AMDGPU Patches Under Discussion For Better External GPU Hot Unplug Handling

[oiaohm]

I tend to classify games that don't need active attention to the game as "bad design". If I get something to entertain me it has to 100% entertain me, not 50% entertain me.

I do kind of agree but some games I don't play regularly I do use second screen with to display game tactics guide so allowing me to play at someone decent level when I am truly out of practice with the game. The tattics screen could be 1fps and would not make any difference.

Its not exactly fun to have the AI and Human players simple kicking your tail because you have forgot something about the basic tactics how to play the game. So a game requiring absolute 100% attention I don't find exactly fun to replay. But as low as 10% I don't find fun either. ~90% attention requirement is a game I can replay down the track with a tactics guide and be decently competetive.

[Veerappan]

I tend to classify games that don't need active attention to the game as "bad design". If I get something to entertain me it has to 100% entertain me, not 50% entertain me.

That's one of the reasons I never play MMO games, the actual interesting content I'm actually needed for and engaged with is like 10% of the overall in-game time.

It's one of the ways I'm still able to spend time with some friends that I can't see in person at the moment. Until then, I had been clean of WoW for years.

[starshipeleven]

That's why I tend to watch stuff on the second monitor I've already seen a few times before. It's background noise and something to watch when I'm flying between zones or doing other things that don't require active attention to the game (most of what I'm doing in this game lets my mind wander. I'm usually not in dedicated dungeon raids that require full attention span). Whether it's a good idea to multitask like that is secondary to the fact that I'm already doing it

I tend to classify games that don't need active attention to the game as "bad design". If I get something to entertain me it has to 100% entertain me, not 50% entertain me.

That's one of the reasons I never play MMO games, the actual interesting content I'm actually needed for and engaged with is like 10% of the overall in-game time. The rest is mindless grind that I can oversee while doing something else too and I'm already mindlessly grinding enough at my real-life job.

Haven't ever set up a multi-head scenario.

Yeah that's very niche, and if you are alone it makes no sense to do that. I was just confused by what the ultimate goal of the other guy was.

[Veerappan]

I understand having a desktop open to read things, but having both a movie and a game is kind of weird, I tend to assume the game is focusing most of your attention so the movie won't get much of it (or the reverse).

That's why I tend to watch stuff on the second monitor I've already seen a few times before. It's background noise and something to watch when I'm flying between zones or doing other things that don't require active attention to the game (most of what I'm doing in this game lets my mind wander. I'm usually not in dedicated dungeon raids that require full attention span). Whether it's a good idea to multitask like that is secondary to the fact that I'm already doing it

yeah, but this requires to move focus from game to movie/desktop/whatever. Admittedly I was thinking more of a multi-user setup where each user is doing stuff on his own screen with his own mouse and keyboard.

Afaik it's kind of doable https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multi-pointer_X but it requires manual setup. Don't know about doing it in Wayland.

Haven't ever set up a multi-head scenario. Maybe someday when my kids get old enough to want their own gaming station, but at that point, I'll probably still have a decent enough backup system to hand down to them. I usually keep a few decent machines around for GPU/Compute driver/runtime development (less hardware swapping if I just hook several machines up to a KVM), so my hand-me-downs are probably better than most people would expect.

[starshipeleven]

Not on a laptop, but my desktop (R7 2700, RX580 8GB, dual-monitors) regularly games while streaming videos via my browser.

While being cooped up in my house, I regularly play WoW Classic in the evenings while watching either (currently) Star Trek: DS9 or (previously) Highlander episodes streaming from Amazon Prime in Chrome. Often with Firefox also open for looking up WoW-related quest/NPC/talent-tree stuff.

I understand having a desktop open to read things, but having both a movie and a game is kind of weird, I tend to assume the game is focusing most of your attention so the movie won't get much of it (or the reverse).

Edit: As for input devices, I'm just using the one set of KB/Mouse.

yeah, but this requires to move focus from game to movie/desktop/whatever. Admittedly I was thinking more of a multi-user setup where each user is doing stuff on his own screen with his own mouse and keyboard.

