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Mesa 18.0 released, further advancing Linux graphics drivers

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Mesa 18.0 has been officially released today after a bit of a wait, further advancing Linux graphics drivers.

As usual, if you concerned about stability, the Mesa developers do suggest waiting for the first point release 18.0.1 for any pressing issues to get fixed up. The first point release should be due in early April, with a second due later that month as well.

Since I don't actually use Mesa, being an NVIDIA user I'm not personally too clued on on just how well they're doing. From what I hear from people close to me who are on Mesa, it's come a really long way for both AMD and Intel graphics in terms of performance and compatibility with games.

Feature highlights:

  • Disk shader cache support for i965 when MESA_GLSL_CACHE_DISABLE environment variable is set to "0" or "false"
  • GL_ARB_shader_atomic_counters and GL_ARB_shader_atomic_counter_ops on r600/evergreen+
  • GL_ARB_shader_image_load_store and GL_ARB_shader_image_size on r600/evergreen+
  • GL_ARB_shader_storage_buffer_object on r600/evergreen+
  • GL_ARB_compute_shader on r600/evergreen+
  • GL_ARB_cull_distance on r600/evergreen+
  • GL_ARB_enhanced_layouts on r600/evergreen+
  • GL_ARB_bindless_texture on nvc0/kepler
  • OpenGL 4.3 on r600/evergreen with hw fp64 support
  • Support 1 binary format for GL_ARB_get_program_binary on i965. (For the 18.0 release, 0 formats continue to be supported in compatibility profiles.)
  • Cannonlake support on i965 and anv

Naturally there's a lot of bugs that have been fixed as well as a result of the advancement. You should see more games work as a result of this release on top of the performance improvements (of which there's been quite a few).

Note: Their release notes state it's 17.4.0 due to an issue with git struggling to detect the move (their words).

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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tuubi Mar 28, 2018
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Quoting: tonR
Quoting: Ari El Uno
Quoting: tonRWell, as long Mesa not break I'm fine with that. Very curious how Mesa performance on Intel onboard graphic..
QuoteOpenGL 4.3 on r600/evergreen with hw fp64 support
Wow! HD2000 series? That's pretty old graphic card. It was on my wishlist along side GeForce 8 when I was teenager. Never got it. :(

Nope.
Evergreen is Radeon HD 5000 series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_5000_Series
I mean r600 (HD 2000 series) not Evergreen. I'd bold it.
I'm sure he understood what you meant, but r600 happens to be the name of the Mesa device driver that supports the evergreen series of AMD hardware. Confusing, I know. I think the "evergreen+" in the changelog means that these features were added for this particular generation of hardware and newer, not everything the driver supports. The older cards aren't likely to get compute shaders any time soon.
tonR Mar 28, 2018
Quoting: tuubiI'm sure he understood what you meant, but r600 happens to be the name of the Mesa device driver that supports the evergreen series of AMD hardware. Confusing, I know. I think the "evergreen+" in the changelog means that these features were added for this particular generation of hardware and newer, not everything the driver supports. The older cards aren't likely to get compute shaders any time soon.
Right, now I get it. :D
Shmerl Mar 28, 2018
Quoting: jensHe wont see your point due to his unconditional love for Open Source and FOSS in general.

This point is not about attitude towards FOSS. That's just how open development operates, bugs are open and you can track progress (unlike blob, closed driven development as can be expected). It doesn't equal a guarantee that your bug will magically get higher priority than otherwise. However, since Mesa developers asked to make a special page just for games, @jaycee can go ahead and use it, before complaining.


Last edited by Shmerl on 28 March 2018 at 9:49 pm UTC
jens Mar 29, 2018
  • Supporter
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: jensHe wont see your point due to his unconditional love for Open Source and FOSS in general.

This point is not about attitude towards FOSS. That's just how open development operates, bugs are open and you can track progress (unlike blob, closed driven development as can be expected). It doesn't equal a guarantee that your bug will magically get higher priority than otherwise. However, since Mesa developers asked to make a special page just for games, @jaycee can go ahead and use it, before complaining.

