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TSR69
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 Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 18:59 Post subject: OpenGL outpaces DirectX, even under Windows |
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I guess this sub forum is the best place for it.
| Quote: | In a scary twist that reinforces Valve’s distaste for Windows 8, it turns out that the Source engine – the 3D engine that powers Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, and Dota 2 – runs faster on Ubuntu 12.04 and OpenGL than Windows 7 and DirectX/Direct3D.
The Valve Linux Team breaks it down on their shiny new blog: With an Nvidia GTX 680, Intel i7-3930k, and 32GB of RAM, Windows 7 and DirectX, Left 4 Dead 2 maxes out at 270.6 fps (frames per second). With the same hardware, but different software – Ubuntu 12.04 and OpenGL – Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2) scores 315 fps, almost 20 per cent faster than Windows.
These figures are remarkable, considering Valve has been refining the Source engine’s performance under Windows for almost 10 years, while the Valve Linux team has only been working on the Linux port of Source for just a few months. Valve attributes the speed-up to the “underlying efficiency of the [Linux] kernel and OpenGL.”
The Linux port of L4D2 didn’t start off at 315 fps, of course – the initial version actually maxed out at just 6 fps. To realise such a huge performance gain, a three-pronged approach is taken: The game is tweaked to play nicely with the Linux kernel, the game is optimised to work with OpenGL (rather than DirectX), and bugs in the Linux graphics drivers are addressed.
This last point is interesting. Valve has long-standing relationships with AMD, Nvidia, and Intel, where Valve reports driver bugs and the GPU maker fixes them in a timely fashion. Valve is carrying this relationship over to Linux, which is very important for the continued growth of Linux as a gaming platform. In this case, Valve says that the Nvidia Linux driver lacked multithreading support – and once they added it to a later version of the driver, performance increased.
But here’s the best bit: Using these new OpenGL optimisations, the OpenGL version of L4D2 on Windows is now faster than the DirectX version. With the same hardware, Windows 7/OpenGL/L4D2 clocks in at 303.4 fps – compared to Windows 7/DirectX/L4D2 at 270.6 fps. In short, OpenGL is faster than DirectX.
As to why OpenGL is faster than DirectX/Direct3D, the simple answer is that OpenGL seems to have a smoother, more efficient pipeline. At 303.4 fps, OpenGL is rendering a frame every 3.29 milliseconds; at 270.6 fps, DirectX is rendering a frame in 3.69 milliseconds. That 0.4 millisecond difference is down to how fast the DirectX pipeline can process and draw 3D data.
Why do we still use Direct3D?
If OpenGL is faster, why is DirectX still the predominant API? It isn’t because of image quality or features – OpenGL 4.0 has all of the shaders and tessellators and widgets that DX has. It isn’t because of hardware support – all Nvidia and AMD graphics cards support the latest version of OpenGL along with DirectX.
Really, it all comes down to that crummy old thing we call the network effect – and, of course, monopolistic heft and marketing dollars. DirectX, because it has a cleaner API and better documentation, is easier to learn. More developers using DirectX means more DirectX games, which in turn means better driver support. This is a vicious loop that again leads to yet more DX devs, more DX games, and still better DX drivers/tools/documentation. Microsoft has relentlessly marketed DirectX, too – and who can forget the release of Windows Vista and Microsoft’s OpenGL smear campaign? Vista’s bundled version of OpenGL was completely crippled, forcing many devs to switch to DirectX.
Microsoft has good reason to hamper the progress of OpenGL, of course: While DirectX is proprietary and only runs on Windows, Xbox and Windows Phone, OpenGL is completely cross-platform. There are solid OpenGL implementations for Mac, Linux, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and just about every modern smartphone (OpenGL ES). It’s obviously in Microsoft’s best interests to ensure that the best gaming experiences are exclusive to its platforms.
