Are Your Desktop Effects Slowing You Down?

Whenever I perform a 3D benchmark in Linux one of the first questions I get asked about the results is:

Where your desktop effects turned off?

For those who are not aware, desktop effects are the "flash" that is enabled by default in many popular Linux distros (namely Ubuntu and it's derivatives) such as the wobbly windows, desktop cube, and sleek sliding effects. Something that has always been questioned is whether or not desktop effects slow down your 3D performance in other applications and if so, how much do they slow it down by?

The Test:
I am going to use Unigine Benchmarks on Pinguy OS (for Gnome) and Chakra (for KDE) with and without desktop effects enabled. Both systems are clean, fully up to date installs with the nVidia 260 beta driver installed. Gnome will be using Compiz for it's desktop effects and KDE will be using Kwin.

The Hardware:
I'm using my same gaming rig that I've used for all my other benchmarks: Processor - Intel p9700 2.8ghz Dual Core, RAM - 4gigs of DDR3 1066, Video Card: nVidia 260m with 1gig DDR3 dedicated memory.

The Results:
Lets dive into some graphs shall we?





Graphs can be hard to read exact numbers on, so here is the numerical breakdown of the results:

As you can see, desktop effect do indeed decrease your overall 3D performance. Compiz is far more detrimental to 3D scores than KDE's Kwin is. Across all three benchmarks having Compiz enabled on the system caused a 10.7% performance decrease, while Kwin only caused a 1% decrease.

So it appears that if you are going to be gaming on Ubuntu/Gnome it is worth taking the time to toggle Compiz off before loading up that game.

~Jeff Hoogland
Please note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).

Read More

Linux Out Performs Windows in OpenGL

Late last year I did a posting detailing how Windows 7 crushed Ubuntu 9.10 in the area of 3D performance. Nine months later I am happy to say:

Linux out performs Windows 7 in OpenGL benchmarks!

Using the Unigine benchmarks Windows 7 on my system obtains the following average frames per second:

Tropics - 30.5 FPS
Sanctuary - 35.2 FPS

Of all the Linux distros I recently tested, Chakra Linux performs the best in these benchmarks with the following average frames per second:

Tropics - 38.0 FPS
Sanctuary - 38.3 FPS

Whew! Chakra's scores are just higher than Windows 7s' scores and they are leaps and bounds above the level Ubuntu 9.10 performed at on my same hardware. I am always pleasantly surprised at the rapid development of technology in the world of Linux and these improved scores are evidence of just how quickly this world moves.

~Jeff Hoogland

Please note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).

Read More

Best Linux Distro for 3D Performance

There is one question all new Linux users ask themselves at one point or another:

Which Linux distro do I want to use?

The answer to the question is different for everyone and varies depending on what you are doing with your Linux box. One thing I think many users fail to consider (or perhaps don't care about) is the level of 3D performance their distro gets. You may think that your choice of distribution does not matter in this area, but you will soon see it very much does.

The Hardware: While my hardware is not fastest in the world it is decently quick. Processor - Intel p9700 2.8ghz Dual Core, RAM - 4gigs of DDR3 1066, Video Card: nVidia 260m with 1gig DDR3 dedicated memory (Running the latest stable nVidia driver 256.53).

The Software: I used my favorite OpenGL benchmarks made by Unigine Company. The distros I am going to compare are:

• Ubuntu 10.04 (Pinguy) - Gnome
  
• Ubuntu 10.10 Beta - Gnome
  
• Linux Mint Rolling Release (Debian Based) - Gnome
  
• Chakra 0.2.1 (Arch Linux Based) - KDE
  
• Fedora 13 - Gnome
  
• Mandriva 2010.1 - KDE
  
• OpenSUSE 11.3 - KDE
  
• PCLinuxOS 2010.07 - KDE
  
• Sabayon 5.3 (Gentoo Based) - KDE
  

All of the tests where run on clean, fully updated install of each distribution. They use the stock kernel each of the distributions provides. Desktop effects where turned off in all cases.

