New AMDGPU Details & Looking Forward To Major Radeon Linux Improvements In 2016

[Trevelyan]

What about LIBGLVND ? Did they plan to integrate/use it it with Radeon Software ?

I was about to ask the same question, so instead I'd like to second this. I hope it's a topic at AMD.

[Michael]

I was about to ask the same question, so instead I'd like to second this. I hope it's a topic at AMD.

Will try to get an answer.

[jakubo]

What about HSA all this new stuff that should have been a seller for the recent APUs. Any improvements there yet? Any adaptation in software?

[humbug]

Good stuff, thanks Michael. Really hope AMD comes through in 2016 with these Linux plans.
Just wish there was a bit more talk from AMD regarding the plans for improving openGL framerate performance. When (if ever) will there be a high performance openGL driver available (proprietary of open). Or is it destined to always remain far behind the Nvidia propitiatory openGL performance?

I just realized, if Vulkan support is only coming attached with the proprietary driver, and this same proprietary driver is going to drop support for older cards (with the exceptions of the 285,380,Nano and Fury), doesn't this mean that all HD7000 series upwards to R 300 series card owners won't have Vulkan access on Linux?

I understand that in some unknown point in the future open source support is supposed to come, but for now, wouldn't that mean that Windows users of those same cards get Vulkan support but Linux users won't? Or is the Vulkan driver separate from the proprietary/mesa driver stacks, and will reach us Linux users on the same hardware regardless of AMDGPU?

The Vulkan spec from Khronos and the Vulkan drivers from Intel/AMD/Nvidia will definitely come out at least a few months before AMDGPU.

[verde]

2016 and AMD/ATI still in doubt about the driver model that will follow on the Linux area. Open or Proprietary or Hybrid? I will never buy AMD GPU till they end up with something stable and performing on par with Windows for Linux operating systems.

[Michael]

The Vulkan spec from Khronos and the Vulkan drivers from Intel/AMD/Nvidia will definitely come out at least a few months before AMDGPU.

Not necessarily. Vulkan might not be out until ~April where as from the sounds of it AMDGPU could be out in May~June.

[tomtomme]

It would be very unlogical to drop support of older SI cards as AMDGPU was tested first with em. What looks really bad right now seems to be HBM related. I don't expect high performance with Fiji and Polaris until Fiji beats current GDDR5 cards with the full oss stack. AMD sells Fiji at high price and the chip performs very poor/$ on Linux.

radeonSI is a shared component between the 2 kernel modules radeon (old) and amdgpu (new). same with llvm. llvm and radeonSI will be optimized and improved. so all radeonSI and newer cards will share the same performance and openGL feature improvements. amdgpu is not crucial for the performance besides reclocking which radeon also has.

= nothing is dropped even if amdgpu will not be used for the older cards

[Guest]

...Question is, if people want to use current tech and have to buy a new card, why would it be AMD?

In my case, I still don't approve of the marketing bs Intel and NVIDIA pulls, and thus, won't buy their hardware.

[tomtomme]

Looks like my previous voiced concerns are true then. It's better to sell the R9 390 I have now before the price drops, and instead buy a Polaris since proprietary support is more likely to cease for it even though it's not even a year old yet.

The RadeonSI support for this card is not there yet, and I highly doubt the performance will change in 2016 since they're moving fullspeed with AMDGPU. Not to mention, no Vulkan support without the proprietary driver.

again. amdgpu is a kernel module that replaces the radeon kernel module. radeonSI is here to stay. Your card will get all perfomance improvements the newer cards will get as they all (since GCN 1.0) use the radeonSI mesa driver

[tomtomme]

I just realized, if Vulkan support is only coming attached with the proprietary driver, and this same proprietary driver is going to drop support for older cards (with the exceptions of the 285,380,Nano and Fury), doesn't this mean that all HD7000 series upwards to R 300 series card owners won't have Vulkan access on Linux?

I understand that in some unknown point in the future open source support is supposed to come, but for now, wouldn't that mean that Windows users of those same cards get Vulkan support but Linux users won't? Or is the Vulkan driver separate from the proprietary/mesa driver stacks, and will reach us Linux users on the same hardware regardless of AMDGPU?

completely unknow yet. wait and see.