With Gabe Newell’s distaste for Windows 8 (and Blizzard echoing his sentiments), the imminent release of Steam on Linux, and the continued growth of smartphone games, we could be on the cusp of an OpenGL revolution. If the Windows gaming crown continues to slip, OpenGL might soon become the default API, rather than an afterthought. Very soon, it might be standard to develop a game that works well across every platform, rather than focusing on Direct3D and leaving Linux and OS X out in the cold.
Valve will be speaking about its Linux/OpenGL advancements at SIGGRAPH 2012 next week. SIGGRAPH is where we usually hear about the latest OpenGL and DirectX news, too – so stay tuned! |
http://www.itproportal.com/2012/08/03/valve-opengl-outpaces-directx-even-under-windows/
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 19:08 Post subject: |
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So let me get this straight, they optimize for OpenGL4, but compare with a DX9 version of the engine on Windows 7. Sounds legit, right there - sounds like this could be the year of the Linux desktop. 
Call me when OpenGL starts leading again in features instead of being bogged by committee after committee, trailing pathetically after DirectX. Call me when Linux drivers are not as pathetic as they are and are actually as stable and as usable as on Windows.
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garus
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 19:13 Post subject: |
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snip
Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:44; edited 1 time in total
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TSR69
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garus
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 19:16 Post subject: |
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snip
Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:44; edited 1 time in total
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 19:24 Post subject: |
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| iconized wrote: | @Leo: Man I used to play Heretic2/Doom2 back in the days using OpenGL and it looked a hell of a lot better than DirectX. Okay old news but I really disliked MS pushing one of their standards (not the only time it happened) and that killed OpenGL back then. I am all for open standards and not one company patented standards. But I know Leo you don't mind, you have apples these days.  |
What has one thing to do with another? Technically, OpenGL is an inferior product overall, to work with, performance, etc. Every subsequent release is merely a catch-up play on DirectX. You can hope all you want, or dislike as much as you want, this does not change facts. Until the retarded open source committees are disbanded and technological advancement is place as first priority (and drivers improve tenfold and the year of the Linux arrives and hell is found to exist and it freezes and god molests satan), OpenGL is a joke. Doesn't make Windows 8 any better, though. But Microsoft is Microsoft, it is only a minor setback.
And it is always proprietary that technology that leads. Back in the day, there was Glide by 3dfx, which was much superior to OpenGL and DirectX. I am a technology fan, not open source fan - these are merely politics for me, and I couldn't care less. |
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TSR69
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 19:34 Post subject: |
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OpenGl used to be superior until MS dropped support for it and started to push DirectX. This monopolistic approach is bad for competition and business and the end user in the end as well. I don't mind to see a change. And yes Linux stability sucks balls. I had a 3930k dedicated for DC some time ago, booting Linux from USB-stick. Used many distros and they all kept crashing. The solution is to use a rather old distro.
Edit: Btw these arguments have been made already in post garus linked so this topic can be locked I guess.
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 19:44 Post subject: c |
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Nothing really new. Its public knowledge that Microsoft has stalled development of its DirectX, so it doesn't compete with their console. But on other hand they are actively pushing its use through (in truth very well documented) XNA Developers Center.
It is nice to see some developers going after OpenGL again, but I really think even developers alone can't push it out as much as it is needed. Nether are we consumers the ones fighting this battle. Its between the big boys. OpenGL working members need to step up and actively start pushing it because Microsoft still has a lot of munition in their weapon.
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 19:58 Post subject: |
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| iconized wrote: | OpenGl used to be superior until MS dropped support for it and started to push DirectX. This monopolistic approach is bad for competition and business and the end user in the end as well. I don't mind to see a change. And yes Linux stability sucks balls. I had a 3930k dedicated for DC some time ago, booting Linux from USB-stick. Used many distros and they all kept crashing. The solution is to use a rather old distro.
Edit: Btw these arguments have been made already in post garus linked so this topic can be locked I guess. |
Microsoft stalled its development? You mean in Vista? Because OpenGL was dead in the gaming world way before that.
