Interested In FreeSync With The RADV Vulkan Driver? Testing Help Is Needed

Written by Michael Larabel in Radeon on 18 March 2019 at 06:24 AM EDT. 66 Comments
RADEON
Since the long-awaited introduction of FreeSync support with the Linux 5.0 kernel, one of the missing elements has been this variable rate refresh support within the RADV Vulkan driver.

When the FreeSync/VRR bits were merged into Linux 5.0, the RadeonSI Gallium3D support was quick to land for OpenGL games but RADV Vulkan support was not to be found. Of course, RADV is the unofficial Radeon open-source Vulkan driver not officially backed by AMD but is the more popular driver compared to their official AMDVLK driver or the official but closed driver in their Radeon Software PRO driver package (well, it's built from the same sources as AMDVLK but currently with their closed-source shader compiler rather than LLVM). So RADV support for FreeSync has been one of the features users have been quite curious about and eager to see.

RADV co-founder Bas Nieuwenhuizen commented, "I ported whatever radeonsi does to radv in this patch. However, I've had someone tell me that it does not work for him, and lacking a freesync monitor (or any good testing plan really) I haven't spend a lot of effort on finding the issue. You're welcome to try, a second test result is always welcome (but before you report, please make sure freesync works with radeonsi on your setup so we can isolate issues)."

Nieuwenhuizen lacking a FreeSync display appears to be the primary blocker in seeing timely support. Those wanting to help by testing the experimental support can find the basic RADV FreeSync patch via this Mesa branch.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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