Open-Source Radeon Vulkan Driver "RADV" Demonstrated On Windows

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Open-Source Radeon Vulkan Driver "RADV" Demonstrated On Windows

Last week at the X.Org Developer's Conference (XDC2024) in Montreal there was a talk showcasing Mesa's open-source Radeon "RADV" Vulkan driver running atop Windows 11...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/RADV-Windows-XDC-2024

[alegui]

Along with native context support (using native drivers in virtual machines) which is currently in draft state, with some work this could also allow for much desired accelerated 3D in Windows VMs
(EDIT : A Qubes OS developer asked about it in the presentation, it seems it would be not so easy unfortunately... https://www.youtube.com/live/pDsksRB..._MboRP&t=25144)

[Quackdoc]

The most important thing about this is proper polaris era vulkan support again, and hopefully actually usable zink on windows.

[Volta]

The most important thing about this is proper polaris era vulkan support again, and hopefully actually usable zink on windows.

I don't give a shit. The only important thing will be possibly better support for radv that will benefit Linux users.

[ms178]

I really like the idea of open source drivers on Windows, this would also probably allow AMD to ditch their own closed source Vulkan driver in the long term. As a user, I'd love to build RADV for Windows with more advanced compiler flags, get more bugs fixed and get better functionality.

[cb88]

That isn't open source drivers on windows though, it is open source userspace. They are running the open Mesa Userspace on top of the proprietary driver.

Honestly why don't they port the Linux hardware driver itself to Windows (and finally bury the churn axe in that driver). Should be possible to port it all the way back to at least XP... maybe even 2k with a limited feature set.

[shmerl]

It should be a no brainer for AMD who claimed that the need for amdvlk on Linux was for them to avoid supporting two separate drivers. radv is just better so let AMD support radv everywhere. That's it.

[mphuZ]

It should be a no brainer for AMD who claimed that the need for amdvlk on Linux was for them to avoid supporting two separate drivers. radv is just better so let AMD support radv everywhere. That's it.

This is not going to happen. OEM/Hardware market has not learned how to work with Open Source.
If everything were that simple, AMD would have agreed with Valve a long time ago and would not have started making their own AMDVLK.

AMD is thinking 10-15 years ahead. Valve itself does not know what will happen in 2-3 years.

Does anyone still believe in 2024 that "game developers are tired of closed-source drivers"? "They are undebuggable without IHV help"
Does anyone imagine modern Ubisoft, Rockstar, Activion, Rocksteady, EA, Take-Two and others who will dig into the source code of the driver or its compiler? Go get some rest.

Modern developers have no competencies, no bosses who would be interested and profitable in this. Remember, when Google launched their Stadia service, they lured the main developer and engineer from a poor, small Croatian studio Croteam. Why, you ask? Yes, because there are few people on the market who somehow understood Vulkan.

And yet.. did someone think about Windows users? Do you think that you can decide for their ecosystem? Games on Vulkan practically no native, everything goes to DX12. Players want to install the driver and start playing, no one will understand the varieties of shit drivers.

[Meteorhead]

OMG, this would be sooo awesome. I too would love to be able to contribute to driver code without artificial restrictions (like not having PAL sources).

[ahrs]

We live in strange times