And you mock Apple, but believe it or not, Apple is OpenGL's biggest chance of some success outside of the dedicated market (consoles). As much as trolls here would wish otherwise, Apple has a much higher market-share among consumers than Linux (the year, the year ). And these consumers are discovering gaming through the app store. More and more games are ported and are selling well. How many games do you honestly (without lying to yourself) do you see ported to Linux, even with Steam there? Let's not kid ourselves, outside of Valve games and some technically simplistic indies, you will not see a major release there. Maybe 1 or 2, fueled by Valve. But nothing realistic. |
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garus
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 20:11 Post subject: |
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Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:44; edited 1 time in total
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 20:13 Post subject: |
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"outside of the dedicated market (consoles)" 
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 20:13 Post subject: |
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Last edited by paxsali on Thu, 4th Jul 2024 22:08; edited 2 times in total
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garus
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 20:14 Post subject: |
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snip
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 20:19 Post subject: |
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I wouldn't be so sure. Maybe the OpenGL code itself, but that is not that difficult. Porting from the PS3 would be hardest, I reckon, due to the odd CPU architecture and the various optimizations developers do for that system. Both 360 and PS3 are RISC, but the PS3 is different. So overall, porting the PS3 code wouldn't be as simple. And indeed, I think Feral, the major porting developer, is porting PC code.
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garus
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 20:21 Post subject: |
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snip
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 20:27 Post subject: |
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Last edited by paxsali on Thu, 4th Jul 2024 22:08; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 20:48 Post subject: |
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| LeoNatan wrote: | | I wouldn't be so sure. Maybe the OpenGL code itself, but that is not that difficult. Porting from the PS3 would be hardest, I reckon, due to the odd CPU architecture and the various optimizations developers do for that system. Both 360 and PS3 are RISC, but the PS3 is different. So overall, porting the PS3 code wouldn't be as simple. And indeed, I think Feral, the major porting developer, is porting PC code. |
There are several software layers above the hardware and no game developer codes in assembly nowadays. It's the quality of those wrapping layers, operating system and ultimately the compiler that matters, not the underlying architecture (RISC, CISC etc). Btw, border between RISC and CISC is now way more blurred than it was 20 years ago when those acronyms actually mattered when comparing CPU architectures.
Each of those platforms has some kind of operating system running between the hardware and applications. It's operating system's job to provide task scheduling, multithreading support, synchronization between cores, memory management etc. Application programers don't do that. The main problem with PS3 is that most programmers do not make special OpenGL codepath for their games, they simply use off the shelf DirectX wrapper which may or may not make a decent job, depending on quality of the original code and the quality of wrapper itself. If they would simply make an OpenGL engine from scratch and split the non-graphics jobs evenly (with smart thread synchronization, not a bunch of threads waiting for each other most of the time, wasting CPU cycles), games would run just fine even if written in Java, without need to go bare metal.
But the companies want their games released on schedule so it's easier to use one code for all platforms 
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TSR69
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 21:00 Post subject: |
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I am not familiar with the PS3 or Xbox360 hardware specs and CPU/GPU design, not gonna comment on that.
| LeoNatan wrote: |  Spoiler: | | iconized wrote: | OpenGl used to be superior until MS dropped support for it and started to push DirectX. This monopolistic approach is bad for competition and business and the end user in the end as well. I don't mind to see a change. And yes Linux stability sucks balls. I had a 3930k dedicated for DC some time ago, booting Linux from USB-stick. Used many distros and they all kept crashing. The solution is to use a rather old distro.
Edit: Btw these arguments have been made already in post garus linked so this topic can be locked I guess. |
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Microsoft stalled its development? You mean in Vista? Because OpenGL was dead in the gaming world way before that.
And you mock Apple, but believe it or not, Apple is OpenGL's biggest chance of some success outside of the dedicated market (consoles). As much as trolls here would wish otherwise, Apple has a much higher market-share among consumers than Linux (the year, the year ). And these consumers are discovering gaming through the app store. More and more games are ported and are selling well. How many games do you honestly (without lying to yourself) do you see ported to Linux, even with Steam there? Let's not kid ourselves, outside of Valve games and some technically simplistic indies, you will not see a major release there. Maybe 1 or 2, fueled by Valve. But nothing realistic. |
1st comment was made by fawe4.
