Trisquel 5.5 - Gaming benchmarks and some conclusions
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Hi all,
after some successfull tests with Trisquel 5.5 on my Windows gaming box I decided to run a few more benchmarks using the Phoronix Testing suite.
My gaming system is rather old and really nothing special. I guess feature-wise the 9800GT is pretty identical to the GeForce 9500GT Chris sells (https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/geforce-9500gt-1gb-pci-express-20-video-card-gnulinux). Only with a bit faster performance.
Here are the specs (although they are visible at the top of each tests):
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (2x2.7GHz)
- 4 GB DDR2 RAM
- ALiveXFire-eSATA2 motherboard
- Galaxy nVidia Geforce 9800 GT 512
- Realtek-based PCIe 1GB NIC (since my mainboard NIC requires non-free firmware)
- Trisquel 5.5 x64 is installed on a 16 GB USB stick with 60GB home stored as file on the NTFS partition
Here are the AMD Athlon X2 5200+ Benches:
Xonotic:
http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204212-BY-TRISQUEL546
Free games:
http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204208-BY-TRISQUELG90
Urban Terror:
http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204243-BY-TRISQUELU98
Tremulous:
http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204248-BY-TREMULUSA49
I also run a few tests on my old Shuttle Barebone (SN41G) which sports a GeForce 4 Ti 4400, an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ and 1GB of RAM. Here are the values for Nexuiz which is somewhat the ancestor of Xonotic:
http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204221-BY-NEXUIZALL74
Well, beside really mediocre performance the GF4 behaves as expected. It is still fine for playing games such as Red Eclipse or OpenArena. More demanding games will not do very fine. This might be partially caused by the fact that Noveau is a lot slower than the propritary NVidia blob and partially by the fact that OpenGL functionality is still not fully available with Noveau. I did not test but would expect that you are able to run Quake-based games pretty much without issues on older hardware (GF4-7XXX). All this is not bad at all since users with old hardware have at least an option at all to play 3D games when NVidia decides to drop support for Legacy cards, although NVidia supports much older cards than ATI does.
Beside all those open-source games I also tested several non-free games. I like to play several mods together with the darksplaces engine (e.g. SDQuake or Kleshik) and they do great with the Noveau included with Trisquel 5.5. Dungeons of Dredmore worked fine but this is no surprise since it does not use any 3D acceleration. Emulation-wise I tested several games under WINE with limited success. Unreal Tournament 99 and Unreal Tournament 2k4 didn't run. They both closed directly after being launched with some strange error messages. I bet testing them natively wouldn't change anything. For comparison: The open-source radeon driver was capable to play UT2k4 fine on a HD4670 about 2 years agon under arch. The native Ryzom client worked fine so far. Torchlight crashed under WINE while it normally runs fine with the propritary driver.
Diablo II under Wine with D3D emmulation worked fine and without visible issues. At least the 20 minutes I tried it.
All Unigine-related benchmarks (e.g. Heaven) crashed without error message. I have several other commercial games which I could test on Trisquel. Most of them as native Linux version (Shadowground Survivors, Trine, Penumbra Triology, Amnesia and so on).
I know that those games are non-free but in the end it might be a positive argument to convince someone to use Trisquel if he knows that his beloved game XY works fine under Trisquel. For me this release of Trisquel has changed a lot. Especially since I know now that I am able to play most of my favourite games under Linux using completely free software.
Regards,
Holger
P.S.: I also have an AMD E-350 system which has a GeForce 9500GT pretty identical to the one which Chris sells. If this is of interest I could set up another benchmark session may be this Weekend.
P.P.S.: Those of you who consider buying an Intel HD4000-based motherboard IMO should strongly re-evaluate this. Especially since the performance of the HD4000 is just able to compete with the AMD HD6550. In other words: Most GPUs at cards ~50€ can easily compete with the HD4000. I would save a few bucks by buying an AMD-based multicore system and invest in a newer NVidia card rather than going the Intel route with any Ivy Bridge mobo.
Hi all,
I find it interesting that no-one replied to my initial mail/posting. Anyway, seems not to be much interest in the general gaming performance of Trisquel with free games on free drivers. The latest Phoronix benchmarks confirmed my estimation that even a dog old card like my GF9800GT can cope with the Ivy bridge motherboards. For me this is good news since performance-wise there is an alternative to Intel-based systems by buying cheaper AMD multicore systems with a dedicated NVidia card and still have a good user experience.