Afaik it's kind of doable https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Multi-pointer_X but it requires manual setup. Don't know about doing it in Wayland.

[Veerappan]

Who the fuck is using a single system to watch a movie, see a desktop AND game at the same time, this isn't a LinusTechTips video, also how the fuck do you plan to deal with different input devices needed by the three different usecases at the same time.

Not on a laptop, but my desktop (R7 2700, RX580 8GB, dual-monitors) regularly games while streaming videos via my browser.

While being cooped up in my house, I regularly play WoW Classic in the evenings while watching either (currently) Star Trek: DS9 or (previously) Highlander episodes streaming from Amazon Prime in Chrome. Often with Firefox also open for looking up WoW-related quest/NPC/talent-tree stuff.

Lutris makes it pretty easy to get Wine+DXVK working for non-Steam games, and the single RX580 is handling 1920x1200 with mid-high WoW settings fairly well at 100fps while still rendering the video and browser on the second monitor just fine.

But you're right, desktop composition/rendering is small potatoes compared to the other tasks.

Related to "why eGPUs?": I'm currently shopping for a new laptop. I'm heavily leaning towards something with a Ryzen 4800U in it once I can find something decent for sale. If it supported an eGPU via Thunderbolt, I might give up most of my usage of my desktop altogether and just create a docking station with an eGPU in its place. It'd save a bunch of electricity and also gain my main machine some mobility.

I don't think that there will be any 4800U machines with TB3 compatibility anytime soon, but the next generation down the line? Maybe.

Edit: As for input devices, I'm just using the one set of KB/Mouse. WoW is a full-screen window, so I can just shove the move straight over to the second monitor and click pause/re-wind as needed and flick the mouse right back to the game window in about 1 second. I've got my UI set up for focus-follows-mouse, which auto-changes mouse/keyboard focus to whatever window the cursor is over.

Ooh, nice! I've been wondering if sticking the GPU in an eGPU box is viable for driver debugging and development. Compiling just the relevant kernel module and loading/unloading at will is way faster than having to compile the whole kernel, install and then restart.

[Marc1n]

Cool, but totally not useful for me.

Most of that stuff is possible right now. I have 2 GPUs and my RX580 is perfectly fine running desktop, games, movies, and videos in my webbrowser all at the same time.
Al while my secont GPU is running Windows VM and my wife playing different game via steam streaming. I could even connect her monitor, keyboard/mice via VFIO passthrough, but she prefers to play on our TV which is in another room.
I also had in the past my TV connected both as a second display to primary GPU and as main dusplay to second GPU, no problems playing movies that way while working at the same time.
There's no point in splitting work evenly, that's why even in gaming multigpu setups are dying. Synchronizing differend threads, migration based on load, data migration required due o non-local memory increases complexity immensely and many possible performance gains are eaten by either need to copy data between GPUs or store all the data in memory of both.
That's why even when Vulkan allows to join resources of multiple GPUs almost no one does that.

Work on external GPUs like that would allow to hot-remove GPU from running system which could be useful for VM setups. I can, for example, have more powerfull GPU that is used by desktop when it's avialable but is also assigned to VM, and less powerfull one connected to display and used to render stuff when the more powerfull one is not avialable.
Thanks to DRI_PRIME at least part of that was implemented and many people were able to run multigpu setups like that in the past, but more recent amdgpu drivers disallow hot-remove and often crash.

[DMJC]

What use has this ? eGPU, random gimmickery or a case of "it exists, so I want it baaaad" ?

About damn time they added this. I've been running a Razer Blade Stealth + Core eGPU + X5700XT setup for a year, and have had to put up with hard lockups from the lack of removable eGPU support.

[starshipeleven]

I am their customer and since they have not given me anything for free, I am entitled to give them my feedback, which in this case is constructive critcism.

"constructive criticism"?

Sounded more like pushing your own insane pet project agenda to me.