FreeBSD FreeBSD: A Faster Platform For Linux Gaming Than Linux?

[vermaden]

FreeBSD provides a Linux binary compatibility layer that allows 32-bit Linux binaries to be natively executed on this BSD operating system. Linux binary compatibility on FreeBSD allows Linux-only applications to be executed in a near seamless manner on this alternative platform, even for games. New tests have revealed that the modern FreeBSD operating system (via PC-BSD 8.2) can actually outperform Linux when it comes to running OpenGL Linux game binaries.

SOURCE: http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ar...inux_games_bsd

... and thats using older and slower FreeBSD 8.x line

[rocket357]

That's pretty funny, I have to admit. After all the Linux fanboi's rants about how Linux is faster running games in WinE than Windows is, this must come as a shock to them haha.

[Carpetsmoker]

It is my experience, running Unreal Tournament on my laptop with an Intel graphics card, that this is *unplayable* slow. This is an old (1999) game with fairly low demands ...
On Windows, I get a ~100FPS (IIRC).

I also played Unreal Tournament with a Geforce 5200FX card, and that went very well.

[BSDfan666]

Intel cards have always had terrible OpenGL performance, the driver for Windows is proprietary.. it's probably doing a lot of CPU-based optimization.

[vermaden]

Someone wrote there quite good comment that I would like to cite here:

"What's funny is that people are finding any reason they can to dismiss the benchmarks (my favorite is claiming the hardware is different, when it's not).

Meanwhile, nobody seemed to have a problem with Phoronix's previous benchmark showing Wine/Cedega games running faster on Linux than on Windows:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=681&num=2

The difference now is that Linux is on the losing end of the benchmark, so it simply must be incorrect in some way."

When Linux wins, everything is correct and good and fair. When Linux looses, something is wrong and the benchmark is bad and unfair. What is this behavior called?

[Carpetsmoker]

It's called Confirmation bias, a well-known effect.

[backrow]

A similar reaction came from many BSD people when Phoronix released their benchmark of FreeBSD 8.0 with Ubuntu 9.10.

Frankly, I’m inclined to distrust Phoronix in general. They’re known for inflammatory titles and just plain making stuff up (e.g., their Steam on Linux “confirmation”).