AMDGPU vs. Radeon Kernel Driver Performance On Linux 5.0 For AMD GCN 1.0/1.1 GPUs

[DarkFoss]

The AMD wip kernel has a lot of more patches than the amd-staging-drm-next kernel, see https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/linux
The AMD wip kernel uses the 5.0-rc7 mainline kernel as base when the amd-staging-drm-next kernel uses buggy 5.0-rc1, see https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/...aging-drm-next

One caveat MBAB rebased his latest off of 5.0 final not an rc plus he makes sure that the latest security patches are included. He did roll rc6,rc7,rc8 versions before the latest. While not as bleeding edge as your kernel some patches do get reverted in the staging branch.

[agd5f]

What about the missing microcode bit that was mentioned here multiple times? Might be nice to at least get that excuse out of the window.

What missing microcode? As I explained several times, you can use the existing UVD microcode for SI parts just fine. We reworked how we set up the memory apertures on the GPU on amdgpu and the microcode not compatible with the amdgpu layout, but if you lay it out like radeon did it will work fine.

[agd5f]

So I've been told that the only reaiistic way to make radv work on radeon is to port the amdgpu winsys to radeon. It's been explained to me that ther is no possible way to make radv work with radeons winsys, only amdgpus winsys has the capability to do what radv needs. But that porting amdgpus winsys to radeon would be a lot more work than jut making older GCN defaul on amdgpu would be....

There's a fair amount of work involved either way. At least if you stayed with radeon you have a known good baseline for everything else.

[accumulator]

Nobody has resources to test the system that you have for 2 days.

A.k.a. 'works on my machine so you must be doing something wrong'

I purged Oibaf ppa and I am using Padoka ppa now.

1.5 hours earlier you still recommended Oibaf's PPA. You're just guessing?

I am a Msc software engineer and used to solve problems by my self. I have even created my own distribution that is handy when building a new computer. Your own distribution is simple to do with simple-cdd.

Not sure if you're trying to help here or trying to be a condescending asshole.
Being smart enough to be a Msc probably the latter.

[chithanh]

There is a lot of hardware out there that can't run vulkan at all.

Someone could also make radv or amdvlk work over radeon.

And some hardware that could run Vulkan but is unsupported by current drivers. I remember airlied talking about Vulkan support for VLIW4 chips.

Really the only thing missing for CIK in amdgpu is support for analog DACs.

Plus some regressions like the suspend/resume problem on my Kabini.

[humbug]

I thought Hawaii was GCN 2, no?

GCN 1.1 was a term coined by the media. Internally AMD was calling it GCN 2.
But ya Hawai is CI and that's what we are talking about.

A GPU like the 390x is still very powerful today, performs like an RX 570 on windows and with a great feature set. But on Linux by default it doesn't get vulkan and upcoming freesync.\

I guess the resources are too limited for AMD to prioritize this. But Linux as a whole really needs to get to the point where users do not have to do stuff like adding boot parameters to change a GPU kernel driver in order to play games on their powerful hardware. On this forum we say it is trivial, but really it's a lot to ask of a user.

I do it on my R9 290, but I shouldn't have to. Compared to windows it's a pain, they gave me Vulkan and freesync years ago.

[fedoragnome]

You can sell it to windows users then. Windows users are good to buy and use old hardware. Linux only users are buying and using the latest hardware.

Debian users are commies who only buy low-end AMD hardware & run terrible outdated software like plain ALSA. Fedora users are smart and experienced and use high quality nvidia software.

[agd5f]

GCN 1.1 was a term coined by the media. Internally AMD was calling it GCN 2.
But ya Hawai is CI and that's what we are talking about.

A GPU like the 390x is still very powerful today, performs like an RX 570 on windows and with a great feature set. But on Linux by default it doesn't get vulkan and upcoming freesync.\

I guess the resources are too limited for AMD to prioritize this. But Linux as a whole really needs to get to the point where users do not have to do stuff like adding boot parameters to change a GPU kernel driver in order to play games on their powerful hardware. On this forum we say it is trivial, but really it's a lot to ask of a user.

I do it on my R9 290, but I shouldn't have to. Compared to windows it's a pain, they gave me Vulkan and freesync years ago.

Use windows? I guess it's a bit of a chicken or egg situation, but windows is still like 90% of the client market and the size of the engineering teams reflect that. Realistically, you need a team that big to implement all the features the hw is capable of to the level provided in windows. Most of the Linux market is still embedded and server focused. Linux does have one nice advantage in that it is open source so anyone that has a particular itch can scratch it themselves.

[YamashitaRen]

All this being said, I'm now starting to wonder if I should drop amdgpu on my HD7950 and move back to radeon or catalyst...
What a sad situation. This is still a decent GPU by today's standards so I wanted to use the "best" and more actively developed driver but all 3 drivers I can choose among are incomplete and barely maintained...

[Jedibeeftrix]

Reading this thread I can see the argument for leaving GCN1.0/SI behind (much as I cry for my beloved MSI 7970 Lightning).

But seeing this:

"Originally posted by agd5f View Post
Really the only thing missing for CIK in amdgpu is support for analog DACs."

Does make me want to see anolog DACs for GCN1.1/CIK get pushed over the line, if only because due to the rebrand of Hawaii as the 390 series it was still being sold as a premium product in 2016.