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Cyberpunk runs 30% faster on linux than on windows 11

The YouTube channel “Maximum Fury” conducted a technical test of the new Cyberpunk add-on called “Phantom Liberty” on an older AMD hardware system, testing it separately on Linux and Windows 11. The Linux system, specifically the Fedora distribution called Nobara, performed significantly better, delivering 31% more frames compared to Windows 11.

The hardware used for testing included an Asrock B550 motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU from the first RDNA generation, along with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. The CPU, RAM, and GPU were overclocked, and the system utilized undervolting to save energy costs.

When testing the game at 1080p resolution with high textures, the Linux system achieved an average of 63.72 frames per second (fps), while Windows 11 managed only 48.55 fps. This suggests that the game should run noticeably smoother on the Linux system.

Swiggles ,

It is just unfortunate that it does not run on Nvidia hardware. The benchmark runs if you disable all RTX features, but it crashes on a new game before you even have full control of the character.

Looking at protondb it looks like all people with Nvidia have issues since the 2.0 update. I hope there will be some fix soon. I don’t want to replace the GPU yet it would be a waste (2080 Super).

For now I am playing it on my Steam Deck instead.

visnudeva ,
@visnudeva@lemmy.ml avatar

I don’t know what you’re talking about, It run very well on my Nvidia GPU on Linux before and after the patch and DLC.

Swiggles ,

Create a new character, select corporate start and once the other person enters the room the game crashes just for the easiest 100% reproducible crash. Other people have the same problems and even if they get past that (different game start) it still frequently crashes due to Nvidia driver bugs as far as I understand it.

If it works so well for you what’s your setup? I heard some older Nvidia cards might work better.

hightrix ,

I just did this a couple days ago(new game with corpo start) on my brand new system that I just built. No crashes, no issues at all. Using 7950X3D and a 4090.

Edit: I misread. I’m using windows on this system.

cpw ,

Downgrade to the 510 Nvidia driver. Runs absolutely solid on my rtx2080. It should be noted that this crash seems to be quite correlated to the rtx20x0 cards - my speculation is that something about dlss is a bit borked on them since they’re the first dlss 2+ cards. It’s not even exclusively Linux either, reports indicate that there’s some sort of overlay (I blame the call overlay myself) that is tanking fps on windows as well. The 510 driver works great because dlss isn’t available for it as I understand it.

Molecular0079 ,

Just tried this on my Nvidia 3090 with no issues. Corpo start, went all the way to T-Bug’s Mili-tech training program just fine. DLSS and Psycho RT enabled.

Swiggles ,

Thank you for testing. Seemingly it is just the 20XX cards affected then. I just checked the other reports again and they are also using turing cards. Bummer!

visnudeva ,
@visnudeva@lemmy.ml avatar

I never had an issu with this game on steam, my setup is a basic dell gaming laptop with Intel i5CPU and Nvidia GTX 1650 from 3 years ago and my OS is an Arch based distro, Garuda, but I also played on other distros without problems.

Swiggles ,

Looks like it really is just turing cards affected then. Bummer!

Zangoose ,

The 1650 is Turing though. Both 16XX (low end) and 20XX (mid/high end) cards are on Turing architecture

Swiggles ,

I am starting to believe it just affects the 2000 series of cards then although some of the driver bugs causing crashes should affect all modern Nvidia cards equally.

I am confused why that’s the case though.

I looked through protondb again and it looks like all people using 20XX cards cannot play the game. While it looks fine for 30XX with some minor tweaks. For older cards it is a mixed bag, but there are just very few reports overall.

potajito ,

No issues here, more than 20 hours on Linux on a 3080 latest drivers, wayland, , dlss, ray tracing or not, works great.

heyoni ,

Can you do ray tracing on Linux? I played today a bit and the option was grayed out. I’m on X though, using official drivers.

skulbuny ,
@skulbuny@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yup, you just gotta set the right environment variables. Can’t remember them off the top of my head though, “NVAPI” is part of one of them I think. Don’t have an nvidia gpu anymore, though, switched to AMD about two months back.

heyoni ,

Just came back to say it freaken worked. Cyberpunk on linux looks and runs just as well as it does on windows. I don’t think I need to dual boot anymore…


<span style="color:#323232;">export PROTON_HIDE_NVIDIA_GPU=0
</span><span style="color:#323232;">export PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1
</span><span style="color:#323232;">export VKD3D_CONFIG="dxr,dxr11"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">export PROTON_ENABLE_NGX_UPDATER=1
</span>

In case anyone else is wondering…

skulbuny ,
@skulbuny@sh.itjust.works avatar

Haha glad it worked out :)

kadu ,
@kadu@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Psythik ,

    Also no HDR, either (not supported by the OS). You’re not getting the full Cyberpunk experience without HDR and Ray Reconstruction. But I suppose that people with an older PC and monitor would benefit by switching to Linux.

