SteamOS Game Performance Inferior To Windows 10

[SteelCrysis]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/11/ar...os-gaming/
So much for "optimized for gaming".

Since Valve started publicly talking about its own Linux-powered "Steam Boxes" about three years ago now, we've wondered what kind of effect a new gaming-focused OS would have on overall PC gaming performance. On the one hand, Valve said back in 2012 that it was able to get substantial performance increases on an OpenGL-powered Linux port of Left 4 Dead 2. On the other hand, developers I talked to about SteamOS development earlier this year told me that the state of Linux's drivers, OpenGL tools, and game engines often made it hard to get Windows-level performance on SteamOS, especially if a game was built with DirectX in mind in the first place.

With this week's official launch of Valve's Linux-based Steam Machine line (for non-pre-orders), we decided to see if the new OS could stand up to the established Windows standard when running games on the same hardware. Unfortunately for open source gaming supporters, it looks like SteamOS gaming comes with a significant performance hit on a number of benchmarks.

...

While these are two AAA games ported to Linux by respected publishers, it's possible the developers simply weren't able to extract the best performance from the less familiar OpenGL and Linux environment. We figured that Valve's own games wouldn't have this problem; if anyone could get the maximum performance out of its Linux ports, it should be the company behind SteamOS itself.

Unfortunately, Valve's own Source engine games showed the same performance hit when compared to their Windows versions. Portal, Team Fortress 2, and DOTA 2 all took massive frame rate dips on SteamOS compared to their Windows counterparts; only Left 4 Dead 2 showed comparable performance between the two operating systems (though there's no sign of those SteamOS frame rate improvements Valve cited years ago).

We put Valve's new OS, controller, streaming box, and TV console to the test.
Since the Source engine games we tested were on the older side, the frame rate performance wasn't the difference between "playable" and "unplayable" in any case, even on maxed-out settings. For games like these, which don't push the upper limits of our hardware, most gamers wouldn't even notice the difference between the frame rates listed here. Still, it's not a good sign that Valve's own porting efforts generally couldn't get comparable, Windows-level performance out of a SteamOS version.

Testing six games on a single hardware set up is far from comprehensive, of course. Games built from the ground up with OpenGL and Linux in mind might be able to best their Windows counterparts; similar benchmarking by Phoronix showed Unbuntu 15.04 outclassing Windows 10 when running open source Quake clone OpenArena, for instance. Newer graphics hardware might be better suited to take advantage of high-end OpenGL features, though that new hardware is at least as likely to get more power out of Windows' prevalent DirectX standards as well. Upcoming games that support Microsoft's DirectX 12 and/or OpenGL's Vulkan standard could change the performance equation substantially, too.

All that said, right now, it seems that choosing SteamOS over a Windows box means sacrificing a significant amount of performance on many (if not most) graphically intensive 3D games. That's a pretty big cost to bear, considering that Alienware sells its Windows-powered, console-style Alpha boxes at prices that are only $50 cheaper than identically outfitted SteamOS machines. That's not to mention the fact that Steam on Windows currently has thousands of games that aren't on SteamOS—including most AAA recent releases—while SteamOS has no similar exclusives to recommend it over Windows.

Hopefully, Valve and other Linux developers can continue improving SteamOS performance to the point where high-end games can be expected to at least run comparably between Linux and Windows. Until then, though, it's hard to recommend a SteamOS box to anyone who wants to get the best graphical performance out of their PC hardware.

[ocre]

Thats pretty substantial.......massive in some cases.

I am really shocked!!!

[RolloTheGreat]

Direct X is pretty close "to the metal" as the Mantle folk found.

I admit, to my shame, that I was originally on the Mantle bandwagon and thought "Oh noes! This is the end of NVIDIA! All the games will be coded for Mantle because of the consoles!".

Reason being I'm freaking OLD (early 50s) and remember when GLIDE or OpenGL blew away the "bloat" of Direct X. MS hasn't sat still while I decayed though and DirectX is apparently tough to beat.

[ocre]

Actually, we were all fed a pack of lies. Mantle was portrayed as the code that the console would be using. It was not.