@Chris: If it helps I can re-run a set of benchmarks with free games on my E350-based system with a GeForce 9500GT. I guess the results are comparable with the card you sell. My system has a fairly slow dual core though (2x1.6GHz) which would slow down the results for games being CPU-limited. I do not know what you think but I guess a few benchmark values combined with links to the corresponding games would be very nice on your website. Something like: Sucessfully tested with Red Eclipse (Runs at XX FPS with system specs provided) and a small link to the projekts homepage.
If no-one has further interest in any benchmark values I have fulfilled my mission to test the Noveau performance on the latest linux-libre kernel. dynebolic will has good 3D acceleration then as well :)
Have a nice weekend,
Holger
I am a member!
I haven't had the chance to read this (and still have not) :) although am
very interested. Will probably do some time later today or tomorrow.
I am a member!
I'll comment on this. I wouldn't write off the Intel HD so quickly. While it only compares performance wise in relation to 3d acceleration to older or lower end NVidia cards there are some advantages to it over NVidia still. From being less power hungry (good for laptop users) to accelerated video support (good for those who do more than just game).
Looking at it from a wider perspective and in particular one of free software it doesn't seem to stack up as badly as you make it sound. There will also be performance improvements going forward as the driver improves so while some of these games don't work today they very well could work tomorrow. The difference between the NVidia blob and Noveau are significant.
What I would be interested in is what games will you potentially be able to play in the future. A good way to test this is using the NVidia blob with free software games.
Most of the gaming world also isn't on the latest and greatest either so your casual gamer would potentially be satisfied by even an Intel HD graphics chipset or a low end / "antiquated" NVidia 3d accelerated capable chipset.
As far as money goes I'd still buy a system with a less powerful Intel graphics chipset over a poorly supported NVidia chipset.
All this said I would like to see people testing free software games with the Noveau driver. It isn't desirable to get a 3d accelerated card and then not know what games will work. This will ultimately lead to disappointment.
I'm pretty sure if there was a solid list of games people could easily play (without having to test anything) then there would be greater value in this card.
One last comment on the AMD powered systems. I'm not a fan of these systems because they are hostile to free software. You generally can't get an AMD CPU without ATI graphics except on maybe the high end. In that situation you are forced to go with a low end NVidia graphics card. The better option is with an Intel CPU and graphics chipset. AMD and Intel like to tie graphics chipsets to their processors and this is where the problem is for us releasing an AMD CPU based system. While I'm all for rooting for AMD I don't feel AMD has done anything more than put up a false front in terms of supporting free software. They announced the release of specifications and then didn't supply ample information for a free solution. A wrapper around a non-free component isn't sufficient. If they were to fully release the specifications for ATI graphics chipsets then we would offer such hardware. Until then though it is not an acceptable position.
Anyway. Thanks for the information. If you have time to test additional games I think that is of more value than benchmarks to the free software community. The benchmarks will ultimately change with time anyway and likely be discouraging to those in the future who come across them. Despite that we think everybody is better off using only free software users who find the Noveau driver unacceptably slow and are unwilling to let go of non-free software completely can always load the NVidia driver. We aren't supporting that although it is available (at least to those using distributions which have the non-free blob available).
Chris,
I know that you speak from the standpoint of a person which tries to sell the most stable hardware providing the best experience with Trisquel.
Thus Intel-based hardware with open-source drivers from the manufacturer are a valid option.
But with Noveau and my rusty 9800GT we have to be fair. Michael used one of the top end CPUs of Intel (I7 3770K) for the reference benchmarks.
This CPU alone costs ~ 320€ (at least here in Germany). A typical Ivy Bridge motherboard will start at ~ 100€.
Now please compare this to my system specs (AMD Dualcore with 2x2.7GHz / 4GB RAM). A typical AMD X2 with 2x3GHz sells now for around 50€. Add a typical ASRock/ASUS/MSI value mainboard to this for 50€ plus a dual channel 8GB DDR3 kit for around 30€ and you are set. As indicated 9800GT are sold with super silent replacement coolers (e.g. Zalman VF900) for ~20€ including shipment at the bay.
So even if this is a bit unfair (used hardware plus cheap components) we have a fully ready system for around 150€.
Now lets have a look down at my benches:
http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204212-BY-TRISQUEL546
Xonotic runs at ultimate quality in 1280x1024 with around 40 FPS. At lower details (effect quality high) it runs at 65 FPS. All this with a stock installation of Trisquel 5.5 and the included noveau. No driver tweaking or installation of bleeding edge Noveau drivers but all Vanilla Trisquel.
