Linux Scheduler Work Helping Boost Gaming Performance On Old "Potato" Hardware

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Aginor404@reddit

Oh dear, that counts as a potato these days?

Still impressive results, good job.

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nandru@reddit

I mean, IDK if sandy bridge even has vulkan support... I have a Ivy bridge laptop and anything that uses graphics complains that ivy bridge vulkan support is incomplete

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KnowZeroX@reddit

It's a desktop, so no igpu. It has an RX580 there which does have Vulkan support.

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hpxvzhjfgb@reddit

I use a Toshiba Portege laptop from 2012 with an i7-2620M cpu with sandy bridge H architecture (released in 2011). It has no vulkan support at all.

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Sure is. I am just not sure what to call that low end laptop from 2009 now (2006 tech or so, I play old games on it, Mint and Xubuntu with XFCE run decently). I always called that a potato, but OPs "potato" is roughly 4 times as fast.

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skeptical-speculator@reddit

For testing, I've done a little experiment, I dug out what is colloqually known as a potato. A trusty old Sandybridge 2600k with a RX 580, and ran a game on it.

if that is a potato, my gaming rig is like one french fry

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Glitch-v0@reddit

I just had an RX 580 last year :(.
It was a good lil' GPU.

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rmyworld@reddit

It's a goated GPU for Linux. These days it's not the best option for playing the latest modern games, but it's still a fairly capable GPU for any game from around 2018-ish

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Lawnmover_Man@reddit

I still have it, and likely will keep it for a longer time. I'm just happy that my GPU actually counts as potato. I've seen worse than that. I feel so young!

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DarthPneumono@reddit

Still impressive results, good job.

Impressive results in a workload that reflects no real-world task, and no real change otherwise. Phoronix is clickbait.

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Tired8281@reddit

I wonder if this will help with the server I just set up, on an Intel Compute Stick?

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eepyborb@reddit

it's the one with atom cores, right? just curious, what are you running on it? i have one laying around and wonder if it can handle tailscale subnet router.

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Tired8281@reddit

That's the one! It's running Fedora Server with Lyrion Music Server, serving music off a separate NAS. Not really a heavy job to be doing but it takes up most of the Stick. The Stick benchmarks somewhere between a Pi 3 and a Pi 4.

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eepyborb@reddit

that sounds interesting and I see it even has docker support! will spin up an instance this weekend and see how it cooks.

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Tired8281@reddit

Beware! There was a weird problem with that generation, they had 64 bit CPUs but they only shipped with a 32 bit EFI. So Fedora will recognize it as 64 bit capable and install a 64 bit GRUB but it won't boot, you need to copy the BOOTIA32.EFI from the installer to the EFI partition, then it will boot. That's also why I chose Fedora, it still supports 32 bit EFI.

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eepyborb@reddit

oh, thanks for the headsup. I will definitely keep that in mind. you might have save me a lot of headache. thanks once again 🤗

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ChocolateSpecific263@reddit

The article misleadingly frames a structural refactoring of the Linux scheduler as a major performance breakthrough for old hardware, whereas the reported gains are actually limited to extreme, synthetic scenarios of total CPU saturation that do not reflect real-world gaming conditions.

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wRAR_@reddit

In other words, Phoronix

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Pastellitto@reddit

I mean didn't that benchmark came from the Peter guy not Phoronix?

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wintrmt3@reddit

Moronix.

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slacka123@reddit

Why did you leave out that he did indeed test on a game "Ran a game on it. From GOG, I had available 'Shadows: Awakens". As someone that regally games on Linux with multiple background tasks, I am happy to see this performance increase. Sure if you only read the headline it's a bit misleading, but if you actually read the article, it's completely factual and useful.

As long as there have been newspapers, you would be misinformed by just reading the headline. Sorry for you, if you haven't learned that lesson by now.

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Nicksaurus@reddit

As someone that regularly games on Linux with multiple background tasks, I am happy to see this performance increase

How often do you game with a stress test running that puts 100% load on every core?

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CrazyKilla15@reddit

With an older CPU with few cores, combined with background tasks and applications, combined with a CPU bound game? Plenty. This is a very common and realistic scenario.

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slacka123@reddit

Fun fact, I have been known to game with all my spare cores running a niced build job in the background. So I could relate to this post 100%. I recognize the I may be in the minority and a little nuts, but with RAM prices the way they are, my dedicated gaming build is on hold.

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CrazyKilla15@reddit

May be niche but not super rare, I would do the same if it was performant. Rust looooves CPU cores

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Helmic@reddit

Baloo file indexing. Or really any background task when playing a CPU bound game.

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CrazyKilla15@reddit

Are you suggesting older hardware being CPU-bound isnt realistic?

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Nicksaurus@reddit

Finally I can play counter strike and compile chrome at the same time

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OnlineParacosm@reddit

Before AI destroyed this hobby, I used to build gaming PCs for underprivileged kids and family friends. Is this a good replacement for what used to just be a Windows 10 build with preloaded with gains? Or would these kids have to become kernel engineers as well?

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Forward-Average5784@reddit

Yes, it's absolutely viable although still not as seamless as Windows. These days many applications are available as Flatpaks or Snaps, which are as simple to install as apps on a phone. Valve has done a considerable amount for gaming on Linux and any title available through Steam works automatically. Third-party launcher titles (such as Blizzard games) can work too although aren't as seamless.

You'll require more technical aptitude when problems occur though. I'd originally migrated from Windows 11 to Debian and encountered occasional AMDGPU failures despite my best efforts to resolve. I've recently migrated to Fedora 44 for GNOME 50 + current MESA and it's been fine so far (knock on wood). I'd guess that KDE may not have exhibited the issue at all, but I personally don't like how cluttered it can be.

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PocketStationMonk@reddit

That’s great news, thanks devs!