Linux Gaming Performance: Are We There Yet?

02 Feb Linux Gaming Performance: Are We There Yet?

Game development on Linux has seen a number of twists especially following the coming of Vulkan graphics API.??This awesome graphics interface has made it possible for Linux game developers to come up with games that transcend game platforms. It a huge milestone in as far as enabling Linux developers to get close to replicating the performance of Windows games.

The graphics interface has been around since 2016 and is over 18 months old already. But, has the Linux gaming platform done enough to replicate the performance of most Windows games?

“Generally, most of the world???s most powerful and dominant games are found on the Windows platform.”

Generally, most of the world???s most powerful and dominant games are found on the Windows platform. They may only work on Linux when installed on emulators or the drivers that transform operating systems into native platforms. Therefore, Windows still attracts more gamers and developers than Linux. Windows games are able to perform better than their Linux counterparts. But, this has been changing over the years. In order for you to know how much change has occurred in as far as improving the performance of Linux games is concerned, it would be perfect to compare the two platforms as follows.

The comparison – which was done courtesy of Phoronix – will focus on the performance of two of the most popular games in the gaming world.

• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided; the game was released in 2016 August for Windows, while the Linux port for it was released 3 months later. Under Windows, the game features the renderer options Direct3D 11 and 12, while OpenGL is the only renderer on Linux. In as far as performance is concerned, Windows Direct3D 11 and 12 results delivered better results at 1080p compared to Linux???s OpenGL. While Windows performed at roughly 80%, Linux performance stood at 60%, showing a marked difference in performance between the two.
• GRID Autosport:??the game was released in 2014 for fanatics of racing games. Its Linux game port came on board in December the following year by Feral Interactive. It uses Direct3D on Windows and OpenGL on Linux. The game delivered playable frame rates on both platforms when played with minimum image quality settings with the GTX at 1060 and 1080 respectively. But, the results were disappointing on Linux in as far as speed was concerned. Increasing the game quality settings to ultra 4K only made things worse; Windows delivered above 60 FPS with the GTX 1060, while Linux delivered only 45 FPS with the GTX 1060.

These two comparisons clearly show that games on Linux platforms do not perform well. This applies to a number of indicators including speed, CPU usage, picture quality and graphics.