    ReakDuck ,

    Gamescope allows the usage of HDR

    Batbro ,

    I recently tried but can’t get the tone mapping right in gamescope, any tips?

    PraiseTheSoup ,

    I already got the full cyberpunk experience 3 years ago, and it was terrible. Making the game prettier doesn’t make it any less of a joke.

    Psythik ,

    I used to say things like this too, but then I played 2.0.

    Surprisingly it’s a proper game now. They turned the game into GTA in the future, and that’s a good thing. Also the perk system was completely overhauled, and weapons rebalanced so that you actually have to do more than just grab whatever has the highest DPS.

    The story’s the same, but everything else is completely different. Give it another chance.

    PraiseTheSoup ,

    I’ve tried it. It absolutely is not “GTA in the future”. It’s just as shallow as it was at launch.

    Natanael ,

    HDR on Linux is definitely a thing, KDE supports it

    Kaldo ,
    @Kaldo@kbin.social avatar

    Wait, DLSS doesn't work on Linux at all? That's a pretty big thing to gloss over whenever someone is talking about linux gaming and how comparable it is to windows nowadays. I doubt I'd be able to get anything remotely close to a stable framerate on cyberpunk2077 without it, and same goes for other newer games like dying light 2 or starfield!

    kadu ,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    DLSS works. It took a while longer than Windows, but Nvidia themselves actually provide Wine-compatible DLL files. Also, there’s a native way to implement DLSS for Linux which, I kid you not, zero games so far are using. The Windows version works fine though.

    But DLSS Frame Generation and Ray Reconstruction do not work, and there are zero workarounds.

    Kaldo ,
    @Kaldo@kbin.social avatar

    Oh, so he's just talking about DLSS3 features, gotchya. I thought DLSS 1 performance improvements are also frame generation but I see now thats different

    deadcream ,

    DLSS is upscaler. Game is rendered at lower resolution and then image is upscaled in a bit smarter way than simple "stretching".

    kadu ,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    More precisely, DLSS is a set of models that use AI to interpolate an image. This interpolation can take many different forms:

    Interpolation can be used to take a lower resolution image and upscale it, which is the main feature of DLSS.

    You can also use DLSS to take a high resolution image and scale it down, with less artifacts, as a type of antialiasing. This is DLDSR.

    You can also use it to take information from an image, combined with motion data, and interpolate how blocks of pixels might change into a new frame. This allows you to generate intermediary frames. This is Frame Generation.

    You can also take a very noisy image, composed of discrete dots, and interpolate how neighboring pixels should look. This is Ray Reconstruction.

    arefx ,

    Aren’t frame generation and ray reconstruction new? I’m sure they’ll work one day, although I’m not a big Linux head I only use steamos on the deck I just see a lot of Linux posts on Lemmy so here I am lol.

    kadu ,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    They’re new, yes. Though the folks at Proton already confirmed they’ll provide no workaround to support it, Nvidia needs to build the Linux drivers with official support. We don’t know if they’ll do that and when.

    lupec ,

    Plain DLSS definitely works, I’m guessing they mean that specific reconstruction feature. I’m sure it’ll be implemented eventually if it’s possible at all though.
    Side note, a kind of related feature that is missing for sure from the Linux drivers is DLDSR, and plain DSR for that matter. As a heavy user of both, it’s a bit of a personal deal breaker.

    rush ,

    DLSS is a matter of Nvidia’s sub-par driver support. FSR2 (and soon FSR3, which does frame gen.) works, ironically even on Nvidia GPUs :P

    kadu ,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    rush ,

    I only took FSR3 for reference because it’ll support one of the things you outlined xP

    Molecular0079 ,

    DLSS ray reconstruction works in Linux. You just need to launch with DXVK_NVAPI_DRIVER_VERSION=53799 VKD3D_CONFIG=dxr11 %command%.

    kadu , (edited )
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    I was (happily!) wrong. See reply below.

