How Does Your Card Stack Up in Steam

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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This has to be a driver issues for AMD. Hopefully for AMD users, this will be rectified.

it's nothing new and it used to be worse, if you want to play games on Linux Nvidia is the only option, but realistically playing games on Linux is probably a bad choice...
 
Feb 19, 2009
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AMD's official linux drivers has always been rubbish for gaming.

I don't think they care. Now Valve is pushing Vulkan (their next Source engine will fully support Vulkan), once its integrated into SteamOS, AMD performance will be better.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
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This has to be a driver issues for AMD. Hopefully for AMD users, this will be rectified.

Why?

AMD should spend $0 on Linux. When a company is strapped for financial resources, its management should always focus on allocating scare resources (human capital, financial, project management priority) based on ROI. Linux fails in the most fundamental question of: Does it make sense to spend resources for AMD at this time on such an irrelevant OS? The question is an obvious no. Maybe if AMD was 10-20X the size and had almost no debt and tens of billions of cash on hand it would have been a nice side-project. That's all it is really. It's even more relevant for AMD and NV to have better drivers for OSX, rather than Linux.

os_market_share_september_2015.png

Source

Phoronix should do a real test of NV/AMD on Windows 7/8/8.1/10 against Linux to see what's what. But perhaps that site doesn't want to show how crappy Linux is overall in direct testing for gaming performance and compatibility against Windows, right? :)

A gamer who is trying to maximize his gaming performance, reduce game bugs/glitches is not going to be primarily gaming on Linux, especially not with a $300-650 videocard.

There is also the question of game compatibility. Certain PC gems you cannot even play on Linux.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2978...ys-creator-of-one-of-2015s-best-pc-games.html

In other words, no serious PC gamer is primarily gaming on Linux which means gaming performance on Linux in a true sense is basically irrelevant. More so, upgrade to Windows 10 is free from W7-8.1 and W10 will have DX12 as a backbone. What's Linux going to have?

I've been reading about Linux for what seems like 2 decades and it still has < 2% market share.

AMD's official linux drivers has always been rubbish for gaming.

I don't think they care. Now Valve is pushing Vulkan (their next Source engine will fully support Vulkan), once its integrated into SteamOS, AMD performance will be better.

Irony because PC gaming on Linux itself is rubbish. Look at the conclusion:

"a miracle to happen for the Catalyst OpenGL Linux driver, or if AMD is able to deliver a competitive Vulkan driver in a timely manner and game developers are quick to jump on this next-generation graphics API."
?

I think Linux has some advantages over Windows but gaming has never been its core competency.

Does the author not realize the Mantle = Vulkan? This guy should be bending over to AMD considering the next foundation of OpenGL aka Vulkan more or less happened because AMD donated Mantle?

Going back to my earlier point -- when was the last time you woke up and said "Windows is garbage, I want to upgrade to Linux, an OS most developers and hardware manufactures don't care about for driver optimization but it sounds like a great idea to switch anyway!"

Linux may have some advantages over Windows but gaming has never been its core competency.
 
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Feb 19, 2009
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Well said @RS.

AMD is in no position to wasting resources on such a niche OS that very few gamers even use. They need to focus on Windows and OSX. The Steam OS situation (& Linux) will fix itself once Valve moves to Vulkan as the default API.

With Fallout 4 coming soon, they better damn well focus their attention on making sure it runs excellent.

http://wccftech.com/fallout-4-nvidia-gameworks/
 

littleg

Senior member
Jul 9, 2015
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Hardcore gamers will be on Windows. 99% of casual gamers will be on Windows. The Venn diagram of gamers and Linux users will have an absolutely miniscule crossover.

For gaming this is true, there are some other use cases in which Linux may gain traction but they're not typically GPU intensive. For the amount of money and the number of sales that are at stake it would be foolish for AMD to allocate their limited resources to the Linux driver. They have enough work to do with their Windows drivers.

And i'm posting this from my Linux box.
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,599
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If Steam OS turns out to be Android of PC gaming in a few years, then this decision to ignore Linux drivers will be costly. Look at Nokia.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
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If Steam OS turns out to be Android of PC gaming in a few years, then this decision to ignore Linux drivers will be costly. Look at Nokia.

That is the joker. But I got trouble seeing it happening tho. Windows sits on it so hard that any change is almost utopian dreams. And the Xbox One isn't making it any easier to get off Windows.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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BigDaveX

Senior member
Jun 12, 2014
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As an aside to all of this, considering how it generally seems to be regarded as one of nVidia's worst GPU designs, I'm actually kind of surprised by how well Fermi seems to have held up. Its performance isn't anything special, but it's certainly pushing out playable framerates more often than not, even if these aren't exactly super-demanding games.
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
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For those people using FM2+ as a unRAID NAS, I am thinking SteamOS (or Linux Mint with Steam Client) in a VM and passing the iGPU through might be a good low cost way of getting extra utilization out of the hardware.

So, in this particular case I mentioning, the goal is not to make a dedicated Linux gaming box....but simply to add additional functionality to an existing non-gaming one.

In fact, even with poor driver performance (assuming the iGPU is indeed passed through to the VM) there should still be many lower end games that are playable on a moderate APU.
 
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Hugo Drax

Diamond Member
Nov 20, 2011
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thesmokingman

Platinum Member
May 6, 2010
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This has to be a driver issues for AMD. Hopefully for AMD users, this will be rectified.



lol, company is on its death bed, keeping the lights on yet managing to develop and push new technologies, scraping by yet competing miraculously... I'm sure they'll drop everything and push new drivers for less than 1% of the users out there stat. Not to mention that steamos is a helluva platform, not.
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
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Do you know how much it would cost them to have better Linux drivers?
 

MagickMan

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2008
7,460
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Windows 10 flopped HARD. That's just astonishing.

MS's PR dept should be shot for not getting ahead of that (along with their execs for chocking the OS full of their own spyware in the first place). But anyway... :whiste:
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
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Not to mention that steamos is a helluva platform, not.

Right now, I am running the Steam Client (in big picture mode) on Linux Mint.

Seems to be pretty much the same thing as SteamOS (though with Linux Mint a person needs to use the driver manager to get the proprietary drivers. SteamOS does this automatically I believe).

In fact, I can even browse the web though Steam as well (this feature only available in Steam Big picture mode or SteamOS AFAIK).
 

bradly1101

Diamond Member
May 5, 2013
4,689
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www.bradlygsmith.org
I have big hopes for Steam. I've used Unix before and tried a Linux Distro because I'm looking for a replacement for Windows after knowing all I do about Win 10.

If Steam makes the Linux experience more user friendly and adds compatibility and has software I need (including games on Steam), I'm ditching Windows for good.
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
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I have big hopes for Steam. I've used Unix before and tried a Linux Distro because I'm looking for a replacement for Windows after knowing all I do about Win 10.

If Steam makes the Linux experience more user friendly and adds compatibility and has software I need (including games on Steam), I'm ditching Windows for good.

I would give Linux Mint a shot too.

Then not only can you run Steam you will be able to run GOG Galaxy as well (soon).

P.S. The GOG Galaxy client is actually optional. A person can run Linux games like Witcher 2 directly on the Linux desktop as well.
 
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tweakboy

Diamond Member
Jan 3, 2010
9,517
2
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www.hammiestudios.com
I wouldnt know. Steam login is botched I asked them to email me give me my code which Ive been using for years. I know the name on the acc. but dont remember the password. So steam emails me pass but I cant get it cuz I forgot which email I gave them cuz I dont get anyuthing from them. Do they have a phone number this blows,, I got COD but cant play it.