Now lets look at Michaels benches with Xonotic in high details:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_ivy_gpushow&num=5
The 9800GT runs at 1080p with 55 FPS which is explainable because the fillrate needs to be much higher than with my 1280x1024. If a card like mine "represents the crippled child" of the NVidia family when running with Noveau and still can compete with a > 400€ CPU / mobo combo then I am happy with this cripple :)
>One last comment on the AMD powered systems. I'm not a fan of these systems
>because they are hostile to free software. You generally can't get an AMD CPU
>without ATI graphics except on maybe the high end.
Speaking frankly love to free software does not fill my wallet. If you are on a budget a PC system based on AMD with ATI or NVidia GPU will almost always be a few bucks cheaper than the Intel counterpart.
And you always get an AMD system free from AMD integrated graphics. Simply checkout the standard X2, X3, X4 and X6 CPUs. As shown above they mostly go by at a lower price tag. I write this not to de-value Intel-based systems or sound like an AMD fanboy but to highlight the alternatives to Intel-only systems when running Trisquel.
I will do some Xonotic benches on my AMD E350-based system with the NVidia 9500GT and check how this turns out.
Regards,
Holger
Chris,
I know that you speak from the standpoint of a person which tries to sell the
most stable hardware providing the best experience with Trisquel.
Thus Intel-based hardware with open-source drivers from the manufacturer are
a valid option.
But with Noveau and my rusty 9800GT we have to be fair. Michael used one of
the top end CPUs of Intel (I7 3770K) for the reference benchmarks.
This CPU alone costs ~ 320€ (at least here in Germany). A typical Ivy
Bridge motherboard will start at ~ 100€.
Now please compare this to my system specs (AMD Dualcore with 2x2.7GHz / 4GB
RAM). A typical AMD X2 with 2x3GHz sells now for around 50€. Add a typical
ASRock/ASUS/MSI value mainboard to this for 50€ plus a dual channel 8GB
DDR3 kit for around 30€ and you are set. As indicated 9800GT are sold with
super silent replacement coolers (e.g. Zalman VF900) for ~20€ including
shipment at the bay.
So even if this is a bit unfair (used hardware plus cheap components) we have
a fully ready system for around 150€.
Now lets have a look down at my benches:
http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1204212-BY-TRISQUEL546
Xonotic runs at ultimate quality in 1280x1024 with around 40 FPS. At lower
details (effect quality high) it runs at 65 FPS. All this with a stock
installation of Trisquel 5.5 and the included noveau. No driver tweaking or
installation of bleeding edge Noveau drivers but all Vanilla Trisquel.
Now lets look at Michaels benches with Xonotic in high details:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_ivy_gpushow&num=5
The 9800GT runs at 1080p with 55 FPS which is explainable because the
fillrate needs to be much higher than with my 1280x1024. If a card like mine
"represents the crippled child" of the NVidia family when running with Noveau
and still can compete with a > 400€ CPU / mobo combo then I am happy with
this cripple :)
>One last comment on the AMD powered systems. I'm not a fan of these systems
>because they are hostile to free software. You generally can't get an AMD
CPU
>without ATI graphics except on maybe the high end.
Speaking frankly love to free software does not fill my wallet. If you are on
a budget a PC system based on AMD with ATI or NVidia GPU will almost always
be a few bucks cheaper than the Intel counterpart.
And you always get an AMD system free from AMD integrated graphics. Simply
checkout the standard X2, X3, X4 and X6 CPUs. As shown above they mostly go
by at a lower price tag. I write this not to de-value Intel-based systems or
sound like an AMD fanboy but to highlight the alternatives to Intel-only
systems when running Trisquel.
I will do some Xonotic benches on my AMD E350-based system with the NVidia
9500GT and check how this turns out.
Regards,
Holger
Here is a recent comparison of Intel HD 4000 (Ivy Bridge) integrated graphics
with five(5) AMD Radeon and three(3) NVIDIA GeForce (including 9500GT)
graphic cards, using ONLY free/libre drivers, if someone is interested:
I am a member!
Some things to point out and the reasons behind the decisions (* this is
mainly pointing out the benefits and there is one or two counter points like
with power on one card while non-idle being slightly more efficient):
Here are some quotes from the review I'd like to point out:
"it took these higher-end Radeon HD graphics cards on AMD's open-source
driver in order to compete with Intel's open-source driver and their latest
integrated graphics."