    Molecular0079 ,

    No, it’s definitely working. Here’s proof (open the images in a new tab and zoom in on the reflections to see the difference in clarity):

    With reconstruction:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4cdc6717-a0c0-4c87-bda5-2f2433537bd2.png

    Without reconstruction:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/6de3ed99-7d5e-45e7-a4d4-7902788c1d87.png

    With reconstruction:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4a1addd5-d8ba-4aa3-8ce4-2e5bf5aefddd.png

    Without reconstruction:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7389b7ae-2b77-420d-983b-cf9a15fe4925.png

    With DXVK_NVAPI_DRIVER_VERSION=53799 and ray reconstruction enabled, reflections are much clearer and also resolve way faster during motion.

    kadu ,
    @kadu@lemmy.world avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Molecular0079 ,

    Could you tell me how to use these arguments?

    Sure thing! Right click on any game in Steam and click Properties. Then in the General tab, you’ll see a Launch Options box where you can paste these arguments in.

    What most people get wrong when first trying to use it is not knowing how to correctly specify environment variables vs launch options that get passed to the game executable. If you just want to pass arguments to the game, just paste them into the box. So for example with Cyberpunk, you can just paste in

    
<span style="color:#323232;">--launcher-skip
</span>

    and Steam will launch the game as if you were running

    
<span style="color:#323232;">Cyberpunk2077.exe --launcher-skip
</span>

    However, if you want to specify environment variables as well, you’ll need the %command% placeholder. So, in order to enable raytracing and bypass the driver check for ray reconstruction in Cyberpunk, I paste these launch arguments into the settings:

    
<span style="color:#323232;">DXVK_NVAPI_DRIVER_VERSION=53799 VKD3D_CONFIG=dxr11 %command% --launcher-skip
</span>

    which is like running

    
<span style="color:#323232;">DXVK_NVAPI_DRIVER_VERSION=53799 VKD3D_CONFIG=dxr11 Cyberpunk2077.exe --launcher-skip
</span>

    %command% is just a placeholder for the game’s executable path.

    Hope that clears things up with regards to the launch options.

    As far as knowing which environment variables to use, that’s on a game-by-game basis, but the two most common ones that I use for Nvidia GPUs are PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 which enables DLSS in games that are not on Proton’s NVAPI whitelist, and VKD3D_CONFIG=dxr11 which enables raytracing. I almost never bother with any other environment variables unless there’s special game issues I need to workaround (like Cyberpunk’s driver version check), in which case I check ProtonDB or the game’s issue tracker on the Proton GitHub page.

    lelgenio , (edited )
    @lelgenio@lemmy.ml avatar

    Hey that’s a similar setup to mine, except I have 6700XT, on ultra settings, worst case scenario I get ~60FPS, on average it’s 80

    cyanarchy ,

    I haven’t tried the new update but this gives me high hopes for what my 6800 can chew through.

    HuddaBudda ,
    @HuddaBudda@kbin.social avatar

    A 30% increase in performance just might get gamers to switch over to the new operating system.

    Hell that is the difference between a better graphics card for some people. It's like getting a free overclock, just for going outside your comfort zone.

    cron OP ,

    This is just one game with one particular graphics card, this might not be the same for example with nvidia cards.

    conciselyverbose ,

    I'd be surprised if it is.

    I can't see anything but something hinky with driver overhead mattering this much.

    SnowdenHeroOfOurTime ,

    Cyberpunk 2077 runs faster on pop os on my Nvidia card compared to on windows 10

    yote_zip ,
    @yote_zip@pawb.social avatar

    This is a rare and extreme case, which is probably caused by some sort of fluke in the testing method or due to a bug in the game that Linux is handling better. Usually gaming on Linux is like ~5-10% slower for GPU-bound games.

    snooggums ,
    @snooggums@kbin.social avatar

    I kind of expect a patch for Windows that addresses the reason it is slower there now that they know there is a difference.

    dark_stang ,
    @dark_stang@beehaw.org avatar

    This is probably more common than you’d think, at least in my anecdotal experience. Converting directx commands to vulkan commands, especially for AMD GPUs, can result in better and more consistent performance on Linux.

    yote_zip , (edited )
    @yote_zip@pawb.social avatar

    Do you have any numbers or examples of games? I know that it’s generally the case that DX9 games often have greater performance through DXVK, but DX11 and DX12 should usually be a little bit slower. Also, CPU-bound games are often faster on Linux in my experience, but it’s rare for games to be CPU-bound (MMOs etc).

    Additionally, OpenGL and Vulkan should be faster on Linux (Native or WINE+OpenGL/Vulkan), but I don’t have as much experience with them.