The Results:
Well, being a math guy, I firmly believe the numbers speak for themselves. So here are the results of the three benchmarks (higher is better - click on image to enlarge):








As you can see the scores of most of the Linux distros are fairly close (within 3% of the number one), with one exception: Ubuntu. It appears that of all the wonderful improvements Canonical has been making to Ubuntu, 3D performance is not one of them (10.10 scored higher than 10.04, but only by a small amount). It is hard to get the exact numbers by reading a histogram so here are the scores in numerical form:


Across all three tests Chakra scored the highest (With PCLinuxOS and Sabayon in close second and third). Ubuntu 10.04 was at the very bottom (over 10% behind Chakra). While I think Ubuntu is a great distro it appears that if you are a Linux Gamer, you are better off using a non-Ubuntu distro.

~Jeff Hoogland
Please note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).

Read More

Chakra Linux - Distro Review

Taking a bit of a break from the many Ubuntu derivatives I have been playing with of the late, I came across Chakra Linux 0.2.1 on distrowatch's feed late last week. The Chakra project started off as a derivative of Arch Linux. It was a modular KDE Live CD with some extra tool sets to make setting up and using Arch Linux less of a hassle.


Notice the careful usage of the word was in my last sentence. The current alpha build you can download of Chakra is in a transitional phase between being simply an Arch Linux tool set and becoming it's own full fledged distro. I'll discuss what exactly this means in a few moments, for now lets take a look at using the LiveCD and installing the operating system.

Chakra currently comes in LiveCD format that is a free 725~ meg download. After I ripped the image to a CD and restarted my computer the Chakra disc loaded right up. I must say for an Alpha release I was very impressed with how much polish the start up already contained. Before the system actually boots you are presented with two different primary boot options:

• Boot with all Free Drivers
• Boot with non-Free Drivers

My system contains an nVidia graphics chip, so selecting "non-Free Drivers" caused the Live CD to install the closed source nVidia drivers automatically - this is something I personally like - if you are a FOSS Extremist selecting "all Free Drivers" will use the nv driver for an nVidia graphics card (both of which auto detected and configured my monitor resolution to it's correct 1680x1050).

When the system finally boots up you are presented with a fairly standard KDE 4.x desktop:

If you look closely at the above screen shot you will notice two files containing some very useful information. The first is a packages files that contains a list of all the packages preinstalled on the live system, as well as their version numbers. The second is a Passwords.txt that lists the default password for the live user and the root account on the live disc.

The Chakra installer has got to be the best looking Linux installer I have ever used:


I think my favorite part about it is the sleek looking globe you choose your time zone from:


The installer worked flawlessly for me, however I had already partitioned off space for Chakra when I installed another distro. I mention this because another reviewer said he had issues with the disk setup part of the installer. After the install finished I rebooted my system so I could stop using the LiveCD and start installing things. When my system came back online I was happy to see that the nVidia drivers had also been installed during the installation and my KWin desktop effects where working like a charm.

The default software selection Chakra ships with is kinda sad, no music player, no torrent client, no screen shot program, no image viewer and no office make very slim pickings. If you head to the CLI (pacman currently) or CInstall (GUI interface for Pacman) to try and resolve this issue you will notice that many of your common Linux packages are nowhere to be found. This is because as I said before, Chakra is in a transitional phase. Have no fear though! Just a download away, hosted on the Chakra homepage, are piles of "click n run" installers. The "click n run" installers work fantastically and once they are integrated into Chakra's package management system I think they will rival even DPKG. After you download a "click n run" installer, which will be either .cb or .tar.xz extension, you simply double click on the file and it will ask for your password before installing the package and any dependencies it may require. I installed both Firefox and OpenOffice in this manner and they worked with zero issues.

I only have a few small complaints about this current release of Chakra and I am sure they will be resolved long before the distro reaches a 1.0 release. The first is that even though my system does not contain bluetooth capabilities, the KDE bluetooth widget was loaded. The second is that as with most KDE distros, the built in network manager worked very poorly (even though it is the new plasma widget). My third and final issue, is that even though the nVidia drivers installed the nvidia-settings package automatically, this package requires GTK to function. Meaning it failed to load until I installed the gtk2 package via pacman.

Even though Chakra is a very young distribution, it has quickly become my favorite non-Ubuntu based distro. I think we will see some great things from the Chakra team before a 1.0 release of the distribution. This is definitely one worth trying if you are looking for a new distro the play around with.

~Jeff Hoogland

Read More