[Linux] Massive FPS issues ingame

cerebellum · September 2013

Hi,

I am getting a whopping 2-10 FPS on Linux, at the same settings that get me above 60 on Windows.
Reducing the reolution or graphics settings doesn't have any major impact.
Weirdly enough, this only happens ingame, not in the menu screen, even though the background is rendered.

Hardware:
i5-2500k
Radeon 6850
8GB RAM

Display drivers: amd-catalyst-13.8-beta2-linux-x86.x86_64
I got them directly from AMD in an attempt to fix the problems. Previously I was also running the proprietary AMD drivers, but not the newest version. Didn't change anything, except for fixing a few minor graphics errors.

glxinfo output:
http://pastebin.com/myun0RuY

Also, I attached screenshots of the menu and of the profiler ingame.

Almost forgot: I'm running Ubuntu 13.04, Kernel 3.8.0-26

Confused · September 2013

I believe that the devs are aware of the issue.

I dont have any information to add really. But, they are working on it.

EzdineG · September 2013

Hello Cerebellum,

I was averaging between 18-25 FPS on my Linux development machine, and on one particular map - including ready room - I was at an inexplicable 2-8 fps with eventual loss of keyboard control. I could always coax more fps out of the menu by tweaking settings, but once in game it reverted to the same studdering lagfest. Switching to a Windows environment had the game running 70fps+ in DX9 and DX11 modes, yet failing similarly to Linux in OpenGL. The 7970 has definitely got the chops for this game, the 6850 should too.

My Linux box is primarily used for development and life with fglrx has thus far been unpalatable. I can't count the number of times I've debugged segfaults right back to fglrx. Throwing this issue atop an existing heap of them finally broke the camel's back. After dumping the 7970 for an Nvidia 780GTX, removing fglrx and patching the Nvidia drivers to work with kernel 3.11 I no longer have any of these issues. Even without disabling the second and third monitors, NS2 is always pegged at 60fps (vsync). I know the 780GTX is more powerful than a 7970 Ghz, but this is ridiculous.

I know my solution isn't going to be sensible to most. The AMD fglrx (and Windows OpenGL) drivers are really that bad.

Hardware:
I7-3770K
Radeon 7970 3GB Ghz Edition Nvidia 780GTX
fglrx 13.8b2
16GB RAM
1x 2560X1440, 2x 1920X1080

OS:
Gentoo Linux 64-bit
Kernel 3.11.0
Gnome-Shell 3.8

cerebellum · September 2013

You might be right about the AMD drivers, games have always been kind of a hit or miss thing with Linux and this card.
Although, looking at the profiler output I just noticed that about half of the frame processing time is spent garbage collecting. I don't know if it actually is of any relevance to this problem, but it does seems very weird. *scratches head*

Mak10z · September 2013

I seem to be having this issue as well, but I'm Using a gtx660, so it may be drivers but its not isolated to AMD cards.

(im running Linux Mint 15 if that makes any difference

Lunux Mint 15 (cinnamon)
I7 2600k
8gb ddr3 1600
Kernel 3.8.0.16-generic

Zaggy · September 2013

I have the same issue on and off with a 7950OC.
Not only in NS2 but also Dota 2, could be an issue with Xorg?
As I recall Xorg using a lot of CPU during the lag, found a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/ZdmDsyk.jpg

Confused · September 2013

I have spent a while trying out different things to try to repro linux bugs etc.

For those of you running cinnamon I found a huge performance hit compared to gnome like 75% + when running with the same hardware.

I also found that running in full screen at desktop resolution seemed to be my best performance. As an example, I tried the fglrx driver on my wife's machine at 1280x720 on vanilla ubuntu 13.04. With a 1920x1080 desktop I was getting 30-40 fps. with a desktop resolution of 1280x720 I was getting 50-70fps. Was eye opening.

renderwut · September 2013

I got somewhat acceptable FPS when I used a window manager without 3d stuff (I tried fluxbox), turned off steam overlay for ns2 and restarted the game after configuring the graphics options. Changing them without restarting the game always made it end up in slideshow mode. I'm running the current AMD beta2 drivers on linux mint 15 64bit with an AMD 69something card. In the end it didn't help much because during the tutorial the game segfaulted.

OuchOfDeath · September 2013

Confused wrote: »

I have spent a while trying out different things to try to repro linux bugs etc.

For those of you running cinnamon I found a huge performance hit compared to gnome like 75% + when running with the same hardware.

I also found that running in full screen at desktop resolution seemed to be my best performance. As an example, I tried the fglrx driver on my wife's machine at 1280x720 on vanilla ubuntu 13.04. With a 1920x1080 desktop I was getting 30-40 fps. with a desktop resolution of 1280x720 I was getting 50-70fps. Was eye opening.

A lot of window managers do not do unredirecting very well and either still composit or do not remove all of the 3D window manager pipeline. The best thing to do is to use a non-3D window manager like XFCE-WM or Fluxbox. I have yet to see a 3D window manager that does not introduce some sort of performance penalty. They're getting better, but if you jump onto Phoronix and look at window manager benchmarks you'll notice the non-3D ones still have better performance by a significant amount, though the gap is shrinking. I think the latest Mutter (Gnome 3.8 or 3.10 WM) is the best 3D one.

[Linux] Massive FPS issues ingame

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