Ubuntu 13.04 Desktop Gaming Performance Comparison

[petermolnar]

I'd really like to see the performance of Gala, the coming-up mutter-inspired window manager of Elementary OS. It gives a good user experience but I'm really curious of the true capabilities.

[talvik]

Michael, clarify here in the forums: was KDE set to unredirect fullscreen windows or not? If so, great, then obviousl theres a regression. But If not then this entire article can be tossed out because the basic premise is "Window manager doesnt matter."

Like I really dont bash your articles much but you not setting that option from time to time is mine--and others-- biggest peeve with you because theres a certain line between "Keeping the defaults" and "common sense for benchmarking."

I disagree, sticking to the default is the most realistic test. What is 'unredirect fullscreen'?
Every benchmark someone says it's useless because: "Distro Y sucks, distro X wasn't tested", "gcc didn't A,B,C parameters", "kernel ....", "Testing version 3.5.71 is stupid", "Gosh, proper gaming is done with low latency real time kernel."....

Last time I saw a blog post by kwin dev about Phoronix benchmark. He thought the benchmark was useless, because it didn't use kwin with three different drawing back-ends and n other settings. If everyone had their way, each chart would have thousands of items.

[simongaiteiro]

I disagree, sticking to the default is the most realistic test. What is 'unredirect fullscreen'?
Every benchmark someone says it's useless because: "Distro Y sucks, distro X wasn't tested", "gcc didn't A,B,C parameters", "kernel ....", "Testing version 3.5.71 is stupid", "Gosh, proper gaming is done with low latency real time kernel."....

Last time I saw a blog post by kwin dev about Phoronix benchmark. He thought the benchmark was useless, because it didn't use kwin with three different drawing back-ends and n other settings. If everyone had their way, each chart would have thousands of items.

If you do gaming benchmarks, do them right.

These benchmarks are an absolute joke. What's the point of these? Have you got any conclusion at all? Do you even know the conditions these were done on?

I don't understand "sticking to the default is the most realistic test" either. What's the most realistic for you? Should all distros using openbox by default (as it appears to be the best for gaming)? AFAIK, in KDE you just have to press 'Shift+Alt+F12' to disable compositing or check the option 'Disable compositing in fullscreen' and do the tests on fullscreen.

[F i L]

I disagree, sticking to the default is the most realistic test. What is 'unredirect fullscreen'?
Every benchmark someone says it's useless because: "Distro Y sucks, distro X wasn't tested", "gcc didn't A,B,C parameters", "kernel ....", "Testing version 3.5.71 is stupid", "Gosh, proper gaming is done with low latency real time kernel."....

Last time I saw a blog post by kwin dev about Phoronix benchmark. He thought the benchmark was useless, because it didn't use kwin with three different drawing back-ends and n other settings. If everyone had their way, each chart would have thousands of items.

Even on Windows you have to manually install drivers to get good gaming performances. Mom/Grandma types aren't going to understand how to do that, but Gamers are. The same rules apply to Linux gamers really. If everywhere on forums/blogs/etc people are saying "check this setting in your DE for better game performance" then a lot of folks are going to do it.

[ElderSnake]

Benchmarks don't show anything hugely surprising; the lightest desktops/non-composited WM's will yield best performance.

I too am curious how KDE is used though and whether there is a regression. Either way shouldn't affect me too much, I just disable desktop effects before i play a game anyway since KDE makes it so easy to do (toggle with alt-shift-F12)

[dh04000]

What I notice about these tests is that excluding a few worst cases, even composition isn't as bad as it used to be to game. The DE and driver makes have really cleaned up thier work to prevent slow down alot and it shows.

[xpressrazor]

Link

Results of fgl_glxgears (5 sec)

Gnome Classic (without effect): 4540.2
Ubuntu Unity: 3935
Gnome Classic (with effect): 3881.6
KDE Plasma Workspace: 3776.8
Gnome: 3693.2
Cinnamon 3D: 3679.4
Ubuntu (Unity 2D): 1307
Cinnamon 2D: 1104

[Rexilion]

Ubuntu (Unity 2D): 1307
Cinnamon 2D: 1104

That's odd... Maybe because they use something fglrx doesn't support? wow...

[Cyborg16]

There were two things I got from those benchmarks: 1) light-weight desktops are in general slightly faster than heavyweights (but usually not more than about 20% which implies for casual games it may not be an issue), and 2) there are a few unusual cases like Prey on Unity where the slowdown is higher than expected.

Michael, you're benchmark articles tend to lack two things: 1) a conclusion (like the above, expanded a little but still short, at the end) and 2) a little speculative discussion on why, e.g. one of the first questions in the forums was:

Michael, clarify here in the forums: was KDE set to unredirect fullscreen windows or not?

Especially since this feature has to be selected manually but has a significant effect it's worth a quick mention.

[boast]

we need a universal call, like Windows has, for programs to be able to tell the WM to disable compositing when needed.