World of Warcraft Forum

Sup guys,

I'd like to know how the game is running for you guys. According to this thread, the game runs faster on D3D9 with performance enhanced graphics activated: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=7714;forum=1;msg=151686

I can also confirm the above, but only for AMD hardware (GPU). Using AMD with both the Open Source and proprietary drivers, OpenGL is a lot slower than D3D9 via Wine and Crossover. We're talking about 50-100% fps loss when using OpenGL. But things change when using Nvidia... my Nvidia hardware runs great in both modes - OpenGL and D3D9. Using Nvidia, both modes are close to eachother performance wise, but OpenGL has the edge over D3D9 when it comes to pure speed. I assume the advantage OpenGL has is because it can't keep up with the graphics that D3D9 can offer. Using OpenGL, you lose a bunch of graphic details.

^ The above was tested with performance enhanced graphics activated and on the following GPU's: Nvidia 525M GT 2GB GDDR3, Nvidia 530M GT, AMD HD 7850 1GB GDDR5, AMD HD 6850 1 GB GDDR3.

How has your experience been?

Cheers,
Alex

I have only tried with Nvidia hardware using the Nvidia proprietary drivers, and my experience there confirms what you wrote.

Cheers, Robert.

Fwiw, WoW should default to D3D9 for new installations. We've removed the script that edited the settings file to put the game into GL mode.

Sup,

yea that's also probably better for new users, but it's still nice to be able to switch if needed. Btw, why does the OpenGL client hang at the login screen, which can be worked around by pressing "enter" two times?

After much testing, I have to agree with this (Phoronix, highly recommended, awesome reviews):

"Phoronix last week tested 65 graphics cards on open source drivers under Linux and the best result was generally with the open source AMD Radeon drivers. This week they put out a 35-graphics-card comparison using the proprietary AMD/NVIDIA drivers (with the other 30 cards being too old for the latest main drivers) under Ubuntu 14.04. The winner for proprietary GPU driver support on Linux was NVIDIA, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise given that Valve and other Linux game developers are frequently recommending NVIDIA graphics for their game titles while AMD Catalyst support doesn't usually come to games until later. The Radeon OpenGL performance with Catalyst had some problems, but at least its performance per Watt was respectable. Open-source fans are encouraged to use AMD hardware on Linux while those just wanting the best performance and overall experience should see NVIDIA with their binary driver."

That pretty much reflects my own experience so far.

Cheers,
Alex

Stefan Dösinger wrote:

Fwiw, WoW should default to D3D9 for new installations. We've
removed the script that edited the settings file to put the game
into GL mode.

Sup Stefan,

I have a question, which I am sure you can answer. Checking the forums and also considering the fact that major game developers are more or less "ignoring" AMD and sometimes even Intel GPU's for their Linux ports (Borderlands 2, Civilization: Beyond Earth and a few more are officially Nvidia-only titles), I started reading a bunch of posts about ppl recommending Nvidia over AMD for Wine powered games too. Most ppl recommend Nvidia for their superior proprietary drivers and for performance + stability reasons. So I decided to put it to the test...

So far I have only had a Nvidia 525M GT to test games on versus my AMD HD 7850 GPU. But that comparison is extremly unfair, so I got my hands on an Nvidia 450 GTS and was shocked to see that the comments were true; in almost every game I tried via Wine/Crossover, the Geforce GPU (with proprietary driver 331.38 provided by Ubuntu) was performing better and more reliable than my AMD HD 7850 (tested with both the newest open and closed drivers). One small example is WoW in both D3D9 and OpenGL mode.

Starting area with my troll-horde, performance enhanced graphics activated, D3D9:

Nvidia, Ultra settings: 70-100 fps
Nvidia, medium settings: Always over 100 fps, usually 100-140 fps
AMD, Ultra settings: 20-30 fps
AMD, medium settings: about 60-70 fps

Other hard- and software details: AMD Phenom II X6, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, Ubuntu 14.04.1 64-bit.

OpenGL mode was more or less the same situation: Nvidia is much, much faster than AMD. In fact, Nvidia was performing even much faster using OpenGL mode. Using AMD and comparing the two modes, the difference is much smaller. Even though the 450 GTS is technically less powerful than the HD 7850, it was beating the crap out of it. Testing a few other games, I noticed that Nvidia is also less glitchy and performs either exactly like on Windows and often even much better.

My question: What is the cause for this behaviour? Are AMD drivers really that much worse when compared to Nvidia or am I missing something else here?

Thanks,
Alex

It would be interesting to know the performance of WoW on Windows in comparison to Linux/Wine.

Unfortunately this is difficult to answer. My experience is that AMD GPUs with the open source drivers are working reasonably well, at least the older generations. The newest generation of GPUs often has various problems, but that's also the case with Nvidia GPUs and even on Windows.

But yeah, the Nvidia Linux driver performs better than the AMD counterparts. The Linux GL driver usually outperforms the Windows driver by 10%, and if games have a GL and D3D renderer, they're about 10% faster on Windows (This is really difficult to compare and could be caused by many factors). On the AMD side GL is slower than D3D on Windows, and when I tested it last year r600g delivered about 70% of the Windows GL performance.

Personally I've given up on fglrx. I try to work around bugs if there are any, but for my own use I use r600g and recommend r600g over fglrx. (Except maybe if you have a very new GPU. My newest radeon GPU is a HD 5770, quite old.)

Hello Stefan,

thanks for the info!

Well, I can pretty much confirm everything you wrote. It's also true that bleeding edge hardware (newest GPU gen) will most likely have issues, even on Windows. That's exactly the reason why I like to purchase one or two gens back. I took a huge risk when I bought the 7000 AMD series, which I regret a little bit now, seeing how much better the 6000 series perform with the older Gallium driver versus the new RadeonSI driver. But that's understandable - all good things take time. Even on Windows the drivers for bleeding edge hardware take months and sometimes even years to mature. The Windows AMD driver for my 7000 series GPU delivered impressive numbers, but caused some awful BSOD and stuttering in two or three other games.

Btw, what you wrote is pretty much this: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

So if everyone is seeing the same thing - then there's no doubt about it: Nvidia is much faster and more reliable than AMD, at least when it comes to pure gaming performance that is.

Have you guys ever thought of getting in touch with the folks over at Valve for a nice tea party with tech-savy ppl and smooth marshmellows? Maybe that would help gain some more info on stuff. Anyway, I just bought a MSI Geforce 650 TI OC with 2 GB of GDDR5 for about 100 Euros, which I will be using to test a few more games on. The 450 GTS was from a friend of mine, but it shocked the hell out of me using it with Ubuntu and comparing it to my technically superior HD 7850. That positive experience left me drooling for more... MORE POWER... AAH THE POWER!

I expect nothing less than awesomeness from the new GPU after seeing what the older 450 GTS was capable of doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dJolYw8tnk

PS: I will be providing some new numbers once my new baby arrives.

Cheers,
Alex