"The Nouveau graphics cards could not be tested since with this driver and
Ubuntu 12.04's X.Org Server, Nexuiz does not run"
In addition one reason the 9500GT is better right now than the 9800GT:
"With the Nouveau re-clocking the card was unstable at the factory-rated
state, so it had to be tested at its boot frequencies of 399MHz for the core
and 399MHz for the video memory. As a result when running under Nouveau the
GeForce 9800GT performance is severely hampered" and "So the 9800GT in this
card represents the crippled child".
9500GT:
"The first NVIDIA graphics card being tested is the GeForce 9500GT. This G96
graphics processor from 2008 is well supported under the Nouveau driver. In
fact, recent testing has revealed that for some OpenGL workloads it offers
performance comparable to the binary driver."
When comparing ATI to Intel:
"it took these higher-end Radeon HD graphics cards on AMD's open-source
driver in order to compete with Intel's open-source driver"
The Intel graphics chipset was also the most efficient chipset using just 40
watts when idle in this review. In some instances "Ivy Bridge graphics being
more than twice as efficient" (than the low end Radeon HD 6450).
"The open-source Nouveau and Radeon drivers still lack good power management
support."
Conclusion:
"Overall the Intel Core i7 3770K "Ivy Bridge" HD 4000 graphics performance
was very competitive with its Mesa DRI driver compared to the tested AMD
Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce hardware on their open-source Gallium3D drivers."
"when it comes to those interested in open-source GPU drivers, Intel is
largely leading now with Ivy Bridge. "
and
"Besides very good performance and power efficiency compared to the discrete
Radeon and GeForce graphics cards on open-source drivers, the open-source
Intel Linux driver does offer VA-API video encode/decode acceleration"
I am a member!
I haven't had the chance to read this (and still have not) :) although am very interested. Will probably do some time later today or tomorrow.
...
ok. I read it now.
Here is a recent comparison of Intel HD 4000 (Ivy Bridge) integrated graphics with five(5) AMD Radeon and three(3) NVIDIA GeForce (including 9500GT) graphic cards, using ONLY free/libre drivers, if someone is interested:
I am a member!
Some things to point out and the reasons behind the decisions (* this is mainly pointing out select quotes of the benefits and there is one or two counter points like with power on one card while non-idle being slightly more efficient than another):
Here are some quotes from the review I'd like to point out about Intel vs the competition currently being very competitive and ideal for those willing to replace a motherboard:
"it took these higher-end Radeon HD graphics cards on AMD's open-source driver in order to compete with Intel's open-source driver and their latest integrated graphics."
"The Nouveau graphics cards could not be tested since with this driver and Ubuntu 12.04's X.Org Server, Nexuiz does not run"
In addition one reason the 9500GT is a better choice right now than the 9800GT:
"With the Nouveau re-clocking the card was unstable at the factory-rated state, so it had to be tested at its boot frequencies of 399MHz for the core and 399MHz for the video memory. As a result when running under Nouveau the GeForce 9800GT performance is severely hampered" and "So the 9800GT in this card represents the crippled child".
9500GT:
"The first NVIDIA graphics card being tested is the GeForce 9500GT. This G96 graphics processor from 2008 is well supported under the Nouveau driver. In fact, recent testing has revealed that for some OpenGL workloads it offers performance comparable to the binary driver."
When comparing ATI (open source driver wraps around non-free component though) to Intel:
"it took these higher-end Radeon HD graphics cards on AMD's open-source driver in order to compete with Intel's open-source driver"
The Intel graphics chipset was also the most efficient chipset using just 40 watts when idle in this review. In some instances "Ivy Bridge graphics being more than twice as efficient" (than the low end Radeon HD 6450).
"The open-source Nouveau and Radeon drivers still lack good power management support."
Conclusion:
"Overall the Intel Core i7 3770K "Ivy Bridge" HD 4000 graphics performance was very competitive with its Mesa DRI driver compared to the tested AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce hardware on their open-source Gallium3D drivers."
"when it comes to those interested in open-source GPU drivers, Intel is largely leading now with Ivy Bridge. "
and
"Besides very good performance and power efficiency compared to the discrete Radeon and GeForce graphics cards on open-source drivers, the open-source Intel Linux driver does offer VA-API video encode/decode acceleration"
So... if you want to upgrade your system the 9500GT is a good choice with out of the box support.
If you are buying a new system going with an Intel graphics chipset is a smart move. In fact he described it as being for more than just casual gamers. It has a number of benefits from video acceleration to good overall performance when compared to NVidia/ATI. Not to mention it won't kill your battery on a laptop like NVidia/ATI will.
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