LinuxGames.com: Linux vs. Windows in Quake 3 Arena Performance

[ Linux Today reader Matt Matthews writes ]

“At LinuxGames,
we’ve just put up an article
showing the performance difference between Linux and Windows when
playing Quake 3 Arena with
a 3dfx Voodoo3 card. Benchmarks
are given showing the results using various drivers in each OS,
including with the XFree86 4.0 snapshot drivers in Linux and the
WickedGL drivers in Windows. This comparison gives an honest look
at how well the drivers for each OS are tuned.”

“The bad news is that in practical playing situations, the more
polished Windows drivers provide the best performance for playing
Quake 3 Arena. And if you want the very best performance, you
should use the WickedGL drivers. But, as I see it, the good news is
that at 800×600 and below, Linux isn’t that far behind. Assuming
that the drivers can be optimized to increase the performance at
1024×768 and higher, Linux may eventually be competitive across the
board. Certainly, Linux is far ahead of where it was just a year
ago, both in performance and stability. So, as I normally play at
800×600 anyway, I’ll continue playing Q3A in Linux and forego
booting into Windows every time I have the desire to frag
someone.”

“Additionally, the windowed OpenGL performance also looks very
promising. In order for Linux to be a contender in the professional
workstation market, it will have to provide top-notch OpenGL
acceleration…”

Complete
story.