Another Optimization Comes For Radeon RADV Ray-Tracing In Mesa 24.1

[M.Bahr]

AMD invests time into improving Linux drivers.

Hardware acceleration works better.
Compatibility is better with new technology like Wayland.
Updates, bug fixes and performance enhancements are done frequently.
There's no arbitrary limits for concurrent encoding jobs.

I used to praise NVIDIA but their lack of effort is disgusting. Billion dollar company relying on unpaid developers working around their broken drivers is a nightmare. Endless amount of unresolved bugs around core gpu features made me switch.

Don't waste your time and vote with your wallet

"Small" correction: TRILLION dollar company according to news from mid 2023

[mrg666]

AMD invests time into improving Linux drivers.

Hardware acceleration works better.
Compatibility is better with new technology like Wayland.
Updates, bug fixes and performance enhancements are done frequently.
There's no arbitrary limits for concurrent encoding jobs.

I used to praise NVIDIA but their lack of effort is disgusting. Billion dollar company relying on unpaid developers working around their broken drivers is a nightmare. Endless amount of unresolved bugs around core gpu features made me switch.

Don't waste your time and vote with your wallet

Nvidia has its own interests not necessarily aligned with open source development. Obviously, they know their business based on their latest stock value. And, I believe, AMD is not doing their open source development for charity, they have their interests too.

[Khrundel]

Unfortunately, almost all you've written isn't true.

AMD invests time into improving Linux drivers.

No, it is Valve who invests time. The whole point of AMD quest for opensource drivers always was to drop linux support. Unfortunately for them opensource driver development proved itself useless. No crowd of freetime developers miraculously appear to create first-class opengl support for their cards, so AMD had to continue support their shitty fglrx and still develops closed source amdgpu pro/amdvlk.
So, now everything is absurd: a GPU vendor whose linux support is worst of all, so third party company had to step in and start to develop drivers is praised for FOSS friendliness.
From FOSS zealots point of view if nvidia will tomorrow drop linux support entirely and nvk will become the only driver that would make nvidia linux friendlier.

Hardware acceleration works better.

You literally commenting a changeset which says some basic feature was done "insane" way. Feature of 3 years old hardware.

Compatibility is better with new technology like Wayland.

That is because wayland developers've chosen to depend on mesa "internal" feature. Would they've chosen eglstreams it would be Mesa drivers who "works worse with new technology". This is like to say "windows is better, because it have native DirectX12 to support games instead of problematic VKD3D".

Updates, bug fixes and performance enhancements are done frequently.

It took 2 years to add RT support. That is the kind of "updates" you can expect from AMD GPU.

[skeevy420]

I am also hoping Mesa adds AMD's open source resolution scaling and frame generation codes in the future.

Same here. I've been utilizing RSR lately with Baldur's Gate 3 and Windows 11 in general. Instead of using 3440x1440, I bump up my desktop to 5120x2160 (4K Ultrawide) and my BG3 to 3840x1620. My 6700 XT doesn't like higher resolutions in game, but 3840x1620 really helps with the games horrid TAA. Dry fuck TAA with a cactus.

I've also been trying out FSR3 and Frame Generation...both in-driver and with the Frame Generation offered in the LukeFZ FSR2 to FSR3 mod...I'm not gonna say that I typed "LukeFZ FSR3 reddit" into Google, went to a piracy subreddit that was link 1, scrolled down a bit, and found another link with all LukeFZ FSR3 mods. Nope. Not gonna say I did that

While Frame Generation is a bit hit and miss, the combination of FSR3 Ultra Quality and the added AA from RSR leads to a very nice BG3 experience.

The RSR desktop is one of those things that kind of sounds dumb as Hell but ends up working really well. I wish KWin could do what RSR does. Unfortunately, RSR is one of those AMD technologies we don't have on Linux because it has to be done at the compositor level and that's not likely to happen any time soon. From what I understand, they, AMD, can't just add it in as a Wayland protocol in hope others will adopt it because Wayland doesn't accept proprietary protocols.

I really hope all the parties involved solve that compositor situation.

[skeevy420]

Unfortunately, almost all you've written isn't true.


No, it is Valve who invests time. The whole point of AMD quest for opensource drivers always was to drop linux support. Unfortunately for them opensource driver development proved itself useless. No crowd of freetime developers miraculously appear to create first-class opengl support for their cards, so AMD had to continue support their shitty fglrx and still develops closed source amdgpu pro/amdvlk.
So, now everything is absurd: a GPU vendor whose linux support is worst of all, so third party company had to step in and start to develop drivers is praised for FOSS friendliness.
From FOSS zealots point of view if nvidia will tomorrow drop linux support entirely and nvk will become the only driver that would make nvidia linux friendlier.
You literally commenting a changeset which says some basic feature was done "insane" way. Feature of 3 years old hardware.
That is because wayland developers've chosen to depend on mesa "internal" feature. Would they've chosen eglstreams it would be Mesa drivers who "works worse with new technology". This is like to say "windows is better, because it have native DirectX12 to support games instead of problematic VKD3D".
It took 2 years to add RT support. That is the kind of "updates" you can expect from AMD GPU.