    Edit: I found this video which has a few standout games where Linux pulls ahead even on DX11/DX12. Hopefully that’s a sign of future trends.

    Lesrid ,

    There was a tweet before the recent Cyberpunk update that essentially said “expect very high CPU utilization as we now use the whole CPU” which I thought just meant they dropped the ball somewhere.

    dark_stang ,
    @dark_stang@beehaw.org avatar

    I haven’t done extensive testing on this as I’m just some dude. It’s been a long time since I’ve had windows running on anything, but the three that I remember are:

    • Fallout 76 - frame rate was about the same iirc. But way better input response and it didn’t crash in Linux like it did in Windows. Unsure if there were driver issues in Windows or what.
    • Borderlands 3 had a better frame rate and more stable frame pacing. But at the cost of increased loading screen time.
    • Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion, probably a CPU bound issue with all the individual units flying around. But it ran way smoother on Linux for me than Windows, no juttering when zooming around the map or when a buttload of carriers show up.
    Zeth0s , (edited )

    This is likely going to change as software support for gaming on Linux improves.

    If you consider real high performance computing, with well optimized libraries that can properly use the hardware (including GPUs), 50 % difference between windows and Linux is not really surprising. This is the reason 100% of real high performance computing is done on Linux. It is a better OS for raw performances than windows. For some tasks we are easily talking over twice the performances. It is not always the case, but not surprising at all.

    The differences clearly depend on the actual low level implementation of the code. But in general the current situation in gaming, with windows that competes with Linux on raw performances, is only due to lack of software support for gaming on Linux. As this is changing over time, we’ll see games performances greatly improve in Linux. Hopefully until the physiological surpass of windows performances.

    Currently most of gaming support on Linux is done via some kind of translation layer, that has itself an overhead. It means that the real linux performance would be even better than in all these benchmarks, if it was really possible to compare 1:1 Windows and Linux with native, well optimized code.

    Whom ,

    Sometimes there are also unimplemented/broken features on Linux which people don’t notice and save frames. Legit performance improvements over Windows do happen (especially on memory and cpu-limited systems) but I’d be skeptical of any particularly huge ones.

    batmangrundies ,

    Yeah.

    I’m personally lucky that my fav titles are CPU hogs, like ARMA 3 and X4: Foundations. Both run better under Linux.

    Cyberpunk runs great too, I’m sure once we eventually get the updated drivers for NVIDIA we’ll get Ray Recon too.

    bekopharm ,
    @bekopharm@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    X4: Foundations

    Can relate 🤓

    https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/90f8e921-b6f6-4278-8fe9-af962ca1efde.jpeg

    Only thing I’m missing is “real” head tracking. There is simply none in the Linux version and while I can map a virtual joystick driven by OpenTrack to each camera corner it’s just not the same. Sadly this is not exposed via LUA or I’d have wired up a UDP connection by now. So this feature sadly works only via Proton. Still sticking with the native Linux version though. It’s faster.

    OtakuAltair ,

    On Nobara OS, I haven’t noticed any performance dip coming from windows.

    Linux Experiment on youtube found it performs ~5% better overall in games than Fedora, so that’s probably why.

    MonkderZweite ,

    Usually gaming on Linux is like ~5-10% slower for GPU-bound games.

    Or faster. Depends heavily on the game. Some things wine + dxvk does better.

    Natanael ,

    It’s not rare for games to be a few % faster, as long as they’re using features that are well supported in Linux. If the bottleneck is something that needs heavier emulation because the native implementation isn’t available or good enough then yeah you’ll see slowdowns.

    acastcandream ,

    Yeah but it still upsets me that “Fedora” exists lol. The name, that is.

    ColeSloth ,

    30 percent of real improvement is one hell of an overclock…

    Ado ,

    Lol

    Kodemystic ,
    @Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev avatar

    Is there a Linux distro specifically optimized for gaming?

    Natanael ,

    SteamOS technically, but you probably don’t want it on a regular computer.

    arefx ,

    SteamOS is perfect on the deck. Honestly it’s probably fine on a PC if all you do is game and browse Firefox. Obviously some games won’t run in Linux.

