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Akaii Panda Mar 16, 2014 @ 3:29am
Longer loading times
I recognized it randomly while I tried L4D2. It took already over a minute just only for the main manu. Windows takes only about 10 seconds. Also the same thing with Dota. It feels like everything need three more times than on Windows. Also I get stutterings, I think some sounds or effects need to load. Like in Dota if I cast a skill for the first time, I get a freeze for about one or two seconds, but after that the game runs smooth until another player cast another skill which was probably not loaded. Had anyone same experience?

Linux Mint Debian Edition, AMD-FX 6300, AMD HD 7850 with 14.2 catalyst beta, 8 GB RAM
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Showing 1-15 of 18 comments
phillippi2 Mar 16, 2014 @ 4:53am 
It's mainly because the program is translating DirectX calls to OpenGL.
#1
R3450N Mar 16, 2014 @ 4:58am 
I haven't noticed this at all. Dota2 as well as TF2 start up just the same time as on Windows. I shouldn't say it has something to do with your AMD GPU.
#2
Akaii Panda Mar 16, 2014 @ 5:34am 
Originally posted by RAVEN MCCCXXXVII:
I haven't noticed this at all. Dota2 as well as TF2 start up just the same time as on Windows. I shouldn't say it has something to do with your AMD GPU.

What do you mean? Does it run better with Nvidia? Or can I do anything to improve the perfomance?
#3
R3450N Mar 16, 2014 @ 5:36am 
Originally posted by Pointex:
Originally posted by RAVEN MCCCXXXVII:
I haven't noticed this at all. Dota2 as well as TF2 start up just the same time as on Windows. I shouldn't say it has something to do with your AMD GPU.

What do you mean? Does it run better with Nvidia? Or can I do anything to improve the perfomance?

Well, Nvidia does work well on both sides of the table; but I hear the AMD open source drivers are better than the contrary.
#4
Dusk of Oolacile Mar 16, 2014 @ 8:25am 
Loading times are mostly determined by hard disk performance. Linux doesn't handle this as well as windows does at this point.
#5
Quaternion Mar 16, 2014 @ 3:13pm 
@Lolcat I wouldn't mind seeing some resource to review windows higher disk performance, I thought it would have more to do with conversions when loading resources from direct x to open gl. I'm looking forward to the day when mantel will allow you to load a game once for your particular hardware and then save the graphics card memory buffers to bypass most of the loading time. That will be really slick.
#6
Dusk of Oolacile Mar 16, 2014 @ 4:30pm 
@Quaternion:
There are no such thing as directx and opengl resources. The conversion means calling functions differently, implementing directx devices and classes etc. When you load level data from the disk, it has nothing to do with either directx or opengl. I think that's resource/review enough, simple logic.
#7
Fibbs Mar 16, 2014 @ 4:33pm 
Originally I was writing a reply to your question but ended up making a general tutorial which you can find here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/558750717530784174/

Try the tweaks and see if it improves your performance. I can't promise miracles but it should help a bit.
#8
Ashley Mar 16, 2014 @ 7:58pm 
Originally posted by phillippi2:
It's mainly because the program is translating DirectX calls to OpenGL.
No, it decompiles the shaders into GLSL and recompiles them with the driver. That's only on engine launch though and it doesn't effect runtime.
#9
Quaternion Mar 18, 2014 @ 8:31pm 
@-FwG-^ Player
Thanks for that I read LOLCATs reply and was going to argue about shaders and then realized that is quite a ticky problem, and finally saw your post explaining it.
#10
Edward.81 [IT-Linux] Mar 20, 2014 @ 9:20am 
I notice long loading time with tf2, from the end of valve video to main menu. With the catalyst i can take a coffè on the bar to get in the main menu. When i switched to latest opensource driver (ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers) the slow down is gone. With mesa driver i can also enable AA and vsync without crappy mouse lag and nice performance (AMD 7950)
#11
Akaii Panda Mar 20, 2014 @ 9:30am 
Originally posted by IT Edward.81:
I notice long loading time with tf2, from the end of valve video to main menu. With the catalyst i can take a coffè on the bar to get in the main menu. When i switched to latest opensource driver (ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers) the slow down is gone. With mesa driver i can also enable AA and vsync without crappy mouse lag and nice performance (AMD 7950)
What distribution are you using? maybe I should switch from LMDE to something else :O
#12
Edward.81 [IT-Linux] Mar 20, 2014 @ 9:34am 
Originally posted by Pointex:
What distribution are you using? maybe I should switch from LMDE to something else :O
Kubuntu x64. I say that the trouble is with the catalyst driver, not the distribution. I don't know if Oibaf driver work with mint but you can give it a try.
#13
Letalis Sonus Mar 20, 2014 @ 9:38am 
The translation layer caches the compiled shaders so that only the first startup of the game takes a little longer.
IIRC an issue within the proprietary fglrx driver causes that the shaders are being compiled every time, so it always takes way longer than it should.
#14
Akaii Panda Mar 20, 2014 @ 10:05am 
Originally posted by IT Edward.81:
Originally posted by Pointex:
What distribution are you using? maybe I should switch from LMDE to something else :O
Kubuntu x64. I say that the trouble is with the catalyst driver, not the distribution. I don't know if Oibaf driver work with mint but you can give it a try.
I just searched. Oibaf supports only the ubuntu distributions 13.10 and 14.04. That explains why it didn't worked when I tried it once on Xubuntu 12.04... well I'll check it out with 13.10 :coolsam:
Last edited by Akaii Panda; Mar 20, 2014 @ 10:05am
#15
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Date Posted: Mar 16, 2014 @ 3:29am
Posts: 18

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