[Wine] Should I upgrade my graphics card?

L. Rahyen research at science.su
Sun Sep 27 21:51:49 CDT 2009


On 2009-09-27 (September, Sunday) 17:48:24 Oli Warner wrote:
> I don't really know how to phrase the question but I'm curious to know how
> much an upgrade of graphics card makes to game performance through Wine.
>
> I'm currently running a 8800GTS on an i7 920. I've been considering getting
> a new card for a while but I'm not sure if this is going to have as big an
> effect as it would in, say, Windows.
>
> Has anybody here upgraded just their graphics card and what sort of
> improvements under Wine did you see as a result?

	You didn't tell what game(s) you are planning to run after upgrade so I can't 
give you very specific information. What I can is to tell you about my own 
experience.

	I have two computers:

	1) Q6600 at 3.4 GHz (quad-core processor) with GeForce GTX 295 (high-end gaming 
card).
	2) Athlon64 at 2.7 GHz (one core) with GeForce 8600.

	Computer #1 is running Linux 2.6.30, computer #2 is running Windows Server 
2003. My brother likes to play Unreal Tournament 3 (he don't want to play other 
games in near future so performance in any other game is currently irrelevant 
to him). On Linux computer with Wine Unreal 3 is very, very slow, antialiasing 
doesn't work. On Windows computer it is much faster even with highest 
antialiasing and anisotropic filtering settings than on Linux computer. However, 
difference between Linux and Windows computer is extreme (Linux computer is more 
than 5-6 times more powerful)! So, as you can see, faster graphics card doesn't 
necessary mean you will get faster performance in your game(s) in Wine 
(especially if you want to play newest Direct3D-based games).
	In older games, for example Unreal Tournament 1, difference between Linux and 
Windows computer isn't that bad: Linux computer works faster, especially in 
OpenGL mode.
	I didn't run any kind of professional gaming benchmarks however (and I don't 
use dual-boot on any of my computers so I can't run such benchmarks on same 
computer in both Linux and Windows anyway). But as you can see, results may 
vary: if you are planning to play old games, upgrading video-card will give you 
improvement (but it will not be very big because most old games don't need very 
fast card anyway). If you are planning to play newest DirectX 9 games (DirectX 
10 support is currently in development) you will get improvement with better 
videocard too but many of them will work much slower than on Windows, sometimes 
30%-80% or more slower, sometimes will not work at all or will work but with 
major bugs and performance is often limited by CPU speed (and not by GPU or 
number of CPU cores). But as I said - it is that bad only with newest DirectX 9 
games - at least with games my brother played so far; I always try to install 
them in Linux first because some games (unfortunately mostly old games) work 
great in Wine.
	If you want more specific information, please tell me what games you plan to 
play (at least in near future) after upgrade, what is videocard you want to buy 
as an replacement of your current one. Perhaps I will be able to tell you more 
knowing this information.

	P.S. If you will buy a new videocard make sure you are buying NVidia card. 
With NVidia you will get maximum performance in Linux in OpenGL and CUDA 
applications (as good as in Windows or better in native Linux applications or 
games; please note that Wine is Linux OpenGL application no matter what Windows 
program or game you running in it).




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