I only still have a windows install (that hasn’t been booted for months at this point) just for my VR headset. Just can’t get good performance out of Linux using it.
Just wanted to mention there are a few other reasons beside rootkits to still use windows, unfortunately.
I was able to play HL Alyx with an Index, on… I think it was an AMD 5950X CPU and an AMD 6900 XT GPU… on PopOS!.. back in… 2022.
Not saying you are any kind of ‘wrong’, just saying it is possible now, and was even possible back in 22, to get very good VR performance out of a linux system… full res, maxxed out settings, 90hz/fps good.
You could replicate my old build now for roughly … 65% the cost as I paid for the same parts back then. 5950x current sale price is less than half what it once was, 6900XT current sale price is a bit more than half, though you have to look a bit harder… GPU market is just generally insane right now.
EDIT: For a long while, generally speaking… AMD stuff is better supoorted and more performant on Linux… because many of the drivers are much much more open source.
Also… AMD CPUs and GPUs synergize and perform better when paired with each other, then pairing an Nvidia GPU with an AMD CPU, or Intel CPU with AMD GPU.
If Intel can pump up its GPU game, it may be able to achieve a similar result, but so far their GPUs… while honestly pretty good for the performance/price range they’re in… they just don’t come as close to the high end of GPU performance yet.
Good for you. I tried only a few months ago, couldn’t get it to run well.
It’s not the hardware ('s capabilities, could still be Nvidia-related), seeing as the same hardware runs VR just fine on Windows.
Unfortunately I am still stuck with an Nivdia GPU until I can justify spending that kinda money on an AMD one. But even so, the Nvidia drivers have been working really well for me ever since the time around explicit sync got merged (or something like that, don’t remember exactly). It’s just VR that doesn’t perform well.
Also… AMD CPUs and GPUs synergize and perform better when paired with each other, then pairing an Nvidia GPU with an AMD CPU, or Intel CPU with AMD GPU.
Do you have a source for that? Cause that sounds like a stretch, and if it were true, I’d imagine would result in an antitrust lawsuit.
Sadly, I no longer have that computer, nor the Index.
Yay burglary!
But disregarding that… Nvidia, at least in the past, the timeframe I built that PC in and before… just tended to not work as well on Linux, because AMD has always open sourced… almost all? literally all? … of their driver code… and has done so for far longer and to a greater degree than Nvidia has.
That means it can much more rapidly be integrated into working well with the Linux kernel and various GPU driver libraries… where as with Nvidia, a lot of their drivers were closed source for quote a long time, and only work at their max efficiency/performancr on proprietary OS’s… untill someone working on Linux driver compatibility reverse engineered some new feature or optimization in a new driver/hardware design paradigm.
However, it does seem that more recently, as in, basically 6 months after I built that PC…, Nvidia is better supporting Linux with more open source code, though the opensource Nvidia drivers still don’t seem to have the backwards compatibility with many older or more niche Nvidia GPUs.
I’ve been dabbling with linux and gaming on linux for… a little over a decade, and for the vast majority of that time, before Proton was a thing, you basically only had WINE, or VMs, and you had to install a proprietary, closed source Nvidia Linux kernel, and drivers, to get an Nvidia GPU to do basically anything 3d on Linux … and uh whew, nothing like fucking up a kernel migration to teach you how little you actually understand about computers, lol.
Either way, I am genuinely glad Nvidia + Linux is generally working well for you and totally understand the expense of any new GPU not being justifiable right now… yay tariffs and supply shortages and third party mfgs hiking up specs and prices, yay scalpers, etc etc…
… though yes it is odd that VR isn’t working as well, that could possibly be from … some Linux Nvidia driver feature that hasn’t yet been implemented or optimized… or it could possibly be the drivers for your VR headset itself? Or maybe just the game you’re trying to run in Linux needs a patch, or Proton needs to catch up to it?
Could be a bunch of things.
…
As to the AMD CPU + GPU synergy… I’m not sure how it could really qualify for an antitrust lawsuit… but either way:
Smart Access Memory has evolved since this article, but it explains a bit about CPU GPU synergy:
And then just here’s a bunch of AMDs own brief descriptions of many other ‘Smart’ features, though many of these are geared toward AMD laptops… though some of them also help with making even desktops a bit more power (as in wattage draw) efficient, as well as helping to better manage heat, and thus also fan noise, and thus also OC capabilities.
All these things together do have admittedly fairly minor improvements vs say an AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU system, or Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU system of approximately equivalent cost… but they can become significant factors if you are trying to squeeze the absolute max performance out of a strict budget limit, or smaller form factor, or maximize something like ‘fps in a given game at given graphical settings per watt draw’ or ‘per dollar spent’.
I only still have a windows install (that hasn’t been booted for months at this point) just for my VR headset. Just can’t get good performance out of Linux using it.
