AMD Radeon: Windows Catalyst vs. Linux Gallium3D vs. Linux Catalyst

[AJSB]

curious if you where using composting while testing on Xfce?

I never use any kind of composition in whatever OS i use...

[dungeon]

XUBUNTU 14.04 LTS stock using OSS RADEON:
I hear the music when game is launched....and..."black screen of death"...nothing more than the music...only way to get out is using the REISUB trick.

Do you have some sort of s3tc extension?

[AJSB]

Do you have some sort of s3tc extension?

Yes, i usually compile and install libtxc-dxtn.

I use version 1.0.1 ... is there some more recent ?

PS: Wait...i'm not sure if i used it when used the OSS driver....i *usually* compile and install it but i might forgot it this time...gonna try find some time tonight to run the tests again.

[chithanh]

Also don't forget to build it for 32 bit if necessary.

[Calinou]

A6-5400K
Turbo OFF
APM OFF
Cool'n'Quiet OFF

Please, keep the default settings - enable power saving features and Turbo. It's good for you (performance is the same, if not better, since Turbo would be enabled) and everyone (less power used).

[curaga]

FWIW the ETQW demo works for me with a very similar setup (a88 + a8-6500 + 3.14 rc + mesa git), so either it's not general breakage or it differs between the demo and full version.

[AJSB]

Just made a bunch of tests and i have bad news and good news...

The bad news is that libtxc -dxtn didn't solve the problem at all....ETQW simply got that BSoD with music playing in background and thats it...i end up giving up...

The good news is that i solved all my glitched graphics problems with AMD Catalyst !
It was quite easy, i just needed go to Catalyst control Center as SU and *DISABLE* option CATALYST A.I. !!!

That darn thing was making all kind of glitches like menus flickering like crazy, invisible objects textures,etc,etc.

...but after i disabled CATALYST A.I. option it's all good and perfect and w/o any kind of stuttering, this beats easy W7, W8 and W8.1 in all aspects including FPS...only when compared with XP is the FPS a bit lower BUT it actually feels MUCH smoother...

I intend to test WINE tomorrow...

[Nognir]

Well, ain't that good news? I intend to get me a R9 270 (and hopefully a 2nd one after a couple of years) and had qualms about the Linux support and performance. It can't be that bad after the disaster with the legacy Catalyst that my laptop (Mobility Radeon HD 4500) experienced, and was hoping to avoid getting an NVidia

[AJSB]

Well, ain't that good news? I intend to get me a R9 270 (and hopefully a 2nd one after a couple of years) and had qualms about the Linux support and performance. It can't be that bad after the disaster with the legacy Catalyst that my laptop (Mobility Radeon HD 4500) experienced, and was hoping to avoid getting an NVidia

It is indeed good news...i made more tests later after previous post with ETQW and performance is even BETTER than with XP...i could achieve same frame rate with *higher* video settings



HOWEVER, there is also BAD news....

But these bad news are NOT related with CATALYST, no matter people like to blame AMD for it...the bad news is L4D2 (and not only)....it doesn't have graphical glitches that i noticed but stutters all over the place.
(YMMV, in special because you will have a more powerful dGPU than my iGPU)

People blame AMD for poor Linux games performance but the truth is that my tests proove than , even with a demanding game like ETQW (might not be the "latest and greatest" but IS demanding) , *IF* game is really a native port, the performance with AMD Catalyst is great...

The thing is...these Valve games (i didn't tested only L4D2 but others like TF2,etc.) use a translation layer from D3D to OGL and i believe that is NOT simply bad luck that games with that layer stutter with Catalyst and that all TRULLY native OGL games that i tested (tested also others), DON'T...not only i didn't see any stutter but what i saw was great performance and quality (after disable CATALYST A.I. that seems FUBAR ).

What we really need with AMD HW and CATALYST is *PURE* OGL games and not "frankensteined" solutions.

So , you better check if the games you want to play in Linux with AMD i/dGPUs are truly native or not if you want to be sure you will get a good experience.

I also wonder if the announced support for Linux in UE4 and CE will use truly native OGL calls or if the engines will "pull a Valve"...

[haplo602]

well, nice benchmarks. they actualy inspired me to ditch catalyst and try OSS drivers. however I cannot get libtxc_dxtn to play nicely with steam. seems I have to roll my own 32 bit version of mesa in a chroot. also wine does not work properly with it ...

from my point of view, fglrx is actualy better (less work for more functionality).