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Published: June 18, 2020 | Source: Flightless Mango | Author: Mark Campbell

Red Dead Redemption 2’s PC version can run faster on Linux with Radeon hardware

Red Dead Redemption 2's PC version can run faster on Linux with Radeon hardware

Red Dead Redemption 2’s PC version can run faster on Linux with Radeon hardware

Linux gaming is on the rise, with solutions like Wine and Proton allowing Windows games to be played on the open-source OS. With Wine, DirectX 9, DirectX 11, and DirectX 12 games can be translated to Vulkan to enable Linux compatibility. While some games do not play nicely with this method, especially those with strict anti-cheating systems, it has expanded Linux’s game compatibility tremendously, providing gamers with performance levels which are very similar to their native Windows versions. 

When it comes to Linux VS Windows benchmarking, the YouTube channel Flightless Mango is one that is well worth following. In the channel’s latest video, the performance of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption II is compared across Windows and Linux, with Linux being split between three sets of custom Radeon drivers.   

At 1080p, using a system which utilised an Intel i7-8700K, 16GB of 3200MHz DDR4 memory and a Radeon RX Vega 56, Red Dead Redemption 2 was found to run faster using Vulkan, albeit marginally.   

In the chart below, we can see that all Vulkan versions of Red Dead Redemption 2 were able to run at higher framerates than the game’s DirectX 12 version on Windows, but what’s shocking is that Linux was also able to provide higher average framerates than Red Dead Redemption 2 Vulkan version on Windows. This gave Linux a 2-5 FPS advantage depending on the drivers used. 

While these performance advantages are minor, this is a clear sign that Windows game support on Linux is in a strong enough state to be worth considering. Linux will not offer stronger performance in all titles, the performance levels offered by Linux PC is often close enough to their Windows counterparts to be worth ignoring. It is also worth knowing that Nvidia graphics hardware runs worse in Linux under all tested use cases. 
  

Red Dead Redemption 2's PC version can run faster on Linux with Radeon hardware  

Linux has become a lot more viable as a gaming platform in recent years, so much so that we would now call it a viable gaming OS. In most cases, PC gamers can play new Windows games through Linux on day-1, and that factor can only make Linux a stronger gaming platform in the years to come. 

You can join the discussion on Red Dead Redemption 2’s PC version can run faster on Linux with Radeon hardware on the OC3D Forums. 

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