AMD's R9 Fury On Open-Source: Prepare for Disappointment, For Now 43
An anonymous reader writes: With Linux 4.3 AMD is adding the initial open-source driver for the R9 Fury graphics cards. Unfortunate for Linux gamers, the R9 Fury isn't yet in good shape on the open-source driver and it's not good with the Catalyst Linux driver either as previously discussed. With the initial code going into Linux 4.3, the $550 R9 Fury runs slower than graphics cards like the lower-cost and older R7 370 and HD 7950 GPUs, since AMD's open-source developers haven't yet found the time to implement power management / re-clocking support. The R9 Fury also only advertises OpenGL 3.0 support while the hardware is GL4.5-capable and the other open-source AMD GCN driver ships OpenGL 4.1. It doesn't look like AMD has any near-term R9 Fury Linux fix for either driver, but at least their older hardware is performing well with the open-source code.
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Wasn't AMD hyping that they had engineers working (i.e. as part of their job, not spare time) working on the open-source driver(s)? Why should they be cut any slack here? We wouldn't let other companies get away with that. I get that AMD is the nerd-everyman's favorite underdog. But really, AMD is a corporation like any other, except it's horribly and consistently mismanaged. They really are not deserving of any special allowances, at least not any more than any other company is.
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I have to say, I agree. I think it's pretty much unacceptable to turn out crap code. Even when it's open source. If the drivers are bad, people should buy other devices until the drivers are good. I do.
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Yet here you are complaining that some people, mostly in their spare time, can't provide a fully featured driver for a new card that is still hard to get a hold of.
No one writes modern GPU drivers in their spare time. The work is being done by the AMDGPU group which is a professional crack team of paid developers working for AMD.
Re: Talk about unfair. (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, but most open source drivers are written by corporations.
AMD: prepare for disappointment (Score:1)
that should be the new corporate slogan...
Re: roflmao (Score:3)
Ever since 802.11ac came out I feel like we've lost about a decade of progress when it comes to hardware support.
To be fair though graphics drivers have always sucked.
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gamers. hahahahaha!
Fixed that for you. Enjoy your corporate entertainment while we Linux guys work on creating something new.
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At the moment I'm working on a math thesis, and I have an art exhibition and a musical play coming up. None of this is groundbreaking in any way, but I feel it's more fun than complaining about the state of Linux drivers.
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gamers. hahahahaha!
Fixed that for you. Enjoy your corporate entertainment while we Linux guys work on creating something new.
Hey, howabout getting the something OLD working first?
And people say that Microsoft has the corporate attention span of a gnat. Sheesh!
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SteamOS is based on Linux and their new hardware will support at least Ubuntu from the start. Even non-Valve games franchises such as Borderlands are starting to support Linux.
Regardless of whether or not we'll ever see the Linux desktop take off, there can be little doubt that native gaming on Linux has made more progress in the last couple of years than in the entire history of the OS. Even if Linux remains niche on the desktop, that doesn't mean that it can't be a successful platform for gaming.
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Even non-Valve games franchises such as Borderlands are starting to support Linux.
Pretty cool after only 24 years. I'm impressed!
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Buying a gpu and expecting quality drivers for supported OSs (open or closed) is hardly 'freetard entitlement'.
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http://support.amd.com/en-us/d... [amd.com]
Sure they do. It's just that their closed driver is shit too.
What kind of post is this? (Score:3)
As far as I can understand, AMD has released the specs for the new GPUs, which is what many Linux / Open Source advocates care about, right? Sure they haven't yet added the support for the new cards on their own, but other people could do it if they are in a hurry, right? Then you have Nvidia not releasing any specs for open drivers, but adding support (more quickly perhaps?) on their proprietary binary drivers. This upsets (hopefully a different set of) Linux users. ;)
And in the end, this is just about games (because I never had a problem with the Linux desktop in general, even over multiple displays with mostly AMD cards), right? Well, guess what, Linux is not a good gaming platform. It is great in many things, why should it also be good for games? Why would Nvidia and AMD spend significant resources so that very few people (compared to the total market) can play games in a specific platform that, let's face it, is not gamer-oriented? Well, they don't, so don't complain. Sorry for the rant-ish post, perhaps I would post different 15 years ago when I was still into computer games
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I suggest that you broaden your horizon before you go ranting. You wouldn't make a fool of yourself.
