Linux 6.2 Graphics Changes: Intel Arc Graphics Stable, Initial NVIDIA RTX 30 Acceleration

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 6.2 Graphics Changes: Intel Arc Graphics Stable, Initial NVIDIA RTX 30 Acceleration

The Linux 6.2 Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) open-source kernel graphics/display driver changes have been merged with a few notable feature additions for users this cycle...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.2-DRM

[cooperate]

Finally, now I don’t have to disable mode setting before booting install media.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

I wonder if Arc will be moderately usable / performant without Resizable BAR / SAM by 6.2. I finally got my A770 and threw it in an old Broadwell dual Xeon workstation. Even with kernel 6.0.12, latest firmware git, and Mesa 23 devel, it's a total mess. Something basic like Unigine Superposition can't tell how much VRAM the card has and it gets ~20fps at 1080p medium. The Windows drivers may be in really bad shape, but the Linux situation seems even worse, at least for older systems. In Windows Superposition can tell its got 16GB of VRAM and you get over 3x the framerate even at 1440p with OpenGL. Trying to run it in DX is a stutterfest, with framerate over 100fps interrupted by pauses every few seconds.

[Barley9432]

I wonder if Arc will be moderately usable / performant without Resizable BAR / SAM by 6.2. I finally got my A770 and threw it in an old Broadwell dual Xeon workstation. Even with kernel 6.0.12, latest firmware git, and Mesa 23 devel, it's a total mess. Something basic like Unigine Superposition can't tell how much VRAM the card has and it gets ~20fps at 1080p medium. The Windows drivers may be in really bad shape, but the Linux situation seems even worse, at least for older systems. In Windows Superposition can tell its got 16GB of VRAM and you get over 3x the framerate even at 1440p with OpenGL. Trying to run it in DX is a stutterfest, with framerate over 100fps interrupted by pauses every few seconds.

No, Arc requires Resize bar due to hardware limitations of the memory controller.

There's better things for them to focus on than supporting these old platforms.

[Quackdoc]

Next launch I hope intel in their infinite wisdom releses a DKMS for the latest stable LTS and not just what kernel ubunpoo and enterprise linux solutions use. it would help a lot

I wonder if Arc will be moderately usable / performant without Resizable BAR / SAM by 6.2. I finally got my A770 and threw it in an old Broadwell dual Xeon workstation. Even with kernel 6.0.12, latest firmware git, and Mesa 23 devel, it's a total mess. Something basic like Unigine Superposition can't tell how much VRAM the card has and it gets ~20fps at 1080p medium. The Windows drivers may be in really bad shape, but the Linux situation seems even worse, at least for older systems. In Windows Superposition can tell its got 16GB of VRAM and you get over 3x the framerate even at 1440p with OpenGL. Trying to run it in DX is a stutterfest, with framerate over 100fps interrupted by pauses every few seconds.

if you have a dual xeon workstation, it might be worth checking for an above 4g decoding settings and toggling it, I dont have rebar on my desktop myself, and only been testing an A380, but there is a good deal of benefit

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

No, Arc requires Resize bar due to hardware limitations of the memory controller.

There's better things for them to focus on than supporting these old platforms.

Insinuating that it's strictly a hardware limitation doesn't explain why the same card in the same system shows less than 1/5 the performance in Linux on a basic OpenGL benchmark compared to Windows. Again, kernel 6.0.12, latest firmware git, Mesa 23 devel. On Windows Resizable BAR is a "for best performance" mention. On Linux, it seems like a hard requirement.

From their Ubuntu driver instruction page...

"Intel continues to optimize the SW stack to reduce the dependency on ReBAR enabled hosts in future."

Seems like a software issue to me.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

Next launch I hope intel in their infinite wisdom releses a DKMS for the latest stable LTS and not just what kernel ubunpoo and enterprise linux solutions use. it would help a lot

I put a few extra SSDs in the test machine to see how different distros / graphics stacks fared with the GPU. I did a clean install of Ubuntu 22.04 onto one of them and followed their directions exactly. Total shit show. Not too surprising given that whole graphics stack was older. I assumed maybe the official driver was really just aimed at getting GPU compute working for enterprise folks.

Fedora 37 Workstation can't even get to GDM to log in.

Fedora 37 KDE with kernel 6.0.12 / Mesa 22.2.3 / latest firmware gets the same ~20fps at 1080p or ~10fps at 1440p in Superposition as Tumbleweed with kernel 6.0.12 / Mesa 23 devel / latest firmware.

if you have a dual xeon workstation, it might be worth checking for an above 4g decoding settings and toggling it, I dont have rebar on my desktop myself, and only been testing an A380, but there is a good deal of benefit

Thanks for the suggestion! The spare HP Z840 I'm testing the card in doesn't have anything about 4g decoding in the UEFI settings. But I just looked at a Lenovo P710 from the same generation of workstations (it's even got the same CPUs as the Z840 for a nice apples to apples comparison) and that one does have a setting for "Above 4G Decoding". I'll swap the card into that machine and do some more testing.

[Quackdoc]

I put a few extra SSDs in the test machine to see how different distros / graphics stacks fared with the GPU. I did a clean install of Ubuntu 22.04 onto one of them and followed their directions exactly. Total shit show. Not too surprising given that whole graphics stack was older. I assumed maybe the official driver was really just aimed at getting GPU compute working for enterprise folks.

Fedora 37 Workstation can't even get to GDM to log in.

Fedora 37 KDE with kernel 6.0.12 / Mesa 22.2.3 / latest firmware gets the same ~20fps at 1080p or ~10fps at 1440p in Superposition as Tumbleweed with kernel 6.0.12 / Mesa 23 devel / latest firmware.

funily enough, on arch, compiling ubuntu's kernel and dkms had arc working right near launch, the issue is with the kernel that old, a good amount of stuff I needed was missing so I didn't go too far into testing it

Thanks for the suggestion! The spare HP Z840 I'm testing the card in doesn't have anything about 4g decoding in the UEFI settings. But I just looked at a Lenovo P710 from the same generation of workstations (it's even got the same CPUs as the Z840 for a nice apples to apples comparison) and that one does have a setting for "Above 4G Decoding". I'll swap the card into that machine and do some more testing.

best of luck

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

best of luck

Unfortunately things didn't improve in the P710 with Above 4G Decoding enabled. I tried, but for the old systems I wanted to put these in I'll have to stick with AMD or Nvidia. If anyone is looking for something around the same price point of the A770, this RX 6750 XT I was looking at last night is $20 cheaper today at $380 with another $20 off after MIR.

https://www.newegg.com/gigabyte-gv-r675xtgaming-oc-12gd/p/N82E16814932519

After the crypto fueled markup madness compounded by supply chain issues and bots / scalpers, $360 for a 6750 XT feels like a bargain.