    Rykzon ,

    Nobara is great, based on fedora so very stable and fairly up to date with many built in gaming features and no after install setup required to get gaming. nobaraproject.org

    Running it for over a year now on my gaming rig and very happy

    rush ,

    Nobara and Pop!_OS do well in this regard.

    sock ,

    linux users still coping

    nobody likes linux yall are chatting in an echo chamber. lemmy feels like a comp sci major college party lol

    averagedood ,
    @averagedood@owo.cafe avatar

    And yet, Steam hardware survey shows Linux growing almost every month. By little, yes, but still growing almost every month, with Valve and Steam themselves betting more on Linux than on Windows and the Steam Deck being a thing.

    If Lemmy feels like a computer science party, tell ya what: feel free to join us, everyone's welcome. Just don't claim "cope and seethe" when there's actual growth here

    sock ,

    it grew from 1% to 1.5% as a result of steam deck release? or what growth.

    ive been to enough compsci parties im not abouta indulge in pseudocode on a whiteboard thank you very much.

    SnowdenHeroOfOurTime ,

    Plenty of people like Linux, the real echo chamber would be some place you don’t have to hear how much better alternatives there are to garbage-ass windows.

    snekerpimp ,

    Now can you make it stop defaulting to controller keybindings on Linux?

    Nihil ,

    echo ‘2C45C6: EB’ | xxd -r - Cyberpunk2077.exe

    In the x64 bin folder

    neutron ,

    Source, and what is this command supposed to do? We shouldn’t blindly copypaste shell commands from online.

    MrShelbs ,
    @MrShelbs@lemmy.ca avatar

    The Steam community thread about this issue and I can vouch it does fix it.

    noodlejetski ,

    “trust me bro” is not an answer

    transientpunk ,
    @transientpunk@sh.itjust.works avatar

    xxd man page

    snekerpimp ,

    Thank you!

    cpw ,

    This bug was fixed in a patch when phantom liberty launched? I haven’t seen it since that patch anyway.

    thefartographer ,

    Shut up and look at the more frames. - article author mumbling - God damn ingrates always complaining just because things don’t work right… 30% more frames is practically 10% less controller!
    ໒꒰ྀི -᷅ ⤙ -᷄ ꒱ྀི১

    JigglySackles ,

    Why does the Nobara benchmark report as Windows 10 pro?

    junezephier ,

    probably from the wine trick it uses or something, no?

    JigglySackles ,

    I wouldn’t know personally. I don’t use linux for games except on my steam deck, so I don’t have any knowledge on the subject. That does make some sense though if WINE relies on tricking software into thinking it’s Windows.

    sanpo ,

    Wine always reports itself as some version of Windows. Mostly, it doesn’t really matter.

    Gamey ,

    Wine simulates a Windows environment to some degree, Steam is the only platform that fixed the reporting issue and that wasn’t always the case ether because the system tells the game it’s Windows.

    rush ,

    Because translating a game in real-time doesn’t negate the fact that it’s a windows game. As such, wine will report as being Windows 10 by default.

    doomsdayrs ,
    @doomsdayrs@mastodon.ml avatar

    @JigglySackles @cron wine self reports itself as windows 10 for compatibility

    JigglySackles ,

    Thanks!

    whitecapstromgard ,

    Not suprising. Linux is usually faster, that is whe backend of every internet service uses Linux.

    ampersandrew ,
    @ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

    30% is extremely surprising. I'd expect single digit percent gains, if any, on Linux. This 30% difference was in the opposite direction 10 years ago, when Windows had access to low-level graphics APIs and Linux was only on OpenGL. I wouldn't expect there to be 30% worth of frames per second to be tied to Windows bloat.

    sugar_in_your_tea ,

    Exactly. And usually there’s a 5-10% performance penalty on Linux because of WINE overhead when running Windows games on Linux, but sometimes Linux makes up for it in other ways (maybe the scheduler) and can get 5-10% faster.

    ampersandrew ,
    @ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

    Honestly, on Proton, performance differences between the two operating systems are a dice roll in either direction, but still single digit percentages like you said.

    zurohki ,

    30% means either Windows is doing something dumb, or the game is doing something dumb and the compatibility layers are mitigating the issue on Linux.

    nekusoul ,
    @nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de avatar

    Exactly. Some people here seem to be completely detached from reality if they honestly think that this isn’t just some weird bug and these tests being an indicator of one OS being better than the other.

    Sure there are some aspects where one OS’s philosophy has some performance gains over the other when doing very specific tasks, mostly when it comes to file access or creating processes. A 30% difference is just way too much, particularly for a game, where those differences shouldn’t matter as much.

    Natanael ,

    Like how Elden Ring ran better on Linux at the start because Wine could patch in cache precompilation which normally the game devs would need to do themselves

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