Valve Developer Starts Poking At Open-Source "RADV" Driver Support For GFX11/RDNA3

[hamishmb]

I'm sure I've missed something here, but if Radeon Rays is open source, why do we need this? And why would AMD back it?

[smitty3268]

Money != resources, please stop counting the money if you are not an AMD investor.

Huh? Money can be turned into resources. That's it's only function, it doesn't do anything else.

Currently is enough information about how RDNA2 RT works and it just needs time to implement properly. If somebody really wants it will be greater to help to code or at least review/test PRs. I mean not only RT PRs.

And yet it's 18 months after the hardware was released and we don't have finished working RT support. Does AMD consider that good support by them for their hardware on linux?

[stalkerg]

I assume he was referring to amdvlk, which doesn't have any community developers or shared upstream codebase.

Also, friendly reminder that we are now sitting at 18 months of no open source ray-tracing support from AMD for any of their hardware. It's a little baffling that AMD figured out how to legally provide accelerated video decode but not RT, especially given the massive influx of cash AMD is now sitting on.

Money != resources, please stop counting the money if you are not an AMD investor.
Currently is enough information about how RDNA2 RT works and it just needs time to implement properly. If somebody really wants it will be greater to help to code or at least review/test PRs. I mean not only RT PRs.
PS Personally, I will be happy to join Valve/AMD team to work on the driver but they have no one in Japan.

[xhustler]

That's not always feasible internationally. It's difficult for a company to hire you as an employee if it doesn't have a subsidiary that operates in the country you are living in (I'm located in Eastern EU). I appreciate you worrying about me, but honestly, I'm quite happy with it.

Venemo, Many thanks for your contributions and handling off topic comments with tact and patience.

[smitty3268]

There is no "AMD open source driver" separate from the upstream driver. All we do with our packaged open source drivers is backport them to slower moving enterprise distros that do not pick up from upstream often enough to support newer hardware.

AMD developers and community developers work together in the same upstream code base.

I assume he was referring to amdvlk, which doesn't have any community developers or shared upstream codebase.

Also, friendly reminder that we are now sitting at 18 months of no open source ray-tracing support from AMD for any of their hardware. It's a little baffling that AMD figured out how to legally provide accelerated video decode but not RT, especially given the massive influx of cash AMD is now sitting on.

[bridgman]

With compute going to the rocm stack, who is even using AMD's closed or open source driver now? The userbase seems to be people who accidentally installed it instead of the community driver, or who are working around some issue.

There is no "AMD open source driver" separate from the upstream driver. All we do with our packaged open source drivers is backport them to slower moving enterprise distros that do not pick up from upstream often enough to support newer hardware.

AMD developers and community developers work together in the same upstream code base.

[Spacefish]

RDNA3 Support in RADV is important! Just look at how many different designs RDNA2 is used.. From smartphone SOCs to custom chips in gaming consoles (they are zen based, but far from an APU) in dedicated cards and in the latest APU generation.

RDNA3 will probably be seen in a similar number of designs, maybe even more. So this support ist really needed.

[Venemo]

Can radv be used on Windows in theory?

No, at least not until somebody implements the kernel interface

[Venemo]

Still, it does make me sad that folks like yourself aren't hired on as actual employees so y'all can have a long-term careers and can plan for the rest of your lives instead of until your contracts are up. That's what I mean by "Oof. Sorry to hear that."; about how it can be hard to plan long term when gigging.

That's not always feasible internationally. It's difficult for a company to hire you as an employee if it doesn't have a subsidiary that operates in the country you are living in (I'm located in Eastern EU). I appreciate you worrying about me, but honestly, I'm quite happy with it.

[skeevy420]

Are you kidding? I love this gig. I can work on something interesting that I enjoy. It's vastly better than any of my previous jobs.

I've worked horrible gigs, non-tech, in the past and have read a lot of horror stories with the tech gig economy specifically because they know they're hiring you for a job you love (or they simply know that you're desperate for work in regards to a lot of non-tech gigs). The term "sub-contracting" brings me bad memories.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you have a good one and I hope that Valve is a good company to contract from. Your happiness makes it sound like they are.

Still, it does make me sad that folks like yourself aren't hired on as actual employees so y'all can have a long-term careers and can plan for the rest of your lives instead of until your contracts are up. That's what I mean by "Oof. Sorry to hear that."; about how it can be hard to plan long term when gigging.