AMD Linux Graphics: The Latest Open-Source RadeonSI Driver Moves On To Smacking Catalyst

First up with Metro 2033 Redux at 2560 x 1600, the RadeonSI driver did fairly well against Catalyst. The lone exception in this testing is obviously for the Radeon R9 285, which uses the newer AMDGPU kernel driver that lacks power management / re-clocking support. The Radeon HD 7950 and R7 370 came close to the frame-rates offered by Catalyst when running this bleeding-edge driver. With the higher-end Radeon R9 290, there was a larger disparity between the open-source and closed-source driver numbers.

The Metro Last Light Redux numbers were obviously quite similar and for the most part with the re-clocked hardware the performance did come close to Catalyst. However, when looking at the each driver's rendering of the game, with Catalyst there was greater detail than with the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver.

With the very basic OpenArena game, the HD 7950 and R7 370 are performing well, the R9 285 is obviously the handicapped one with the AMDGPU DRM, and the high-end Radeon R9 290 had the greatest difference between open vs. closed-source performance but was certainly playable.