa-git from Oibaf was used because of its Gallium Nine compatibility. The Nvidia proprietary driver used is 355.15 and the AMD driver used is Crimson 15.12.
In my opinion, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast demonstrates the problems of Wine quite well. Crimson, RadeonSI and even the mighty Nvidia blob performed more or less on the same level without Gallium Nine. I imagine this could be because of the DX → GL translation, which is often imperfect. When Nine was enabled, RadeonSI very quickly jumped ahead and saw a 57% performance increase to stock RadeonSI and a 42% improvement to the Nvidia proprietary driver. Nouveau refused to run the game with Gallium Nine and the performance without Nine was simply bad.
In TF2 the situation was slightly different. The performance wasn't that great to begin with and quite surprisingly RadeonSI jumped ahead of Crimson, though not by a huge margin. Gallium Nine showed an improvement but the Nvidia blob still came ahead in the end. Nouveau was having a bad time once again.
Far Cry 2 is one of those games where Gallium Nine seems to steal the show. Both proprietary drivers had trouble with the game and RadeonSI and Nouveau didn't do much better. However, Gallium Nine brought even Nouveau ahead of the Nvidia blob and on RadeonSI the game ran at a very acceptable 60 FPS.
Skyrim is a very similar tale to Fallout 3. Once again, the game was struggling on all drivers, though the Nvidia blob was able to force itself ahead of other drivers. However, when Nine was activated on RadeonSI the R7 370 simply crushed other drivers by effectively doubling the Nvidia performance. On Nouveau Gallium Nine had next to no effect on the performance.
So, that's it for Wine/Gallium Nine results. These results pretty much verify what I said about Gallium Nine before. Multiple games see a performance boost with Gallium Nine and often that boost is big enough to outrun or at least reach the closed source drivers. If you want to have the optimal Wine experience, Gallium Nine can definitely deliver it. Do note that Gallium Nine is still being developed and it doesn't like some games too much. I have seen system freezes and graphical glitches with Gallium Nine in various games, though I have also noticed cases where graphical glitches have been fixed by running the game on Gallium Nine. All in all, Gallium Nine is very cool but don't expect any more miracles than you have already seen. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I wonder how 1.7.55 Nine with RadeonSI would compare to 1.8 Staging w/ CSMT enabled and Catalyst 15.12 and Nvidia 355.11.
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A lot of those games are fairly old by now, and even The Talos Principle uses just OpenGL 2.1. Would be interesting to see more modern/recent releases that push GPUs harder, like GRID Autosport, Metro Last Light Redux, and such. I don't care about Wine since I don't buy Windows games.
That all being said, the AMD results are pretty good, especially since the 760 is a considerably better card, technically. http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R7-370-vs-GeForce-GTX-760#differences
That all being said, the AMD results are pretty good, especially since the 760 is a considerably better card, technically. http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R7-370-vs-GeForce-GTX-760#differences
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GustyGhost Dec 27, 2015
Quoting: GuestQuoting: adolsonpsychically-based rendering
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Segata Sanshiro Dec 27, 2015
These are pretty good numbers actually, considering the 760 is supposed to be a more powerful card anyway.
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Quoting: AnxiousInfusion...My thought exactly :-)
It's nice to see games starting to play fine on open source drivers. Especially what they did with gallium nine is really nice.
I would like to see some ports offering 9 as an option if available. Does someone knows if VP ports currently use 9 if available? (and if it is a DX 9 game)
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Quoting: MyeulCNine is only used by Wine at the moment and to do that you need a patched Wine version, vanilla Wine won't support it. I think that it's unlikely we will see any support beyond that.Quoting: AnxiousInfusion...My thought exactly :-)
It's nice to see games starting to play fine on open source drivers. Especially what they did with gallium nine is really nice.
I would like to see some ports offering 9 as an option if available. Does someone knows if VP ports currently use 9 if available? (and if it is a DX 9 game)
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Avehicle7887 Dec 27, 2015
Quoting: XaeroVincentI wonder how 1.7.55 Nine with RadeonSI would compare to 1.8 Staging w/ CSMT enabled and Catalyst 15.12 and Nvidia 355.11.
I know Skyrim can run much better on a 760 with CSMT on (as I run it that way on a 760 myself), I wonder what would the results be with RadeonSI + CSMT.
Last edited by Avehicle7887 on 27 December 2015 at 9:49 pm UTC
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Nice benchmarks. Hopefully we will see the same kind of advancement with Vulkan as we see with nine (thinking of the bad AMD OpenGL performance).
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FutureSuture Dec 28, 2015
Seems like AMD's advantages consist of having a capable open source driver and that very same open source driver boasting incontestable, superior performance in Wine with Gallium Nine the vast majority of the time, even overshadowing Nvidia's mighty proprietary driver considerably. Many thanks for these benchmarks, Samsai!
Many of us undoubtedly have games left from our Windows days which are unlikely to come to Linux, or some might even still have Windows around for that one game or two. Needless to say, this alleviates the problem significantly, and makes AMD worth recommending not just if one cares about open source software, but if they do a lot of gaming in Wine as well.
Many of us undoubtedly have games left from our Windows days which are unlikely to come to Linux, or some might even still have Windows around for that one game or two. Needless to say, this alleviates the problem significantly, and makes AMD worth recommending not just if one cares about open source software, but if they do a lot of gaming in Wine as well.
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Regarding The Talos Principle, Crimson and radeonsi being evenly matched would hint at a lack of game profile for the game. A bit like CS:GO a while ago, of all the Source engine games it was the only one that didn't share the same name for the executable binary. Renaming it to hl2 was a short term hack for a quick +50% boost.
Does TTP share the same engine as Serious Sam 3? The binary for the latter is called Sam3, and there is a Crimson profile for it. What's the name of the main launcher for TTP? Worth giving it a shot.
Does TTP share the same engine as Serious Sam 3? The binary for the latter is called Sam3, and there is a Crimson profile for it. What's the name of the main launcher for TTP? Worth giving it a shot.
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