RADV Lands More Fixes + Performance Improvements Into Mesa 19.3

[phoronix]

Phoronix: RADV Lands More Fixes + Performance Improvements Into Mesa 19.3

It's always great waking up and to find RADV improvements in Mesa Git for this open-source Radeon Vulkan driver that is particularly popular with Linux gamers...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RADV-More-For-Mesa-19.3

[schmidtbag]

Out of curiosity, did Pitoiset make these patches specifically for games like HotS? Because it's a little strange to me a Valve developer spent so much time working on a game that isn't and won't be available on Steam. Not that I'm complaining; just the opposite. He's obviously doing good work, I just find it a bit odd he's the one who got the game to work better. Of course, I'm not expecting Blizzard to do it either.

[Leopard]

Out of curiosity, did Pitoiset make these patches specifically for games like HotS? Because it's a little strange to me a Valve developer spent so much time working on a game that isn't and won't be available on Steam. Not that I'm complaining; just the opposite. He's obviously doing good work, I just find it a bit odd he's the one who got the game to work better. Of course, I'm not expecting Blizzard to do it either.

That is a driver issue. What do you except them to do? This game doesn't exist on Steam so i'll leave the driver in a broken state? And also as you can see , that fix also was needed for SoM too.

So that is just a driver issue , no matter which store those games exist.

[ms178]

I guess their work is not limited to make Steam games work better but also includes to enhance the Linux open source graphics ecosystem, in his case around RADV and RadeonSI.

[schmidtbag]

That is a driver issue. What do you except them to do? This game doesn't exist on Steam so i'll leave the driver in a broken state? And also as you can see , that fix also was needed for SoM too.

So that is just a driver issue , no matter which store those games exist.

If the problem affected a wide range of games then yeah, it totally makes sense for him to fix it. But, if this was just a one-off issue, well, RADV has a long todo list. Why should specifically he patch a problem only currently known to affect 1 game not available on your platform, when there are other problems that could be fixed that actually benefits the company you work for? That's typically how business works.
And remember - there are other RADV devs. Someone else could've done it too.
Of course, I am making a lot of assumptions here. I don't know how wide-spread the problems were, I don't know what Valve's priorities are, and I don't know the skill or availability of other RADV devs.
Like I said, I'm not at all complaining about this. I wish more people would be like Pitoiset, where they fix something for the greater good, rather than only do the bear minimum of what's expected.

All I'm saying is it's odd to help a competitor. Remember - it's Valve who is interested in helping the Linux gaming ecosystem. Blizzard is notoriously negligent.

[Leopard]

If the problem affected a wide range of games then yeah, it totally makes sense for him to fix it. But, if this was just a one-off issue, well, RADV has a long todo list. Why should specifically he patch a problem only currently known to affect 1 game not available on your platform, when there are other problems that could be fixed that actually benefits the company you work for? That's typically how business works.
And remember - there are other RADV devs. Someone else could've done it too.
Of course, I am making a lot of assumptions here. I don't know how wide-spread the problems were, I don't know what Valve's priorities are, and I don't know the skill or availability of other RADV devs.
Like I said, I'm not at all complaining about this. I wish more people would be like Pitoiset, where they fix something for the greater good, rather than only do the bear minimum of what's expected.

All I'm saying is it's odd to help a competitor. Remember - it's Valve who is interested in helping the Linux gaming ecosystem. Blizzard is notoriously negligent.

It is not helping to a competitor at all. It is helping to Linux gaming in general.

One more game works better than before on Linux ( no matter the store ), that is a net gain.

[schmidtbag]

It is not helping to a competitor at all. It is helping to Linux gaming in general.

One more game works better than before on Linux ( no matter the store ), that is a net gain.

In general and for everyone who doesn't work for Valve, I completely agree - this is unanimously a net gain for Linux.
If (and again, making an assumption here) HotS is the only known game to have the issue, currently this can be seen as helping a competitor. Remember, I'm looking at this in Valve's business perspective, not the wide scope. It may be a driver issue (and therefore the problem inherently isn't exclusive to one game), but it's a driver issue that (to my assumption) doesn't [yet] benefit Valve's market. See what I'm saying?

[geearf]

Out of curiosity, did Pitoiset make these patches specifically for games like HotS? Because it's a little strange to me a Valve developer spent so much time working on a game that isn't and won't be available on Steam. Not that I'm complaining; just the opposite. He's obviously doing good work, I just find it a bit odd he's the one who got the game to work better. Of course, I'm not expecting Blizzard to do it either.

It's most likely a simple matter of him fixing the issue he created, whether that's a game sold or not by Valve, it would not be nice to create a regression and then leave it to others to fix.

Since most of the Valve FOSS devs were doing related work before, they may also have some more freedom on what they work on, like with DXVK fixing issues for games not sold by Valve.

[aufkrawall]

Michael mentioned the same issue twice in his article.
Also I find it weird if people question why driver developers would bother with fixing performance regressions.

[Leopard]

In general and for everyone who doesn't work for Valve, I completely agree - this is unanimously a net gain for Linux.
If (and again, making an assumption here) HotS is the only known game to have the issue, currently this can be seen as helping a competitor. Remember, I'm looking at this in Valve's business perspective, not the wide scope. It may be a driver issue (and therefore the problem inherently isn't exclusive to one game), but it's a driver issue that (to my assumption) doesn't [yet] benefit Valve's market. See what I'm saying?

Let me put it this way , more clearly:

If i was a HoTS player who decided to switch for Linux yet encountered this issue and this issue doesn't get a fix in a timely manner because this game is not on Steam ; i would say " screw this platform " and go back to Windows.

So like you want to hear ; one less user on Linux which is the opposite of Valve aims to do.