S3 Linux Driver Outperforms Its Windows Twin In Nexuiz

An anonymous reader writes "Chrome Center has done some benchmarks with the proprietary S3 Chrome 400/500 Driver on Linux and Windows. They compared Nexuiz frame rates on a Phenom II system with a S3 430 GT — the surprising result: The Linux driver outperforms its Windows equivalent, offering frame rates about twice as high on average. The question now: Is the Linux driver that good or the Windows driver that bad?"

Only Minimum framereat changes

[BigBuckHunter]

What is curious is that only the minimum framerate seems to change (which bumps up the average). The max remains the same, which may indicate that the benchmark is CPU bound.

BBH

Graphic features?

[FadedTimes]

Perhaps the windows driver has some graphic features enabled and the linux one does not (like trlinear filtering, shaders, etc). Not enough tech output to make a good conclusion.
way back in Quake 3 days I thought Linux was running Quake3 faster than Windows on my nvidia card, only to realize the linux driver did not have one of the graphics features turned on, which caused it to run faster with the same in game settings.

Vista

[mrphoton]

I note that the tests were done using windows vista. I wonder if this could have anything to do with the encrypted video path.

Re:Only Minimum framereat changes

[Workaphobia]

Nexuiz is notoriously unoptomized in its model vertex count and perhaps other areas. I wouldn't be surprised if it's CPU bound in ways that other games aren't.

Re:Vista

[rusl]

Why wouldn't it be DRM related? I don't know anything technical about this DRM and I am an anti-DRM zealot. ...And, it seems logical that no matter how well executed, DRM is an extra step on something (video output) that should logically imply some sort of cost for that extra step and if this is a very competitive field why shouldn't DRM have an impact?

Dogun just says that other cards should be compared which seems not to have anything to do with DRM... Unless this is the only card with DRM or something?

Seriously, I'd like to know because I'll admit I have no idea. How does the DRM impact things?