OpenGL Tessellation Is Significantly Faster Now On AMD RadeonSI Gallium3D

Written by Michael Larabel in Radeon on 28 May 2016 at 11:55 AM EDT. 12 Comments
RADEON
Thanks to new code that appeared in Mesa Git this week, games/demos relying upon OpenGL tessellation are significantly faster now with this new code.

If you missed the article earlier this week when the RadeonSI tessellation improvements landed, see Offchip Tessellation Lands In Mesa For RadeonSI Gallium3D. Bas Nieuwenhuizen, the developer responsible for these improvements, explained what it's about in the forums.
Tess RadeonSI Testing OpenGL

I did some tests on four graphics cards (R9 285, R9 290, R7 370, and R9 Fury) when the only change in the system was the Mesa Git before and after the RadeonSI tessellation improvements landed.
Tess RadeonSI Testing OpenGL

Sure enough, tessellation heavy workloads like Unigine Heaven are now significantly faster!
Tess RadeonSI Testing OpenGL

This is a big deal and even makes the RadeonSI performance faster than AMDGPU-PRO in tessellation-heavy workloads.
Tess RadeonSI Testing OpenGL

Tess RadeonSI Testing OpenGL

But in other OpenGL workloads, you won't find any performance difference. These extra tests were just for validation purposes. These tessellation improvements will be found in next month's gigantic Mesa stable release that is also bringing OpenGL 4.3 for RadeonSI, among dozens of other features.
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