Just wanted to mention there are a few other reasons beside rootkits to still use windows, unfortunately.
I was able to play HL Alyx with an Index, on… I think it was an AMD 5950X CPU and an AMD 6900 XT GPU… on PopOS!.. back in… 2022.
Not saying you are any kind of ‘wrong’, just saying it is possible now, and was even possible back in 22, to get very good VR performance out of a linux system… full res, maxxed out settings, 90hz/fps good.
You could replicate my old build now for roughly … 65% the cost as I paid for the same parts back then. 5950x current sale price is less than half what it once was, 6900XT current sale price is a bit more than half, though you have to look a bit harder… GPU market is just generally insane right now.
EDIT: For a long while, generally speaking… AMD stuff is better supoorted and more performant on Linux… because many of the drivers are much much more open source.
Also… AMD CPUs and GPUs synergize and perform better when paired with each other, then pairing an Nvidia GPU with an AMD CPU, or Intel CPU with AMD GPU.
If Intel can pump up its GPU game, it may be able to achieve a similar result, but so far their GPUs… while honestly pretty good for the performance/price range they’re in… they just don’t come as close to the high end of GPU performance yet.
Good for you. I tried only a few months ago, couldn’t get it to run well.
It’s not the hardware ('s capabilities, could still be Nvidia-related), seeing as the same hardware runs VR just fine on Windows.
Unfortunately I am still stuck with an Nivdia GPU until I can justify spending that kinda money on an AMD one. But even so, the Nvidia drivers have been working really well for me ever since the time around explicit sync got merged (or something like that, don’t remember exactly). It’s just VR that doesn’t perform well.
Do you have a source for that? Cause that sounds like a stretch, and if it were true, I’d imagine would result in an antitrust lawsuit.
Sadly, I no longer have that computer, nor the Index.
Yay burglary!
But disregarding that… Nvidia, at least in the past, the timeframe I built that PC in and before… just tended to not work as well on Linux, because AMD has always open sourced… almost all? literally all? … of their driver code… and has done so for far longer and to a greater degree than Nvidia has.
That means it can much more rapidly be integrated into working well with the Linux kernel and various GPU driver libraries… where as with Nvidia, a lot of their drivers were closed source for quote a long time, and only work at their max efficiency/performancr on proprietary OS’s… untill someone working on Linux driver compatibility reverse engineered some new feature or optimization in a new driver/hardware design paradigm.
However, it does seem that more recently, as in, basically 6 months after I built that PC…, Nvidia is better supporting Linux with more open source code, though the opensource Nvidia drivers still don’t seem to have the backwards compatibility with many older or more niche Nvidia GPUs.
https://www.howtogeek.com/805004/nvidia-releases-open-source-linux-gpu-drivers-with-a-catch/
https://www.guru3d.com/story/nvidia-announces-transition-to-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
I’ve been dabbling with linux and gaming on linux for… a little over a decade, and for the vast majority of that time, before Proton was a thing, you basically only had WINE, or VMs, and you had to install a proprietary, closed source Nvidia Linux kernel, and drivers, to get an Nvidia GPU to do basically anything 3d on Linux … and uh whew, nothing like fucking up a kernel migration to teach you how little you actually understand about computers, lol.
Either way, I am genuinely glad Nvidia + Linux is generally working well for you and totally understand the expense of any new GPU not being justifiable right now… yay tariffs and supply shortages and third party mfgs hiking up specs and prices, yay scalpers, etc etc…
… though yes it is odd that VR isn’t working as well, that could possibly be from … some Linux Nvidia driver feature that hasn’t yet been implemented or optimized… or it could possibly be the drivers for your VR headset itself? Or maybe just the game you’re trying to run in Linux needs a patch, or Proton needs to catch up to it?
Could be a bunch of things.
…
As to the AMD CPU + GPU synergy… I’m not sure how it could really qualify for an antitrust lawsuit… but either way:
Smart Access Memory has evolved since this article, but it explains a bit about CPU GPU synergy:
https://graphicsreport.com/smart-access-memory/
And then just here’s a bunch of AMDs own brief descriptions of many other ‘Smart’ features, though many of these are geared toward AMD laptops… though some of them also help with making even desktops a bit more power (as in wattage draw) efficient, as well as helping to better manage heat, and thus also fan noise, and thus also OC capabilities.
https://www.amd.com/en/gaming/technologies/smart-technologies.html
All these things together do have admittedly fairly minor improvements vs say an AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU system, or Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU system of approximately equivalent cost… but they can become significant factors if you are trying to squeeze the absolute max performance out of a strict budget limit, or smaller form factor, or maximize something like ‘fps in a given game at given graphical settings per watt draw’ or ‘per dollar spent’.