Intel SNB Linux Driver Can Out Run Windows Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel SNB Linux Driver Can Out Run Windows Driver

While last week we reported Intel Sandy Bridge graphics support is still troubling in Ubuntu 11.04 and also the support broke at the last minute in Linux 2.6.39, there's really good news to report this week from the Sandy Bridge Linux land. When using the very latest working Linux driver code, in many cases the OpenGL performance of this open-source driver stack is now faster than Intel's official Windows 7 driver.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=16024

[smitty3268]

such as S3TC texture compression support and other patented features that cannot be implemented in the open-source stack.

Correction - this is already implemented in the open-source stack, you just have to turn it on.

I'm not sure if this says more about the Intel Linux driver or the Intel Windows driver. But it's good news to have the hardware be competitive in Linux, I suppose, like the proprietary drivers do for ATI and NVidia hardware.

[FireBurn]

I'd really like to see some demo's compared on windows and again under wine to see if this is a fluke for "Linux Optimised" games or true for all graphics rendering

[d2kx]

Am I the only that, just seeing the first two screenshots of Windows 7 and Ubuntu on the first page, thinks that Windows visually looks like total crap in comparison to Ubuntu?

[Znurre]

Am I the only that, just seeing the first two screenshots of Windows 7 and Ubuntu on the first page, thinks that Windows visually looks like total crap in comparison to Ubuntu?

Personally I've always found Windows to look rather bad.
I never understood how people could find the new Windows 7 taskbar attractive, to me even the Windows Vista one looked better ^^

OnT: Interesting numbers, indeed.
For my next laptop I might go for a Sandy bridge/Ivy bridge solution instead of NVidia.

[JulianW]

The Intel Linux driver also lacks features such as Quick Sync Video, InTru 3D Technology, Intel Wireless Display, Intel Flexible Display Interface, and other technologies currently only found in their Windows driver.

That's beyond silly. The Linux driver obviously does support FDI.
(long story: Jesse's blog post)

[V!NCENT]

I guess that after all the bad publicity Intel realy had to do something to make up for it.

[Prescience500]

If they can make the Intel Linux driver completely better than the windows driver, maybe they'll be willing to devote their efforts toward converting to Gallium3d.

[V!NCENT]

Give Gallium some time. Intel had bad regresseion with TTM. They made it clear that they didn't want to make such a radical driver change again soon. They're probably working on it behind closed doors

[apholux]

Intel recently announced 15.22 driver (15.​22.​1.​2361/15.​22.​1.​64.​2361) with OpenGL3.1 support - was this version used to capture performance on Windows?