Win vs. Linux

[LaStLiFe]

Hi everyone:

First of all, thanks for bringing this great game to Linux :)

Anyway, the thing is that after trying the Linux version on my low-spec laptop I've found something really odd about these two versions. Take a look at these in-game screenshots:

• Windows version: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=269678827
  
• Linux version: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=269601818

As many of you would notice, the Linux version has some pretty crispier and "bumpy" textures rather the dull and flat textures from the Windows version. My Linux Civ V is configured on a low-med detail configuration and the Windows version on high (everything) and AAx8 (changing this doesn't change the terrain textures at all).

So... Am I doing something wrong on my Windows version or does the Linux version have improved textures?

[CidDaBird]

I have played around with Linux and I find that Civ5 looks better overall on the PC. Not just because I love PC a bit more but because it does looks better to me. Its just a opinion though.

[Vladradamus]

Originally posted by ( ͡° ͜ ͡°)Paxer Neo:

I have played around with Linux and I find that Civ5 looks better overall on the PC. Not just because I love PC a bit more but because it does looks better to me. Its just a opinion though.

Someone needs to do this... Linux runs on a PC!

[Stupendous Man]

Originally posted by Vlad Dracula IV:

Someone needs to do this... Linux runs on a PC!

Yeah, way too many people make this mistake; both Windows and Linux computers are PCs.

[Jormundgand]

Originally posted by Vlad Dracula IV:

Originally posted by ( ͡° ͜ ͡°)Paxer Neo:

I have played around with Linux and I find that Civ5 looks better overall on the PC. Not just because I love PC a bit more but because it does looks better to me. Its just a opinion though.

Someone needs to do this... Linux runs on a PC!

I was just about to do it.. then I read your post. I'll just expand on it instead:

PC = Personal Computer. Attributed to an IBM PC, which most certainly did not run Windows (it didn't exist). Plenty of early computers where considered PCs before the IBM PC, among those where the Amiga computers.

[RevenantX]

Originally posted by Stupendous Man:

Yeah, way too many people make this mistake; both Windows and Linux computers are PCs.

+1

[EekAMouse]

PC = Personal Computer, just remember that. It's not windows, it's not Microsoft. It's a Personal Computer and Linux runs on PC so does Mac OSX actually ... Terrible marketing campaigns by Microsoft and Apple... You can run anything you want on a PC, its just that Windows holds the major marketing share...

For comparisons sake I've only played Civ 5 on my 2011 mac book pro and no
w on Linux and on Linux with everything set to high running at 1080p it runs like butter and looks incredible. I doubt there will be any real difference between the Windows / Linux builds, but apparently Apple uses a really out of data OpenGL graphical stack (it didn't look as good - but then I never maxed out the settings), this port is incredible I really doubt there is any difference. ( Thank you once again Aspyr for porting you guys are amazing)

[Jormundgand]

Originally posted by vdopey:

<...>this port is incredible I really doubt there is any difference.

I have to disagree, but that may depend on our particular distribution. I am barely able to start the game; I suspect poor resource handling since it seems to continuesly read from and write to disk, which is a problem since I run my home dir from an NFS mount -- gigabit, but many small IO operations will trash the performance. Also settings are overwritten; if I change the settings in the settings file, they are overwritten and changeing them ingame either causes the game to crash or just freeze.

Memory is not the issue

              total       used     free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          7,3G       1,1G      6,2G       1,7M        38M       325M
-/+ buffers/cache:       734M      6,6G
Swap:         119G         0B      119G

[EekAMouse]

Do you have any local partitions ? try running it through a local partition (you can change that in the steam settings) install iotop it should show you your io usage it sounds like io limitations, rather than the game itself. use sar / iostat /dstat / iotop and monitor usage check the %iowait time for sar that will tell you if bottle neck is i/o as its across network you'll need to monitor throughput across interface as well use ntop/nload/ifstat/iperf use which ever tool makes more sense for you. Im running it off an SSD locally no issues.

[Jormundgand]

Originally posted by vdopey:

Do you have any local partitions ? try running it through a local partition (you can change that in the steam settings) install iotop it should show you your io usage it sounds like io limitations, rather than the game itself. use sar / iostat /dstat / iotop and monitor usage check the %iowait time for sar that will tell you if bottle neck is i/o as its across network you'll need to monitor throughput across interface as well use ntop/nload/ifstat/iperf use which ever tool makes more sense for you. Im running it off an SSD locally no issues.

I do have (several) local partition; I also have a spare HDD setup as a giant swap partition. I haven't had any problems with anything else (including some very io intensive stuff), but will try out your proposals and see if I can improve on things.

Edit: dstat reports a maximum of 38k/s sent when civ 5 writes configuration files -- most of the time the speed was < 1k/s and the amount of data transmitted (~300KiB as far as I can tell -- a few KiB may have been from other sources) is way too much to account for a file 1569 bytes large. Some of the problems may be due to my server not working right (which I doubt, since it's fine for everything else), but there's certainly also a problem with Civ 5.

[The Rock God]

What I see in the Linux picture is the much lower poly count you get with lowered settings.