Linux FPS is half of Windows FPS, same hardware

[lostwizard]

My system is running Linux Mint 17.2 MATE (64 bit) as the primary operating system. It's a quad core i7-4820 @ 3.7GHz and 16GB RAM with a Radeon R9 390X with 8GB video RAM. This is using the AMD binary driver.

I get on average between 35 and 40 fps while playing. That's playable and I mostly don't notice it. However, it seems low. The fps doesn't seem to be significantly affected by the various graphics options.

I recently had occasion to try Windows 10 (64 bit) on the same system with the same hardware. I installed Skylines on the Windows installation and loaded up the same city that was giving the 35 to 40 fps under Linux and found that it is getting between 70 and 75 fps under Windows, on the *exact same* hardware. (I had vsync turned off for comparison purposes in both operating systems. You can't get an accurate comparison otherwise.)

I should mention that those comparisons hold with no mods enabled so it's not mods that are dragging the frame rate down.

It would seem that some aspect of the Linux build or runtime environment is significantly less efficient than the Windows build, to the point that the frame rate is approximately halved.

 

[Seth C Triggs]

Could a developer see if the QA company could be contacted, about the Linux benchmarking? I'm playing on Linux and getting the same issue as above. I just get more CPU usage. The game is playing smoothly on my 3.0GHz quadcore AMD, 24GB RAM and 4GB video card.

 

[TotalyMoo]

Hey there!

The only officially supported linux distro is ubuntu, so I'm sorry to say there's little we can do when you're not using that.

We do try to make sure that other popular distros are working well too but this is not something we can promise is delivered with every update.

 

[lostwizard]

Hey there!

The only officially supported linux distro is ubuntu, so I'm sorry to say there's little we can do when you're not using that.

We do try to make sure that other popular distros are working well too but this is not something we can promise is delivered with every update.

Given that Linux Mint is derived from Ubuntu, there's reason to suspect a similar FPS scenario with Ubuntu. Granted, there are probably eleventy billion other variables at play, but the core system (drivers, X, etc.) is basically the same.

When testing, particularly when looking for performance discrepencies between operating systems, do the testers compare performance (FPS) between different operating systems (Windows and Linux specifically) on the exact same machine? If not, perhaps it might be worth doing that. (And do the comparison without the vsync enabled to see a real comparison on speed. That way if the test is on hardware that can keep up without breaking a sweat, you can see the difference.)

I should note that I'm not complaining about playability overall.The game plays fine at 30 to 40 FPS. I figured it was worth reporting that there is something that probably bears further investigation and may well be related to the other complaints I've seen about terrible FPS on non-WIndows.

 

[Seth C Triggs]

Hey there!

The only officially supported linux distro is ubuntu, so I'm sorry to say there's little we can do when you're not using that.

We do try to make sure that other popular distros are working well too but this is not something we can promise is delivered with every update.

I understand. For what it's worth I am using Linux Mint (I believe I have X-server) 14 (which is a variant of Ubuntu). Is there a recommended distro of Ubuntu that I should use for Cities? I feel that I could probably easily switch over, especially since 14 is creeping closer to end-of-support.

Thanks again for the info and all your help!