Why games of Linux runs slower than Windows

In my experiences whenever I have run a native Linux game client both the frame rates and network communications have been better than on the equal windows client. The reason for this is generally because your Linux system has better memory handling and utilizes multiple network algorithms to optimize your bandwidth usage.

The game(s) you are running may have been built utilizing older graphics libraries that lack some capabilities, which is my guess why they are slower for you. In those cases that has nothing to do with the OS, it is a problem with the game itself.

As for the graphics driver, currently (10/24/10) the latest nvidia driver is 260.19.12, which has improved benchmarks compared to the 256.2 driver. However ubuntu is not yet distributing the latest driver, if you want to use the latest driver you will have to build it on your system manually.

Good quoting of the experiences of others, but again as I said in my experience Linux outperforms windows for the few games I play. This could be because I am using an optimized slackware installation rather than ubuntu as you and phoronix had used.

If you are truly concerned about the differences then I recommend that you consider contributing to the X11 development community and working towards narrowing the gap that you see.

Seyed. That was an interesint link. It's odd that when they tested Ubuntu, they never tested it with an nvidia vhip, just the Intel chip. That seems rather unfair.

That aside, They only tested Ubuntu, and not any other Linux distribution ... To be fair (and I like Ubuntu), Ubuntu is bloated. Did they turn off compiz before they ran the game? How may other processes were running?

A better test would have been to include an Ubunut machine with an nvidia chip, and then to include maybe 2 ot 3 other ditributions with the same hardware combinations.

Also, something that was not taken into consideration (and I'm not really gamer, so I'm unfamiliar with the games on the list) but what libraries wee being used by those games? What I mean, is that sometimes, game developers who port their games to Linux do so as an after thought, and don't give much thought to the tools that they are using. Perhaps their games were linked against older, less efficient libraries. Maybe they included thier own instead of using "standards".

As mfillpot has already stated, my own experience has bene that things run faster and smoother under Linux than under other OSes.

Here's an idea ... let's bench mark some originaly Linux software that has been ported to toher OSes, too. How well does the Gimp run under windows as compared to Linux, for example?