I honestly believe that AMD turned mantle over because they had no way to fund the project. Dice pulled a lot of weight on porting their game but there was no way that all developers would do this just because. Considering that AMD GPU volumes are so low compared to Nvidia, the thought that developers would invest their own money into mantle is pretty crazy. Then, I know this may sound bad but..... AMD being the value brand, their users consist of fewer big spenders than nvidia. This may not sound important but to developers who might consider dumping millions of dollars into a special feature that only props up AMD cards, they are gonna want some kind of return.

Most of the sites i visit, there is this huge number of proAMD champions out fighting the good fight for AMD. The strange things about these champions, at least to me: they rarely buy new AMD hardware, they dont buy many new games, etc. They dont purchase much themselves yet spend endless hours complaining about what others purchase. Seems to me many of them will wait till these games go in the bargain bin, if they buy them at all.

AMD never had the ability to fund porting all PC games to Mantle, heck they didnt even take the time to keep up with the games that already had mantle support. When new GCN cards launched, their mantle performance in games already out was lacking.

We were fed so many lies and half truths, yet you dont see many people out smearing AMD for this. It was super shady and dishonest, one could argue that their intent was to trick people into sales. And fast forward, we see this same behaviour, this same plan rehashed again. This time it is their Async campaign. They got a partner on board and are at it again. But really all these things do is ruin AMDs credibility. The Async campaign may have got AMD a couple sales but I would wager nothing like mantle did.........which btw, did very little to slow nvidia dominance. The past 24 months has been brutal for AMD in the GPU market. Nvidia has taken a tremendous amount of market share. People just dont seem to respond to AMDs red team nor to their campaigns. I would even suggest that some of these things are causing them to lose market share.

[RolloTheGreat]

AMDs "second best" rep has finally caught up to them.

It's my theory the Advocates/Team Red don't post their true rigs because it would show them as Advocates, and undermine their credibility.

I think some of them even have high end NVIDIA/intel rigs just to throw people off their foul stench.

[BoFox]

Actually, we were all fed a pack of lies.  Mantle was portrayed as the code that the console would be using.  It was not.  

I honestly believe that AMD turned mantle over because they had no way to fund the project.  Dice pulled a lot of weight on porting their game but there was no way that all developers would do this just because.  Considering that AMD GPU volumes are so low compared to Nvidia, the thought that developers would invest their own money into mantle is pretty crazy.  Then, I know this may sound bad but..... AMD being the value brand, their users consist of fewer big spenders than nvidia.  This may not sound important but to developers who might consider dumping millions of dollars into a special feature that only props up AMD cards, they are gonna want some kind of return.  

Most of the sites i visit, there is this huge number of proAMD champions out fighting the good fight for AMD.  The strange things about these champions, at least to me: they rarely buy new AMD hardware, they dont buy many new games, etc.   They dont purchase much themselves yet spend endless hours complaining about what others purchase.  Seems to me many of them will wait till these games go in the bargain bin, if they buy them at all.  

AMD never had the ability to fund porting all PC games to Mantle, heck they didnt even take the time to keep up with the games that already had mantle support.  When new GCN cards launched, their mantle performance in games already out was lacking.  

We were fed so many lies and half truths, yet you dont see many people out smearing AMD for this.  It was super shady and dishonest, one could argue that their intent was to trick people into sales.   And fast forward, we see this same behaviour, this same plan rehashed again.  This time it is their Async campaign.   They got a partner on board and are at it again.  But really all these things do is ruin AMDs credibility.  The Async campaign may have got AMD a couple sales but I would wager nothing like mantle did.........which btw, did very little to slow nvidia dominance.  The past 24 months has been brutal for AMD in the GPU market.  Nvidia has taken a tremendous amount of market share.  People just dont seem to respond to AMDs red team nor to their campaigns.  I would even suggest that some of these things are causing them to lose market share.

DX12 defeated the purpose of Mantle anyway.  AMD threw in the rag when M$ announced DX12 support for XBone. 

Good thing for AMD is that M$ optimized DX12 for AMD's GCN arch quite a bit while integrating Win10 with Xbone.  Good thing for all of us that M$ was really serious about DX12, trying to optimize the shit out of it to close as much of a gap as possible in between XBone and PS4.

LOL, oh how much did M$ regret going with a weaker GPU than Sony did for their PS4........  fruit of hard work is ripe and delicious for both AMD and Nvidia's flexible architectures, now that Win10 supports all the wiser management!