Forums » Linux
Radeon Open source
For some reason the other open source mesa thread is closed to replies. So i had to start a new one.
As often is the case, proprietary drivers lag far behind bleeding edge distro revisions. Sometimes this even leads to the proprietary driver no longer being able to be api compatible with the X/wayland/whatever server the distro is using. Not to mention the kernel driver issues.
So you're forced between two decisions. Do you revert to an older version of the distro or do you ditch the proprietary driver. Well, if you have a modern amd graphics card then the options are very good on the open source side of things.
First off:
My distro is Debian. Specifically Debian unstable (sid)
My kernel is built by me. I dont use the distro kernel at all.
I'm using the git repo for freedesktop dri development. The guys who push commits to mainline for dri/drm kernel drivers.
git://people.freedesktop.org/~airlied/linux
revision : 7963e9db1b1f842fdc53309baa8714d38e9f5681 at the moment
I'm using this kernel because certain non-incorporated advances in Radeon dri drivers exist in this repo. Otherwise i usually build Linus's releases
You'll need to install all the necessary mesa pkgs. And likely disable any sort of video power management as suspending the card can be "buggy"
What do you get for all your effort?
I see sustained 60fps without proprietary driver with max quality settings and I'm not even close to maxing out 1 cpu core.
Open source radeon drivers are fast approaching the performance of their proprietary counterparts. This is good.
As often is the case, proprietary drivers lag far behind bleeding edge distro revisions. Sometimes this even leads to the proprietary driver no longer being able to be api compatible with the X/wayland/whatever server the distro is using. Not to mention the kernel driver issues.
So you're forced between two decisions. Do you revert to an older version of the distro or do you ditch the proprietary driver. Well, if you have a modern amd graphics card then the options are very good on the open source side of things.
First off:
My distro is Debian. Specifically Debian unstable (sid)
My kernel is built by me. I dont use the distro kernel at all.
I'm using the git repo for freedesktop dri development. The guys who push commits to mainline for dri/drm kernel drivers.
git://people.freedesktop.org/~airlied/linux
revision : 7963e9db1b1f842fdc53309baa8714d38e9f5681 at the moment
I'm using this kernel because certain non-incorporated advances in Radeon dri drivers exist in this repo. Otherwise i usually build Linus's releases
You'll need to install all the necessary mesa pkgs. And likely disable any sort of video power management as suspending the card can be "buggy"
What do you get for all your effort?
I see sustained 60fps without proprietary driver with max quality settings and I'm not even close to maxing out 1 cpu core.
Open source radeon drivers are fast approaching the performance of their proprietary counterparts. This is good.
VO has had good performance with mainline mesa since around v9.1 and kernel 3.10. I think the only Radeon that you need to run the very latest code for right now is the Hawaii chips (R9 290x)
http://openbenchmarking.org/prospect/1406120-KH-RADEONDRM41/b5ffccc495ac8fc37a677ed9b65602097d9b7902
much of what you see there is now in 3.16 mainline. Some stuff isn't. The impact is much wider than just R9
much of what you see there is now in 3.16 mainline. Some stuff isn't. The impact is much wider than just R9
Oh there's definitely been some big performance improvements. No doubt about that. I'm just saying that Vendetta's run very well using the open source drivers for a couple of years now. This game doesn't really go nuts with fancy newer OpenGL stuff.
I was getting 85fps vsync at 1400x1050 w/8xMSAA enabled on my old HD56670 using Mesa 9.1 and kernel 3.10 in Vendetta.
The R9 290X is just a sore spot since acceleration is off by default because of bugs until 3.17.
I was getting 85fps vsync at 1400x1050 w/8xMSAA enabled on my old HD56670 using Mesa 9.1 and kernel 3.10 in Vendetta.
The R9 290X is just a sore spot since acceleration is off by default because of bugs until 3.17.