Linux Gaming: Native vs. Wine vs. Windows 7 Performance

[devius]

It's not the only thing, but it is a big piece of the puzzle.

The other much bigger piece, that makes every other piece undistinguishable to the naked eye, being the fact that almost every single personal computer(*) bought in the last 18 years (or so) comes with windows pre-installed and there is no choice of not having it installed.

(*) except the ones from apple; oh wait, those aren't PCs, but Macs.... my bad.

[mjung]

Patches against pts_Graph and graph-config.xml welcome by your or others that improve the color scheme or make any other visual improvements... http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/

Thanks for replying. I sent them a message just now. Unfortunately I can not help with the coding. But I wondered if colours in that test suite would be freely configurable?

So long
Fundi

[Dukenukemx]

These are the benchmarks I like to see. Only complaint is that I didn't get to see any games that used Direct3d. Windows usually does better with D3D, while Wine does horrible with D3D.

[Licaon]

(*) except the ones from apple; oh wait, those aren't PCs, but Macs.... my bad.

you do realise they use off the shelf Intel/AMD/nVidia components in Mac now, right?

[deanjo]

The other much bigger piece, that makes every other piece undistinguishable to the naked eye, being the fact that almost every single personal computer(*) bought in the last 18 years (or so) comes with windows pre-installed and there is no choice of not having it installed.

(*) except the ones from apple; oh wait, those aren't PCs, but Macs.... my bad.

No, not even close. Other big factors stopping mass adoption is fragmentation among the distros, lack of specialty apps (if there is one you are usually limited to 1 or 2 choices that are usually pretty rough), having to still revert to command line for some pretty basic stuff not needed in other systems, lack of a stable base libraries (meaning distro A uses this version of libraries and distro B uses these versions) and of course tons of marketing.

[Michael]

Thanks for replying. I sent them a message just now. Unfortunately I can not help with the coding. But I wondered if colours in that test suite would be freely configurable?

So long
Fundi

Yep, and that e-mail simply ends with me again.... There is no coding necessary. The graph colors are stored in ~/.phoronix-test-suite/graph-config.xml. See the documentation.

[Svartalf]

No, not even close. Other big factors stopping mass adoption is fragmentation among the distros, lack of specialty apps (if there is one you are usually limited to 1 or 2 choices that are usually pretty rough), having to still revert to command line for some pretty basic stuff not needed in other systems, lack of a stable base libraries (meaning distro A uses this version of libraries and distro B uses these versions) and of course tons of marketing.

Fragmentation's more FUD than anything else. I'll give you the lack of specialty apps- but that's a critical mass sort of thing. (There didn't use to be "specialty apps" on Windows either...they kind of tended to be DOS affairs or UNIX ones back before they started making them for Windows...) Having to revert to command line? Example, please? And Windows is any better on "stable base libraries"? (Do note that you've got XP, XP+SP1, XP+SP2, XP+SP3 to contend with for XP alone without anyone else yanking those base libraries around (DLL Hell is what the Windows crowd calls it...) And I'll give you the marketing remark...I'd have to wholly agree with that one.

[deanjo]

Fragmentation's more FUD than anything else.

It isn't FUD, it's fact. You have a bunch of distro's that all require their own unique tweaks and tricks to do what should be a simple task. Even something as simple as how to install an application requires different steps for different disto's. You also have multiple projects that are overlapping or trying to replace each others efforts to find a solution to an issue. This does fragment the knowledge of how to get something done and it also fragments the talent pool of developers.

I'll give you the lack of specialty apps- but that's a critical mass sort of thing.
(There didn't use to be "specialty apps" on Windows either...they kind of tended to be DOS affairs or UNIX ones back before they started making them for Windows...)

The kind of specialty apps that I'm referring to isn't really considered all that much a specialty anymore in windows. Media creation applications , financial software CADs (even simple cads like home and yard design CADs) are examples of higher use apps but then there are also simple little applications such as crap like lottery analysis applications, lightscribe apps, educations apps.

Having to revert to command line? Example, please?

How many v4l commands you want? How many x-server examples do you want? There are quite literally hundreds of tasks that do not have a gui in linux but those same tasks are easily handled in other OS's from the comfort of a desktop.

And Windows is any better on "stable base libraries"? (Do note that you've got XP, XP+SP1, XP+SP2, XP+SP3 to contend with for XP alone without anyone else yanking those base libraries around (DLL Hell is what the Windows crowd calls it...)

Yes windows does have DLL hell but MS is also very diligent with their compatibility packs as are the independent 3rd party software vendors. Personally, I maybe come across a missing DLL issue once maybe every year. In linux land you come across too many projects where the projects only test against their distro of preference and if you deviate from that they are of little help to the person having the issue. I'll just use XBMC for example. Unless you are using Ubuntu the official reply is "Does it work on Ubuntu 32-bit?" Hell for the longest time if you tried to compile it even for 64-bit you would get "What do you need 64-bit for, install 32-bit?"

[yogi_berra]

Having to revert to command line? Example, please?

Sharing printers on the network with CUPS. ESR's Aunt Tilly is still shit out of luck in Linux land.

The rest of the planet can just slap a driver disk into each computer, add their wireless key and go, Linux users are still left editing /etc/*.conf files for simple every day tasks.

[yogi_berra]

Fragmentation's more FUD than anything else.

As an added bonus example of how wrong this statement of yours is: install the "World of Goo" from indie bundle 2 on CentOS 5.5.