RADV Vulkan Driver Support For Multiple Devices

[phoronix]

Phoronix: RADV Vulkan Driver Support For Multiple Devices

Open-source driver developer Bas Nieuwenhuizen has posted a patch for allowing the open-source Radeon Mesa Vulkan driver (RADV) to support multiple devices...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RADV-Multiple-Devices-Patch

[boltronics]

Beautiful!! Finally, my second Fury X will be able to do something!

I know Doom doesn't seem to work with multiple GPUs - or at least I don't think it did when I tried it under Windows based on the LEDs along the top of the GPU (which sadly still only work with fglrx under GNU/Linux...). I wonder if Talos will make use of a second GPU if available?

Michael, any plans to benchmark multi-GPU improvements if/when there's a game that supports automated benchmarking which can make use of it? Do you have any GPU pairs which would be suitable?

[Xicronic]

SLI/Crossfire is pretty useless to the average Linux gamer, but I imagine this might be useful in upcoming VR titles.

[Las_]

boltronics do any games even support using multiple GPUs when not on crossfire/SLi?

[computerquip]

boltronics do any games even support using multiple GPUs when not on crossfire/SLi?

Not using Vulkan, no.

[Sethox]

SLI/Crossfire is pretty useless to the average Linux gamer, but I imagine this might be useful in upcoming VR titles.

Don't for get for the people that capture or streaming. Or even multiple screens (though in this case a graphic card is enough.. usually).
In theory If this is implemented right, even wine can use this (of course their Vulkan implementation has to be done then).

[dimko]

SLI/Crossfire is pretty useless to the average Linux gamer, but I imagine this might be useful in upcoming VR titles.

As next commenter in line said, SLI/Crossfire is useless when comes to linux, unless not used for games.

[M@yeulC]

I wonder if the current driver infrastructure could support multi-vendor "multiadapter"?

I don't know about vulkan, but IIRC OpenGL uses libGL, which is shipped by different vendors, and (pre)loads the right one. Or maybe with an interface layer, nVidia was talking about it some years ago, I don't recall how it went.

So, here, do we have a "libVK" or similar shipped with Mesa, another one with nVidia proprietary, etc; or does it uses another implementation?

[Veerappan]

I wonder if the current driver infrastructure could support multi-vendor "multiadapter"?

I don't know about vulkan, but IIRC OpenGL uses libGL, which is shipped by different vendors, and (pre)loads the right one. Or maybe with an interface layer, nVidia was talking about it some years ago, I don't recall how it went.

So, here, do we have a "libVK" or similar shipped with Mesa, another one with nVidia proprietary, etc; or does it uses another implementation?

mesa has support for the vendor-neutral dispatch that nvidia proposed a while back.

Also, vulkan uses a shared vendor-neutral icd loader library, mesa/vulkan ships ICDs for each driver that's built/supported, so hopefully we don't get into the vendor-specific loader mess again.with vulkan

[Xicronic]

Don't for get for the people that capture or streaming. Or even multiple screens (though in this case a graphic card is enough.. usually).
In theory If this is implemented right, even wine can use this (of course their Vulkan implementation has to be done then).

AKA not the average Linux gamer... of course there are fringe use cases for them, but most people don't stream or use multiple monitors, both of which can be done on one card anyway, without driver hell. SLI was a buggy mess on Windows, I can only imagine the added complications of translating from DX -> OGL.