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For those of you using the RadeonSI driver for AMD graphics cards, you may be interested to know that a developer named Marek has sent in patches to significantly improve performance for Bioshock Infinite.

From the mailing list entry:
QuoteHi,

Most interested people already know what this is, so I'm just gonna share the performance numbers here.

This series makes Bioshock Infinite 23% faster. Along with the CPU overhead optimizations that are in the master branch already, the combined improvement is more than 40%.

The first 2 patches are unrelated, but since they don't hurt anything, I included them.

Please review.

Marek


That's seriously impressive and hopefully it translates to gains in other games as well!

I don't own an AMD card to test with at the moment, so if you want to see me test such things in future you can support me Patreon. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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13 comments
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BTRE Aug 2, 2016
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Actually it's apparently more than 23% for radeonsi. This is pretty exciting, I can't wait until it's merged into the master branch. I won't bother to test the patch just yet since they're still reviewing code + discussing some implementation details apparently.
veccher Aug 2, 2016
i own a r9 270, i'm actually pretty disappointed for their support for linux, i installed ubuntu 16.04 then i've discovered that AMD drivers (the private drivers) don't works on 16.04, then i've installed 15.04 and the driver didn't work (black screen at log in) then i've installed 14.04 and again black screen at log in, glad to see the open driver evolving they're my only hope.


Last edited by veccher on 2 August 2016 at 3:05 pm UTC
gabsd84 Aug 2, 2016
It is worth noting that Marek is employed by AMD to work on RadeonSI and has been for many years.
haagch Aug 2, 2016
Quoting: veccherglad to see the open driver evolving they're my only hope.
Actually support in amdgpu for Southern Islands GPUs will come soon-ish and with that support for the amdgpu-pro proprietary driver.

I've tried the (highly) experimental code that's been released so far and my HD 7970M can play csgo and xonotic fine with the amdgpu open source stack. Bioshock crashes the amdgpu kernel driver though. And power management is still bugged and doesn't work so everything is pretty slow. But it's largely ready.
veccher Aug 2, 2016
Quoting: haagch
Quoting: veccherglad to see the open driver evolving they're my only hope.
Actually support in amdgpu for Southern Islands GPUs will come soon-ish and with that support for the amdgpu-pro proprietary driver.

I've tried the (highly) experimental code that's been released so far and my HD 7970M can play csgo and xonotic fine with the amdgpu open source stack. Bioshock crashes the amdgpu kernel driver though. And power management is still bugged and doesn't work so everything is pretty slow. But it's largely ready.

actually there is support for ubuntu 15.04 and 14.04 (for r9 270) but even with official support it didn't work, there are 2 ways to install the "radeon crimsom", downloading a 170mb zip file and installing (tried it in 15.04) and dowloading a .deb for ubuntu (tried it in 14.04 and also failed)
Beta Version Aug 2, 2016
Such patches work only with specific games or other games may benefit from them as well?
tuubi Aug 2, 2016
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  • Supporter
Quoting: Beta VersionSuch patches work only with specific games or other games may benefit from them as well?
The patches seem generic enough. I don't think game-specific hacks are even allowed in Mesa drivers, but I guess it could be possible that the optimization only alleviates a bottleneck uniquely exhibited by this particular game. It would be interesting to see if other VP ports like the Saints Row series or good old Witcher 2 perform any better.


Last edited by tuubi on 2 August 2016 at 6:15 pm UTC
pete910 Aug 2, 2016
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Good news as I've just jumped on to mageia 6 cauldron to try the AMDGPU driver + radeon_si. (kernel dev enabled it on request)

Have to say it's working real well, had a quick blast on boarderlands 2 before I went to work this morning, 120+ fps maxed out @ 1440p

That's with mesa 12.1
290x

It has impressed me, No sound via hdmi yet for those interested.
MayeulC Aug 2, 2016
Quoting: veccher
Quoting: haagch
Quoting: veccherglad to see the open driver evolving they're my only hope.
Actually support in amdgpu for Southern Islands GPUs will come soon-ish and with that support for the amdgpu-pro proprietary driver.

I've tried the (highly) experimental code that's been released so far and my HD 7970M can play csgo and xonotic fine with the amdgpu open source stack. Bioshock crashes the amdgpu kernel driver though. And power management is still bugged and doesn't work so everything is pretty slow. But it's largely ready.

actually there is support for ubuntu 15.04 and 14.04 (for r9 270) but even with official support it didn't work, there are 2 ways to install the "radeon crimsom", downloading a 170mb zip file and installing (tried it in 15.04) and downloading a .deb for ubuntu (tried it in 14.04 and also failed)

Actually (why bother choosing another word? This one is fine^^), I think @haagch was talking about the amdgpu kernel driver, which is used by most recent AMD cards, and is set to replace the old "catalyst"-provided closed source kernel. This hybrid (open source kernel driver + closed source userspace blob) solution is called amdgpu-pro. There has been some ongoing talk to enable support for older cards in amdgpu, but it hasn't been done for now (work in progress).

The main advantage of this approach (here are numerous other) is that the new AMD drivers won't be restricted to a X Server/Linux kernel version, and (nt sure on this last point) might just give Wayland support for "free".

That said, I am really happy with the open source drivers, and they are constantly improving. Kudos to AMD :)
you just need a rolling distribution or some sort of ppa to have the latex fixes. Or you can compile it by yourself, of course.
Furious Aug 2, 2016
Quoting: veccheri own a r9 270, i'm actually pretty disappointed for their support for linux, i installed ubuntu 16.04 then i've discovered that AMD drivers (the private drivers) don't works on 16.04, then i've installed 15.04 and the driver didn't work (black screen at log in) then i've installed 14.04 and again black screen at log in, glad to see the open driver evolving they're my only hope.

I bet you have Intel CPU with integrated graphics. Disable them in UEFI first and then try to install propriety drivers. I had the same issue last month when I installed ubuntu 15.10 on my GF PC.
The reason for this is probably system unable to properly blacklist intel graphics driver.

PS. Also recommend Penguins Recordings Radeon driver installation guide.


Last edited by Furious on 2 August 2016 at 8:03 pm UTC
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