Look I rather have a stable OS and rocking graphics and I rather have this by not supporting a monopolistic company. For the time being it seems I am stuck with Win7 though. But as you said yourself Apple's market share is too big to ignore, so porting to Apple OS X might be an option. Still if the PC Windows version uses DirectX this might be non-viable (too costly). This is why open standards are better for end users.
Anyway if games would support multi threading better and use OpenGL you could run a Windows game on Linux/OS X using a nextgen VM (the VM can directly use hardware like graphics card).
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garus
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 21:27 Post subject: |
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Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:45; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 22:14 Post subject: |
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Last edited by paxsali on Thu, 4th Jul 2024 22:08; edited 1 time in total
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kumkss
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 22:27 Post subject: |
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| kumkss wrote: | | i'd rather play on a console than play on an apple system (read: i'd rather eat shit than play a game on a mac) |
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kumkss
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 22:29 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 22:43 Post subject: |
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| iconized wrote: | I am not familiar with the PS3 or Xbox360 hardware specs and CPU/GPU design, not gonna comment on that.
| LeoNatan wrote: | | Spoiler: | | iconized wrote: | OpenGl used to be superior until MS dropped support for it and started to push DirectX. This monopolistic approach is bad for competition and business and the end user in the end as well. I don't mind to see a change. And yes Linux stability sucks balls. I had a 3930k dedicated for DC some time ago, booting Linux from USB-stick. Used many distros and they all kept crashing. The solution is to use a rather old distro.
Edit: Btw these arguments have been made already in post garus linked so this topic can be locked I guess. |
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Microsoft stalled its development? You mean in Vista? Because OpenGL was dead in the gaming world way before that.
And you mock Apple, but believe it or not, Apple is OpenGL's biggest chance of some success outside of the dedicated market (consoles). As much as trolls here would wish otherwise, Apple has a much higher market-share among consumers than Linux (the year, the year ). And these consumers are discovering gaming through the app store. More and more games are ported and are selling well. How many games do you honestly (without lying to yourself) do you see ported to Linux, even with Steam there? Let's not kid ourselves, outside of Valve games and some technically simplistic indies, you will not see a major release there. Maybe 1 or 2, fueled by Valve. But nothing realistic. |
1st comment was made by fawe4.
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And I'm talking about DirectX.
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TSR69
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 23:27 Post subject: I have left. |
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 23:47 Post subject: |
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When you're developing an engine it's such a simple thing to switch between OpenGL and DirectX, there's no real reason to make a big fuss about it. Most engines provide an abstraction on top of the rendering system and implement both.
In fact they both offer pretty much the same functionality, with OpenGL offering a bit of newer features as it gets updated much more often, while DirectX prefers less and larger updates.
If there is a noticeable performance difference, it's a difference between the drivers and the OS kernel, and not OpenGL/DirectX.
And regarding consoles: They don't use DirectX or OpenGL. The reason those two exist is so they can provide an abstraction on top of all the different drivers. Consoles offer direct hardware access and have no need for such things. This is also why most ports end up crap, as the PC OS/driver CPU overhead becomes too great, and the rendering thread becomes the bottleneck. Which is hard to fix as it requires the developer to re-organize all of the art assets to use the pipeline more efficiently.
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TSR69
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| Posted: Mon, 6th Aug 2012 23:51 Post subject: |
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@Shoshomiga: I guess it all depends for what you use it. With DC I mean distributed computing. I used a fairly new x64 Fedora distro for a project called Docking@Home (BOINC). Client application was 32 bits, this setup crashed twice on me during 1 month. After that I used same installation for eOn2 with a x64 application, that crashed several times a day. I am too much a noob with Linux to actually try to figure out what module causes it. I used several other distros after that but crash after crash after crash.
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| Posted: Tue, 7th Aug 2012 00:00 Post subject: I have left. |
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TSR69
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