RadeonSI Lands Another Big Overhead Optimization - "Substantially" Helps In Some Cases

[phoronix]

Phoronix: RadeonSI Lands Another Big Overhead Optimization - "Substantially" Helps In Some Cases

Merged to Mesa 21.3-devel this weekend was a rework to the display list interface for the Gallium3D code and Mesa state tracker and wired up for the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver. This latest driver overhead reduction is another sizable win for AMD's open-source OpenGL driver on Linux...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RadeonSI-Display-List-Interface

[Linuxxx]

Too bad that all these improvements for Siemens NX in particular didn't materialize sooner, as that might have changed their mind about completely dropping the GUI from the Linux build...

Nevertheless, no doubt Marek's improvements will still be beneficial for all the other workstation-tier software running on Linux!

[jrch2k8]

Too bad that all these improvements for Siemens NX in particular didn't materialize sooner, as that might have changed their mind about completely dropping the GUI from the Linux build...

Nevertheless, no doubt Marek's improvements will still be beneficial for all the other workstation-tier software running on Linux!

I would not discard all this work is landing because at some point a new version is in the works

[smitty3268]

I would not discard all this work is landing because at some point a new version is in the works

Nah, this is just about AMD wanting to drop their proprietary GL driver on linux. They need the replacement to not have regressions before they can do that.

[schmidtbag]

Nah, this is just about AMD wanting to drop their proprietary GL driver on linux. They need the replacement to not have regressions before they can do that.

Well the good thing is once the open source drivers are fully caught up, that means less divided resources, which is a win for everyone.

[user1]

I'm starting to think that if pro GL driver will be phased out on Linux, RadeonSi on Windows will become a more realistic possibility. Yes, it will require writing a new Winsys for it, in order to work with the Windows kernel driver, but on the other hand it will drop the maintenance burden of the Pro GL driver.

[aufkrawall]

Well the good thing is once the open source drivers are fully caught up, that means less divided resources, which is a win for everyone.

The proprietary OGL driver probably has been in a mostly frozen state for a long time and we don't know what the devs of that driver do anyway.
I also don't share the optimism about RadeonSI on Windows, it might require a lot of efforts vs. updating the pro driver for new RDNA/CDNA GPUs.

[schmidtbag]

The proprietary OGL driver probably has been in a mostly frozen state for a long time and we don't know what the devs of that driver do anyway.
I also don't share the optimism about RadeonSI on Windows, it might require a lot of efforts vs. updating the pro driver for new RDNA/CDNA GPUs.

It's likely that those devs just try to prevent things from crumbling but otherwise don't do much. Either they will be obsoleted (which means more money to develop other drivers) or they will be shifted to work on other drivers.
I wasn't suggesting RadeonSI will be on Windows, but rather, Linux already has way too many drivers with a lot of overlap, and the more they can be consolidated, the better it will be for everyone. Of course, some competition in drivers isn't a bad thing, since one could (and has) prove a certain method to be better than another, but when it comes to open-source, one of the key points of it is collaboration.

[ezst036]

I would not discard all this work is landing because at some point a new version is in the works

That would be a dream come true, but realistically AMD does not have a new GUI planned any time soon.

[Developer12]

What's far more likely is that all non-RadeonSI drivers will simply drop linux support or be dropped completely. AMD's drivers will focus exclusively on windows.

I don't expect AMD to ever seriously consider porting Mesa to windows. The licencing alone would be a total headache, nevermind the technical adaptation.