Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, has bashed Intel’s Spectre and Meltdown fixes. In a public email exchange, Torvalds called Intel’s fixes “complete and utter carbage” and wondered what the f’ was going on.
As Torvalds said:
“The patches do things like add the garbage MSR writes to the kernel entry/exit points. That’s insane. That says ‘we’re trying to protect the kernel‘. We already have retpoline there, with less overhead.”
As we’ve already said, these Spectre and Meltdown fixes will not affect most PC gamers, though there are some titles that can run slower after applying them. On the other hand, a number of gaming servers have already seen a big performance hit due to these fixes. Strangely Interactive, Housemargue and Epic Games have publicly stated that Intel’s fixes have significantly increased CPU usage on their servers, resulting in noticeable issues.
Torvalds concluded:
“All of this is pure garbage. Is Intel really planning on making this shit architectural? Has anybody talked to them and told them they are f*cking insane? Please, any Intel engineers here— talk to your managers.”
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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