Proton Slows Down RTX 4090, 4080 By 10% in Linux vs Windows 11 Gaming Benchmarks
API translation is the only problem preventing games from reaching Windows 11 performance
Phoronix recently published an article covering the performance differences between Windows 11 and Linux Ubuntu with Nvidia's best graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080. For gaming, both GPUs were found to be 10% slower in Linux than Windows 11 when gaming with non-native Linux gaming applications. Natively, both operating systems perform very similarly.
For testing, Phoronix used a test rig comprised of the all-new Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Games and benchmarking applications tested include Cyberpunk 2077, Hitman 3, Unigine Heaven 4, and Unigine Superposition. Cyberpunk and Hitman ran on Steam's Proton compatibility layer, while the Unigine applications had dedicated native applications for Linux.
In Cyberpunk 2077, at 1440P Ultra settings, the RTX 4090 was 13% slower in Linux than Windows 11 Pro. The RTX 4080 fared similarly and was 15% slower in Linux Ubuntu than Windows 11.
At 1440P high settings, the gap starts closing for the RTX 4090, where the Linux OS was just 5% slower than Windows 11 Pro. Strangely when testing at medium graphics settings, the frame rates for the RTX 4090 don't get close to the high settings, for unknown reasons.
The RTX 4080 at 1440P high, did not show the same behavior as the RTX 4090. Featuring a performance gap of 15% again, just like Ultra settings. For details on the 4K results, be sure to check out the Phoronix article. But generally, the 4K results share similar behavior to the 1440P results.
Hitman 3 yielded interesting results. The 1440P results were much closer together between the two operating systems, but at 4K, the game exhibited much wider performance variance between Linux and Windows. At 1440P Ultra settings, the RTX 4090 and 4080 had a 4% to 5% performance variance between Linux and Windows. At 4K Ultra settings, the frame rate variance goes up to 14% and 15%, respectively.
Unsurprisingly, the Unigine Heaven and Superposition results were basically identical between both operating systems, with both the RTX 4090 and 4080, because both apps have native applications for Windows and Linux. At best, there was a 1.5% difference between both benchmarking applications at 1440P and 4K.
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Steam's Proton compatibility layer is obviously the main issue preventing Nvidia's 40 series GPUs from attaining Windows-like performance in Linux. But this should be expected since Proton's API translation from DX to Vulkan requires additional processing overhead. Either way, the 10% performance penalty (on average) is not that significant, and with how powerful these GPUs are, 90% of an RTX 4090 or 4080 still delivers a superb 4K or 1440P gaming experience.
Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
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blppt ReplyAdmin said:A new review compared the best CPU and GPU hardware against Windows and Linux, to see which operating system is the best for gaming. Turns out both are identical except for non-native applications.
Proton Slows Down RTX 4090, 4080 By 10% in Linux vs Windows 11 Gaming Benchmarks : Read more
Doesn't the Linux kernel still have problems with the Vcache chips? Or is that mitigated with the lower core count? -
blppt Reply
Its not really an emulator, mainly a translator and remapper allowing windows libraries to run on Linux. Wine actually stands for (amusingly) Wine Is Not an Emulator.jkflipflop98 said:Only a 10% slowdown for an emulator is pretty dang good.
(Proton is a custom Wine fork with DXVK) -
jackt Depend on the game, sometimes its faster. and you should not use ubuntu to compare, but arch... btw.Reply
And this would have never happened if something didnt stop the use of vulkan, on windows too. -
ezst036 This will be a persistent issue as part of Linux being new to the gaming scene. Some sort of layer will always add extra cruft.Reply
As Linux usage increases, more games will be native because the companies producing the games will want them to be native/enough customers will demand it. -
jkflipflop98 Replyblppt said:No, it really isn't.
emulator
Computers. hardware or software designed to imitate a different piece of hardware or a different software system, in order to do the same work or run the same programs:These JavaScript emulators allow you to run newer programs on older, incompatible operating systems.
WINE is an emulator. No matter how hard the neckbeards want to scream from the rafters that it isn't - it is. Sorry. You're making a layer of software that pretends to be DirectX on OpenGL/Vulkan. That's an emulator and no amount of mental gymnastics will make it any different. -
Rdslw Reply
it depends on what part you look at, it emulates windows libs, while api calls are translated, not emulated.jkflipflop98 said:It's an emulator.
but still its another layer in between that does something, so it should have a cost.
10% is damn decent for what it brings.
jackt said:Depend on the game, sometimes its faster. and you should not use ubuntu to compare, but arch... btw.
And this would have never happened if something didnt stop the use of vulkan, on windows too.
That's another can of worms. Technically all and none of the distributions are representative, and I believe Ubuntu was a "good enough" choice. Remember that press guys are not savy enough to have repeatable setup on arch. It's not about steamdeck, so simple is good. -
mitch074 Reply
No - an emulator would pass itself off as the "genuine" thing, when Proton's (and Wine's) graphical API do indicate that it's not.jkflipflop98 said:It's an emulator.
Emulators are a software simulation of hardware, while Wine (and Proton) is a re-implementation of the Windows API(s) on top of UNIX - DXVK is a translation of DX11/12 into Vulkan instead of translating it directly to machine language - which would require one version per GPU family, is possible (it was done before) but not really efficient when you consider how close to the metal Vulkan is.
I wouldn't be surprised if out of this 10-15% overhead, 5-10% actually came from the Linux version of the Nvidia driver not changing settings on the fly when it detects some game running - it does that on Windows.