AMDGPU-PRO Radeon RX 460/470/480 vs. NVIDIA Linux GPU Benchmarks

[artivision]

Already partially done... the AMDIL LLVM back end was the starting point for the radeonsi's current shader compiler (although Tom and otherse ended up replacing most of the code). Don't think AMDIL in its current form is what we would want to use either.

I don't think we would want to use current closed source OGL as a jumping-off point for radeonsi - the radeonsi code/compiler is already in the same ballpark as closed source stack for performance. If anything I would want to base a shared implementation off the newer code in our Vulkan driver.

I agree with you. I just want to experiment hooking your D3D11 state tracker (from Windows Catalyst package) with Mesa or Linux Catalyst with as less work is possible (no time). Also run the entire Windows Catalyst trough an extended Wine and a GPU pass-through like VMs, would be a good idea.

[ConvexEd]

Still very disappointed in AMD. Why even bother with a closed source driver if you're releasing an open source alternative? Also, the performance is just embarrassing. I want to switch to Vega or Navi, but a 970 is still beating these cards like it was nothing. I really want to switch to a freesync montitor as well, but Linux support is really behind on AMD's side. It'd be ideal if they caught up, I'd buy their cards in a flash.

[Ericg]

Ugh.. I was really hoping the RX-480 performance would be better. I'm in the market for a 1060 or a 480 and I can't decide which. I might end up with the 480 just because of the price difference once you add in Gsync vs FreeSync

[Mystro256]

I think a better question would be whether it is (or, when it will be) possible to use open-source OpenGL and closed-source Vulkan+OpenCL at the same time on top of the open-source amdgpu.ko.

Honestly, I doubt it, as I'm assuming the fglrx stack (the one amdgpu-pro uses) is completely incompatible with mesa. Although having an opensource kernel driver and closed source user-space isn't that bad of a compromise... if only it wasn't Ubuntu only.

[smitty3268]

Honestly, I doubt it, as I'm assuming the fglrx stack (the one amdgpu-pro uses) is completely incompatible with mesa. Although having an opensource kernel driver and closed source user-space isn't that bad of a compromise... if only it wasn't Ubuntu only.

They're using the same kernel bits. There's just 1 patch that is present in amdgpu-pro that hasn't been applied to the upstream kernel.

[starshipeleven]

Honestly, I doubt it, as I'm assuming the fglrx stack (the one amdgpu-pro uses) is completely incompatible with mesa. Although having an opensource kernel driver and closed source user-space isn't that bad of a compromise... if only it wasn't Ubuntu only.

Yeah, but why Red Hat does not have some kind of interest in calling up AMD to get the same treatment too?
I mean, what the heck only Ubuntu gets this "special snowflake" treatment?

Also Steam's pet project shows they have money and they use it to get AMD to give them a non-standard driver too.

[Mystro256]

They're using the same kernel bits. There's just 1 patch that is present in amdgpu-pro that hasn't been applied to the upstream kernel.

Indeed, the kernel driver is the same, but I don't see how this makes mesa and fglrx compatible. Although I guess some clever hacking could do it, so both stacks can be installed but don't interfere with one another.
I don't really see the benefit though, is there an advantage to using fglrx/amdgpu-pro for some things and mesa for others, rather than only using the pro stack?

[agd5f]

We target the pro stack at the distros customers ask for. For workstation/server, that is generally enterprise distros (Ubuntu LTS and RHEL).

[bridgman]

Still very disappointed in AMD. Why even bother with a closed source driver if you're releasing an open source alternative?

1. Closed source driver supports compatibility profiles, which are still required for some workstation apps. Mesa will probably never support them, because they are a Really Bad Thing.

2. While the open source driver is catching up on performance, the closed source driver is useful in some gaming scenarios as well.

[SaucyJack]

We target the pro stack at the distros customers ask for. For workstation/server, that is generally enterprise distros (Ubuntu LTS and RHEL).

Oh, is that all? Then I'd like to ask for Arch.