Random talk

[zoot]

This is premature so I am posting it here

Valve Software's Rich Geldreich will be giving a presentation entitled "Left 4 Dead 2 Linux: From 6 to 300 FPS in OpenGL" at this year's SIGGRAPH about custom profiling and optimization of OpenGL under Linux. They seem pretty serious, so it might be worth a look for anyone who has access...

[zoot]

Slashdot:

In a 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 (315 fps) than Windows 7 and DirectX/Direct3D (270.6 fps); almost a 20% speed-up. 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 a few months. Valve attributes the speed-up to the 'underlying efficiency of the [Linux] kernel and OpenGL.' But here's the best bit: Using these new OpenGL optimizations to the Source engine, the OpenGL version of L4D2 on Windows is now faster than the DirectX version (303.4 fps vs. 270.6 fps).

From the proverbial horse's mouth here.

[Loki1950]

Not real news to anyone who dual-boots especially if they use a light weight window manager but it is nice to see confirmation from a major game publisher wonder if that may be why ID still uses OpenGL

Enjoy the Choice

[zoot]

I guess the real bit of news it that they managed to speed up OpenGL on Windows by more than 10% just by optimizing on Linux - my point being that the optimization techniques they will discuss at SIGGRAPH should also be of interest to the (much larger) Windows user base of 0 A.D.

Of course, "the proof is in the pudding."

[zoot]

Slide deck from the talk here.