Major AMD Catalyst Linux Update Expected Next Week

[grndzro]

One would assume drivers would be the number two priority to focus, right after actually building good hardware.

I would be happy with last gen hardware if the drivers were perfect.

I would not be happy with a 295X if drivers were garbage.

[Nobu]

One would assume drivers would be the number two priority to focus, right after actually building good hardware.

One would hope that they would put more or less equal priority on hardware and drivers--of course the hardware comes first, but it should have less priority once released, and it would be a good idea to develop them in tandem so that any hardware/firmware/driver interaction bugs can be worked out before release.

[Vidar]

One would hope that they would put more or less equal priority on hardware and drivers--of course the hardware comes first, but it should have less priority once released, and it would be a good idea to develop them in tandem so that any hardware/firmware/driver interaction bugs can be worked out before release.

Yea. My point is that it feels like drivers are a third or fourth priority sometimes. Hell, it seems like they don't even care about OpenGL 4.5 compliance right now.

[xeekei]

Wow! Granted, I haven't read many AMD Linux driver releases before, but this looks like an aggressive release. Didn't think we'd see FreeSync on Linux so soon. I will still wait for the next hardware release (R9 3xx) before jumping ship, but AMD's looking good!

(I take the new AMDGPU kernel driver into account when I say "look good")

[eydee]

Let's just remember that any previous "major" Catalyst update turned out to be no different from previous ones. I wonder...

[xeekei]

Seeing AMD getting behind VAAPI excites me too. Never a fan of XvBA; I don't think anyone were. Hopefully Intel and AMD can develop it further together.

[grndzro]

Let's just remember that any previous "major" Catalyst update turned out to be no different from previous ones. I wonder...

Yes but AMD has been laying groundwork for this driver model for a while now.
Ever since Lisa took over if I recall my timeframes.

Nvidia and Intel have both been in a linux driver push for a while now also. When you take into account all 3 major players are pushing for Linux improvments it is only a matter of time till the improvments result in Linux being good enough to take over the marketplace.

I have said it before that I think drivers have to come first for Linux to truly take off, and I still think it's true.
Drivers>games>dominance
A huge % of programmers are also gamers, and that is a huge technical pool of users that are mostly locked into Windows for gaming. They are also the first people that will jump ship if Linux offers a performance advantage.
More users = more maintainers/developers = better/stable OS = Platform support = Windows death

That being said Drivers IMO right now are critical to maintaining the gaming on linux momentum that has been happening this year, and I really hope AMD has nailed it with the new "Omega" driver.
It would send a clear message to Nvidia and MS that Linux is the future and they need to make it the primary platform in the future.

[DanL]

Seeing AMD getting behind VAAPI excites me too. Never a fan of XvBA; I don't think anyone were. Hopefully Intel and AMD can develop it further together.

I don't expect AMD to contribute to libva itself. I don't even think they really bothered with contributing to the xvba-vaapi wrapper. They just let Gwenole Beauchesne of Splitted Desktop try to hack it together, which he did to some extent before concluding that libxvba was buggy and moving on to working on libva as an Intel employee.

[DarkFoss]

Back in May FAH's Proteneer blogged about AMD's OpenCL driver improving and possibly being whitelisted in the future. Since then nothing, I really hope this is the AMD driver that finally allows Folding natively under Linux with AMD Gpu's!

[DarkFoss]

Back in May FAH's Proteneer blogged about AMD's OpenCL driver improving and possibly being whitelisted in the future. Since then nothing, I really hope this is the AMD driver that finally allows Folding natively under Linux with AMD Gpu's!

Sorry can't edit I was just informed on the FAH board that starting with the Cat 14.9 release you can fold your Gpu's under Linux. Sigh I could have had linux running for the last 2 months instead of virtual.