First, that card doesn't work well with *any* Linux drivers, open source or not. Even their Catalyst driver is horrible in Linux.
Second, OpenGL in Linux is much more important for the professionals than gamers - large portion of virtual reality image generators (machines that render the landscapes, vehicles etc. depending on the instructions from the simulation system) used by all sorts of simulators (militar
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As far as I can understand, AMD has released the specs for the new GPUs, which is what many Linux / Open Source advocates care about, right? Sure they haven't yet added the support for the new cards on their own, but other people could do it if they are in a hurry, right?
Not for Fury, not yet. The shader instruction set architecture (ISA) is up to date, since the shaders are still GCN 1.2 (also known as 3rd gen GCN, IPv8) so you can write shader code for it. But the code to initialize and manage the card changes from generation to generation, if I recall correctly at launch it didn't work at all. Those parts are typically written by AMD, with the code typically preceding and more or less being the initial documentation. From what I've understood it's because AMD's legal dep
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Well, guess what, Linux is not a good gaming platform
Someone should tell Valve.
Based on the delays of the Steam Machines I think they already know. Of course this isn't really a Linux problem but when you need to coordinate with major industry players that have different vested interests these things are going to crop up quite a lot.
The whole posting is disengenuous. (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole posting is disengenuous.
"the R9 Fury isn't yet in good shape on the open-source driver"
The card won't be changing to fix this; the driver will have to change to accommodate the card; therefore it is more correct to say "The Open Source driver is not yet in good shape on the R9 Fury". In other words, it's not the hardware's fault that the driver doesn't support it yet.
"AMD's open-source developers haven't yet found the time to implement power management / re-clocking support"
The power management model in Linux is Linux's responsibility, not AMD's. The authors of the Open Source driver are accountable *only* for writing callbacks for the device power management component, and populating the structure. It's my understanding that Linux lacks a uniform model for use by all graphics drivers, in this regard. his is a Linux issue, not an AMD issue.
Also:
In general, in a hardware world, you either NDA people, or the Open Source is going to lag the closed source, period. This is because openly manipulating code related to an unreleased hardware product in a publicly accessible source repository, instead of a privately held repository, is tantamount to preannouncing your hardware to competitors. You might as well have the CEO call a press conference, and then shoot themselves in the head in public.
Open Source projects have a secondary problem in that, even if the driver source was developed entirely by engineers within AMD, and released the same day as the hardware was made available, the Open Source projects aren't going to be happy just integrating the code as is. They will insist on peeing on it to make it smell like themselves, just as cats do with new furniture, and this will take time. You can either have closed source, or you can have it integrated later than the release date, but you can not have both.
Exactly the same kind. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re the last paragraph. That is not entirely true, as Intel appear to be able to integrate new chipsets during the time they are released (but only to next tier manufacture) before the public can buy anything using it.
What kind of "peeing on it" has been done to the Intel drivers to get them integrated ?
Exactly the same kind. It's possible to do for anything, it just takes time.
The reason Intel is able to do this ahead of general release, when other vendors aren't, is that it does not lose them a competitive advantage.
First, there is no issue of another manufacturer producing "pin and register compatible devices", and undercutting Intel, because Intel's graphics are integrated into the CPU; you'd have to build an entire Intel compatible CPU as well, and you'd have to do it competitively in terms of price point.
Second, no one really wants to emulate Intel Integrated Graphics in silicon, since there's really no advantage to doing so, since the chips have inferior performance relative to the competition.
So there's really nothing lost by Intel pre-announcing all of the information needed to make a driver, or even publishing source code for the driver, since doing so will sell more Intel chips, not less. For other GPU vendors, this is simply not the case, and there's no economic value in such pre-disclosure.
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Having to run Windows is more than enough punishment to make up for that.
so? (Score:4, Funny)
I just use glxgears to benchmark. glxgears is a great benchmark. I recommend glxgears if you want to benchmark your liinicks. thanks.
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Whoops, this was me, somehow wasn't logged in.