Nouveau NVIDIA Driver Can Be Faster With Linux 3.8
While OpenArena 0.8.5 saw performance improvements when using the newest Linux 3.8 kernel code, with the newer OpenArena 0.8.8 release that makes greater use of modern OpenGL functionality, the performance was unchanged.
When running World of Padman, the properly clocked GeForce 9800GTX was the only test case where there was a measurable performance change between Linux 3.7 and 3.8.
With Reaction Quake 3, the GeForce 9800GTX also saw a performance improvement on the Linux 3.8 kernel while the 9800GT and GT 220 saw no performance changes for this OpenGL 2.1 game.