Gaming on an AMD GPU under Linux
Intro
I recently bought a new PC with an AMD GPU (RX 7800 XT) and wanted to see how much performance you lose these days when playing on Linux. According to Linux fans the performance gap should be quite small, verifying this is the main goal of the test. Unlike my old GPU the new GPU also has the ability to use ray tracing which I will also try to compare between operating systems.
Set up
The testing machine has the following specs:
| Role | Name |
|---|---|
| GPU | RX 7800 XT |
| CPU | Ryzen 7 7800X3D |
| RAM | Corsair 6400 MHz DDR5 64 GB |
| SSD | Samsung 990 PRO NVME |
The limiting factor during testing should be the GPU. The distro used is Arch Linux running mesa and vulkan-radeon, for Windows Windows 11 and AMD Adrenalin Edition was used.
Cyberpunk 2077
Before running the benchmark I played a couple of hours on both Linux and Windows. On Linux I experienced infrequent crashes when ray tracing was enabled, on Windows the game ran stable.
For the benchmark I used the dedicated benchmark option in the settings menu. I tested twice once with the “Ray Tracing: Ultra” present and once with the “Ultra” preset
Ray Tracing: Ultra
| Category | Windows | Linux | Performance Loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max. FPS | 94.26 | 64.18 | 32% |
| Min. FPS | 51.39 | 18.69 | 64% |
| Avg. FPS | 69.91 | 33.28 | 53% |
Ultra
| Category | Windows | Linux | Performance Loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max. FPS | 250.40 | 136.90 | 44% |
| Min. FPS | 90.94 | 63.60 | 30% |
| Avg. FPS | 156.93 | 111.58 | 29% |
Discussing the Results
While both benchmarks show a heavy performance difference between the two operating systems, looking the percentages the loss incurred while having ray tracing enabled is nearly twice a high as the loss without ray tracing. I am not sure if this is caused by AMD drivers or by Proton, since the game is not native to Linux. But I assume both play a part in the incurred performance loss
Hitman 3
Next I tried Hitman 3, a game that already ran quite decent on my old card under Linux. I expected the game to run well and was not surprised.
Max Settings
| Ray Tracing | Windows | Linux | Performance Loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off | 342 | 319 | 7% |
| On | 67 | 319 | -476% |
Discussing the Results
The performance loss without ray tracing is minimal, which quite impressive. The Glacier engine used by IO Interactive might not relay as heavily on Windows specific design as the Red Engine does.
The performance gain while ray tracing is turned on is caused by ray tracing not working at all for this game under Linux, a quite disappointing result.
Summary
Due to lack of AAA titles with Linux support you will always incur a performance loss due to having to run a compatibility layer. Depending on the game engine the performance loss when playing under Linux might wildly differ.
During testing ray tracing was either not working at all or caused an even heavier performance loss.
While gaming under Linux works quite well for less compute heavy games, gamers will still have to use Linux in order to have the best experience when playing newer AAA titles.
Open Questions
There are two questions that are still open:
How does the performance loss of AMD cards compare to Nvidia cards?
For the near future I will not be able to test this since I have no use for a second GPU and the prices are quite steep.
What does the performance loss look like for Linux native applications?
In my quick search I did not find Linux GPU benchmarks, but I am sure they are out there, and I will write an update once I find one and get it to run.