You should keep up with AMDGPU-Pro. It uses RADV by default these days and has it set up so that AMDVLK has to be explicitly installed and ran to be used. The only thing different with AMDGPU-Pro is the OpenGL shader compiler. Moreover, a lot of AMD devs have contributed towards the Mesa drivers, including OpenGL, as part of their day job.

Yeah, AMD kept up with FGLRX for the first year or two of AMDGPU because AMDGPU wasn't ready yet. FGLRX hasn't been relevant for 8 years now.

Very few AMD users give a shit about Ray Tracing. If we wanted good RT we'd have bought an NVIDIA GPU with specialized RT hardware.

No freetime developers appeared? I really hope all the freetime AMD developers that post here read that and respond accordingly.

[Panix]

AMD invests time into improving Linux drivers.

Hardware acceleration works better.
Compatibility is better with new technology like Wayland.
Updates, bug fixes and performance enhancements are done frequently.
There's no arbitrary limits for concurrent encoding jobs.

I used to praise NVIDIA but their lack of effort is disgusting. Billion dollar company relying on unpaid developers working around their broken drivers is a nightmare. Endless amount of unresolved bugs around core gpu features made me switch.

Don't waste your time and vote with your wallet

Isn't it getting better with Wayland - even if you have a Nvidia card? There's even threads here about it.

AMD gpus might be a 'smoother experience' - but, for how long?

AMD gpus - aren't as good in pretty much every field except gaming - and the gap isn't that much - it's probably about even or even 'better' in Windows. In Linux, it's better - but, there's still 'areas' in which it's basically a wash - or even lacking features.

What do you guys do with your cards? I am just confused why ppl don't acknowledge it.... do you just web surf?

[Panix]

Because open source software tends to have way more collaboration than closed-source one!
Same reason why Linux has won so many markets and will win the desktop one too, one day.
Android is also having great success.

LOL! Linux on the desktop is something like 2% and has been for a long time. It's negligible. It's sad but the truth.

[Kraut]

Huh. So Vulkan really was born from AMD donating Mantle to Kronos. It makes a lot of sense in hindsight, but I wouldn't have believed it until I found these slides (via Vulkan Wikipedia article). Having a closer-to-hardware API won't be used, no matter how good it is, if it blocks out (more than) half of customers paying customers. AMD did the right thing and opened their idea to everyone.

Vulkan, D3D12 and Metal are all based on the Mantle API.
According to Lisa Su, Mantle itself was mostly the work of Johan Andersson from one of the Dice studios.

This guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApdf4P2Iak

[M.Bahr]

Vulkan, D3D12 and Metal are all based on the Mantle API.
According to Lisa Su, Mantle itself was mostly the work of Johan Andersson from one of the Dice studios.

This guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApdf4P2Iak

- If i may add some information to straight the picture:

"Around 2008, Johan Andersson - then Technical Director at DICE and Head of Technology for the Frostbite engine in 2013 - approached the various graphics card manufacturers with a request for a lean programming interface (also known as a low-level API). AMD was the only graphics card manufacturer to respond to his request and began to prepare everything. The actual development of the interface (the Mantle code) then began around mid-2012."

- And Johan Andersson confirmed this in an interview from 2013.:

"c't: So you sort of laid the foundation for Mantle?
Andersson: Not me alone, of course, but I was probably the one who put in the most effort. As we develop high-end games for the PC, we naturally have a certain influence in the industry. For us at DICE, Mantle meant creating a completely different render backend. For AMD, it meant building a driver team that puts its resources and time into developing an alternative 3D interface. These are all big steps and I have to give AMD credit for implementing my suggestions. Because none of the other manufacturers have done that.
c't: And what happened next?
Andersson: In the end, the architecture teams met with us every year and talked very intensively about certain details, sometimes for 14 hours at a time. And then I also traveled to Silicon Valley a few times a year. The actual work on the Mantle code started about a year and a half ago."

So it would be wrong to make it look like amd did not participate in developing mantle. If Johan Andersson could have done it alone, he would have done it. Amd were the only company ready to cooperate with Johan Andersson. Intel and nvidia slammed their door at Johan Andersson's face. And i just can imagine what microsoft would have done at that point.
In summary it doesn't change the fact that mantle required cooperation from amd and Johan Andersson. And it doesn't change the fact that amd donated the technology to Kronos to the benefit of all gpu vendors including intel and nvidia.

[Khrundel]

Yeah, AMD kept up with FGLRX for the first year or two of AMDGPU because AMDGPU wasn't ready yet. FGLRX hasn't been relevant for 8 years now.

AMD have made their opensource driver promise somewhere near HD2900 launch time. 17 years ago. Long before vulkan, long before mantle. And still they've preferred to invest their resources into amdgpupro/amdvlk development. That is their commitment to opensource. RADV have started without any AMD help.

Very few AMD users give a shit about Ray Tracing. If we wanted good RT we'd have bought an NVIDIA GPU with specialized RT hardware.

hahaha.