NVIDIA Resizable BAR Performance - A Big Boost For Some Linux Games

While under Linux the NVIDIA Resizable BAR support only benefits their Vulkan driver and not OpenGL, this does include Windows games on Linux being rendered by way of Direct3D over Vulkan with DXVK, i.e. modern D3D11 Windows games running within Valve's Steam Play (Proton).

DiRT Rally 2.0 was one of the Steam Play game titles benefiting from the Resizable BAR support on Linux during this initial round of testing with the GeForce RTX 3080. Depending upon the quality settings, the ReBAR mode enabled 6~10% higher performance.

When it comes to Linux-native games benefiting from Resizable BAR with NVIDIA, Total War: Three Kingdoms was the biggest beneficiary we have seen so far... Very nice improvements to the performance with "ReBar" enabled and no other system changes - 15% to 41% faster depending upon the resolution and quality settings.

That's the quick look for two of the games on Linux seemingly benefiting from NVIDIA's Resizable BAR support while additional tests are forthcoming and especially once having Resizable BAR support on more of the RTX 30 graphics cards with updated video BIOS. For most benchmark-friendly games tested so far under Linux the performance was largely flat but continuing to look at more titles especially Steam Play games.