Saturday 28 September 2013

Ubuntu 13.04 VS Windows 8: Left 4 Dead 2 Comparison (2013)






Gameplay performance comparison for Left 4 Dead 2 between Ubuntu 13.04 and Windows 8.

On the Ubuntu side of things, we have SimpleScreenRecorder 0.0.7 to record the gameplay. Nvidia's 313 official Ubuntu driver was used.

On the Windows side of things, we have Fraps to record the gameplay. Nvidia's latest driver which is 327.23 was used.

In both instances of the gameplay, the settings for Left 4 Dead 2 was kept the same. I also attempted to do the exact same things in-game, but since I'm not a robot there will be differences. Please pause at 0:08 to see the settings I put L4D2 at.

Some may say that Windows is being brought down by Fraps, but I attempted to use other screen recorders like MSI Afterburner, XFire and WeGame (although WeGame is dead now).

Afterburner which is said to be lighter than Fraps, only allowed L4D2 to reach a maximum of 40 fps in-game ( I even messed with the settings to see if I could bring it up higher, but it was not possible ). XFire couldn't even record L4D2, it kept making the game crash on startup. In the end, Fraps was the only one granting Windows a higher fps.

While both games are obviously being hindered by their respective screen recorders somewhat, the clear winner here is Ubuntu. Under the duress of L4D 2 set to max and simultaneously doing a screen recording, Ubuntu handled the load a lot better than Windows 8. This resulted in higher frames per second in Ubuntu. Not to mention, the usual word of mouth is that Windows has better drivers and stable support but it doesn't seem to do it any good here.

I did not use a newer Linux driver from Nvidia, and this is because I actually tried installing 319.49 and it kept breaking Unity in Ubuntu.

This video is just to highlight the performance I get in both Operating Systems. They are NOT representative of what anyone else may experience, whether current, past or future. AMD graphics users may experience vastly different results.

Purchase and Download Left 4 Dead 2 from here:

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