FreeBSD, Ubuntu Offer Same NVIDIA OpenGL Support As Windows 74
An anonymous reader writes "There's some good news if you use NVIDIA graphics on (Ubuntu) Linux or FreeBSD with their binary graphics driver: the OpenGL performance is comparable to Windows 8. Unfortunately, that's not the same for Intel graphics and AMD doesn't even offer a Catalyst driver for FreeBSD. FreeBSD offers a binary Linux compatibility layer to run games at the same (or better) performance as Linux, but unfortunately it's capped to running Linux x86 binaries and NVIDIA is the only GPU vendor with proper BSD graphics driver support."
Re:AMD Shooting themselves in the foot (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a FreeBSD user, but this shows that sadly, we still have a long way to go when it comes to getting open source driver support. Sure, there are drivers for Linux nowadays, which I'll admit is a huge victory in itself. But having binary drivers only completely misses the point. The point of *open* drivers is to permit tinkering, which is a Greater Good that benefits all of us (including the manufacturer).
Re:in 3... 2... 1... (Score:4, Insightful)
No-one has complained about the performance of Windows 8 - in fact it's known for being a bit better than Windows 7 in some areas. It's just the shoehorned mobile-focus UI in Win 8 that's earned contempt instead of hardware requirements for a change.
Re:Yes! Econ-101 (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is a nonstarter in the mid to high leveled graphics card markets.
Are you talking about consumer or professional grade cards there? People do engineering CAD work and simulation in Linux. Steam is out for Linux now, and more games will presumably be on the way. Linux users are more likely to be power users who actually care about getting decent hardware.