Radeon RX Vega On Linux: High-Performance GPUs & Open-Source No Longer An Oxymoron

[bug77]

I doubt Nvidia will bother rushing Volta out the door now given that Vega can't touch a 1080ti even if you'd connected it directly to a nuclear power plant.

They'll do what they did for the past few years: release high-end Volta first and charge an arm and a leg. Just in time for holiday season.

[artivision]

Linux with open source drivers do not have the driver related performance problems of Windowz. So the first who can deliver a D3D11 state tracker will be the winner on Linux. Also it's possible for someone to multiply their Linux profits if they can multiply Linux usage percentage between gamers, via a D3D11 state tracker that may be faster than Windowz Crimson.

[plasma5]

I wonder if all the new Vega features like HBCC, primitive Shaders and the Draw Stream Binning Rasterizer work with the open source driver.

[Strunkenbold]

Looks like AMD runs those cards way over their sweetpoint. OC is more or less non existent, power consumption is high. Looks like they had to ramp frequencies very high to have actually something competitive against 1070 / 1080.
But there is another side of the medal:
My 7970 GHz edition has aged beautiful, drivers gave nice performance gains they were even extreme with mesa. But the question is if something similar is possible today or if takes 5 years again.
Because I think Vega has the horse power but currently its a bet if AMD driver teams can unleash the power of the card.
Im even in the mood to gamble but unfortunately the card lacks availability or can only obtained from sellers with extreme prices.
Lets see what happens in the next months.

[bridgman]

Seems that SR-IOV is not (yet?) supported on RX Vega https://community.amd.com/thread/218846

bridgman Does this mean it is technically not possible or just not covered by support? Or maybe, the chip has the feature but the software is not ready yet?

AFAIK the SR-IOV feature was not enabled on the consumer cards, just server cards.

[leipero]

Linux with open source drivers do not have the driver related performance problems of Windowz. So the first who can deliver a D3D11 state tracker will be the winner on Linux. Also it's possible for someone to multiply their Linux profits if they can multiply Linux usage percentage between gamers, via a D3D11 state tracker that may be faster than Windowz Crimson.

D3D9 state tracker isn't finished yet, but D3D10/11 can be done only after wine developers implement it, it's all on wine contributors.

[donbastiano]

Fine grained overclocking/undervolting tools for Linux (with all exposed parameters, UI and stability test button, custom fan curve and maybe even BIOS-Flashing the new values) is still far away in the future. Michael said in his entry article, that he will do some overclocking-benches in the next couple of days on Linux. But in general, the "go to method" was to acquire the data in Windows, flashing your V-BIOS and then let it run under Linux.

RX Vega has a security check for the V-Bios - which rejects custom ones and thus only leaves software-adjustments. I hope AMD will open up the V-BIOS modification for people who want to have their own custom settings in the future.

Ok, thank you, a lot of progress done, a lot still to do

[Nille_kungen]

Ryzen is shit. Epyc is shit. I work in corporations. No one knows anything about these. Intel Intel Intel are the only things you hear about. We will buy new PCs with Intel and nVidia cards. They won. AMD should give the shareholders the money back. No chance. Corporations rule the world and they are all about Intel and nVidia.

I do work some with web hosting and i can tell you that we are looking at epyc.
Epyc offer SME (Secure Memory Encryption) and SEV (Secure Encrypted Virtualization) and it's extremely interesting for web hosting.
Some handles information that is classified on dedicated servers.
Some have virtual machines that are encrypted and the chance to offer secure memory for the VM is very sought after.
I don't know where you work but maybe it's not IT related.

[anoother]

Thanks to Michael for the fantastic setup guide! My Vega 64 works out-of-the-box with the open stack and performance is excellent.

The screen, however, is very dark and desaturated. I thought this could be 30bit colour enabling itself, but specifying 24 bit depth in xorg.conf makes no difference. Interestingly, the darkness issue is also present in the console & plymouth -- Ubuntu's purple plymouth background is practically black.

I know it's early days, but has anyone else seen this?

The issue is present on both HDMI and DP. Windows on the same machine looks perfect.

[Shevchen]

Don't feed the troll guys. I'm working in science myself and the Threadrippers for workstations are coming in as well es Vega FEs. The cluster-guys still prefer team green, but that doesn't stop the people evaluating cards on their own workstations. They (and their bosses) love to run their side-simulations on affordable cards.