AMD Squeezes In Few More AMDGPU Updates For Linux 4.3

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Squeezes In Few More AMDGPU Updates For Linux 4.3

Alex Deucher of AMD has sent in yet more AMDGPU DRM driver updates for targeting the Linux 4.3 kernel merge window...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMDGPU-Linux-DRM-4.3

[nirvanix]

Thanks Alex!

[PizzaCat]

Are Pitcairn/Curacao XT GPUs going to be supported by this new driver?

[CrystalGamma]

Are Pitcairn/Curacao XT GPUs going to be supported by this new driver?

No. Only Volcanic Islands (Carrizo, Topaz, Fiji) and newer.
I still don't know why you people care. You already have a working (AFAIK) driver.

[kalrish]

I still don't know why you people care. You already have a working (AFAIK) driver.

With the AMDGPU DRM driver, it will eventually be possible to switch between the open and the closed user-space stacks in an easier way, without changing anything kernel-side; perhaps they could even be installed side-by-side, which would allow to almost-seamlessly use one of the two on a per-application basis (but I'm not sure about that). Aside from that, I guess that it can be expected that, since AMDGPU will also be used by user-space Catalyst in the future, it could get some additional features and, of course, official support, which is currently missing from the Radeon DRM driver.

I think, however, that AMDGPU support from Catalyst will not happen soon. Moreover, AMDGPU, for now, does not reduce the effort required but just increases it; it will only be in the future that Catalyst (the bundle) will drop support for GPUs not supported by AMDGPU and drop its own custom kernel driver altogether. Until then, AMD developers have to work on the Radeon and AMDGPU DRM and the custom Catalyst kernel drivers.

[CrystalGamma]

I wonder if there will be two userspace drivers for the AMD Vulkan driver or just one open-source one ...

[bridgman]

With the AMDGPU DRM driver, it will eventually be possible to switch between the open and the closed user-space stacks in an easier way, without changing anything kernel-side; perhaps they could even be installed side-by-side, which would allow to almost-seamlessly use one of the two on a per-application basis (but I'm not sure about that).

The idea is not "easy switching", the idea is to get more resources on common kernel / X / multimedia code so the drivers will be good enough that you don't need to switch.

Aside from that, I guess that it can be expected that, since AMDGPU will also be used by user-space Catalyst in the future, it could get some additional features and, of course, official support, which is currently missing from the Radeon DRM driver.

Where does this "missing official support" thing keep coming from.

Are you listening to the people who say "radeon can't be official until we kill Catalyst" ? If so, stop listening

[kalrish]

Where does this "missing official support" thing keep coming from.

Are you listening to the people who say "radeon can't be official until we kill Catalyst" ? If so, stop listening

I'm not listening to them; it's just that I was under the impression that Catalyst was the "official" driver from AMD and the open stack, even if actively developed by AMD developers, was not "official" (not that it makes such a difference?). Sorry!

[bridgman]

Agreed. Hoping that just getting the code out sooner will be sufficient... and that we don't have to go the route of binary-style installers for all-open driver stacks. Those don't really work well unless you have bushy code with paths for every kernel & every X version out there, and we're trying real hard to avoid that with the new stack.

[smitty3268]

Where does this "missing official support" thing keep coming from.

Are you listening to the people who say "radeon can't be official until we kill Catalyst" ? If so, stop listening

I think a lot of it comes from the fact that all the games coming out seem to assume Catalyst is the official driver.

None of them even acknowledge that the Mesa drivers exist, even when they run the game correctly and Catalyst fails to do so - instead they just say that AMD isn't supported at all.

I'm not sure how - or if you even want to - relay that message to those devs, but right now it's pretty clear they haven't gotten it.