@jaycee wrote a concrete example where coperate support worked better for him than FOSS support. You tell him that his experience is wrong and bring up arguments that FOSS support is always superior.

My conclusion, that you have just confirmed:
You don't see his point due to a blind spot in your thinking. Alternatively, you are simply to stubborn to admit that coperate support can have its advantages too (*). ;)

* Which does not exclude advantages of FOSS support. It is not black or white. Both models have their pros and cons. None is perfect.


Last edited by jens on 29 March 2018 at 4:35 am UTC
Shmerl Mar 29, 2018
Quoting: jens@jaycee wrote a concrete example where cooperate support worked better for him than FOSS support.

For him, but not for others who had no idea about his bug report, and didn't know whether it was fixed, whether there are workarounds or the bug will be around forever. How would they know, since the whole bug reporting process isn't public? Many probably filed multiple duplicate bug reports for the same problem because of it, wasting theirs and others' time.

So there was nothing to demonstrate how open development is not better than closed one for these matters that I listed above. Whether some bug is fixed faster or slower is a completely separate topic. Others brought above examples of bugs that Nvidia didn't fix for years.


Last edited by Shmerl on 29 March 2018 at 2:11 am UTC
jens Mar 29, 2018
  • Supporter
Quoting: Guest^ You meant corporate support, right?
Corrected, thanks a lot. ;)
jens Mar 29, 2018
  • Supporter
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: jens@jaycee wrote a concrete example where cooperate support worked better for him than FOSS support.

For him, but not for others who had no idea about his bug report, and didn't know whether it was fixed, whether there are workarounds or the bug will be around forever. How would they know, since the whole bug reporting process isn't public? Many probably filed multiple duplicate bug reports for the same problem because of it, wasting theirs and others' time.

So there was nothing to demonstrate how open development is not better than closed one for these matters that I listed above. Whether some bug is fixed faster or slower is a completely separate topic. Others brought above examples of bugs that Nvidia didn't fix for years.

It would have been a lot more polite if you would have at least acknowledged jaycee's experience. Instead you completely ignored what he said in your direct response and just posted a general essay. This gives the impression that you didn't hear/read at all what he said.

Try something like this the next time:
"Nice to read that NVidia directly responded to your requests and that their responses helped you to go on. That said, this style of support completely hides any tracking for others... "
I guess you get my idea. The actual message from your side would be identical _and_ it would be a conversation where both sides see and respect each other.


Last edited by jens on 29 March 2018 at 4:49 am UTC
Shmerl Mar 29, 2018
Quoting: jensIt would have been a lot more polite if you would have at least acknowledged jaycee's experience. Instead you completely ignored what he said in your direct response and just posted a general essay.

He was answering to my point, not I to his. However, saying that open development "doesn't necessarily help at all" because it doesn't guarantee fast bug fixing was not the topic I was talking about. How fast something is fixed doesn't depend on it.


Last edited by Shmerl on 29 March 2018 at 5:00 am UTC
omer666 Mar 29, 2018
Quoting: jens
Quoting: GuestAnyway, the point was responsiveness of bug reporting. You claimed that Mesa is superior because it's public. As i've just demonstrated, this is not necessarily true.

He wont see your point due to his unconditional love for Open Source and FOSS in general.

Let me argue that you don't see his point either just because of how you expect him to think. Just because someone has got convictions that you don't share doesn't mean he's always wrong.
jens Mar 29, 2018
  • Supporter
Quoting: omer666
Quoting: jens
Quoting: GuestAnyway, the point was responsiveness of bug reporting. You claimed that Mesa is superior because it's public. As i've just demonstrated, this is not necessarily true.

He wont see your point due to his unconditional love for Open Source and FOSS in general.

Let me argue that you don't see his point either just because of how you expect him to think. Just because someone has got convictions that you don't share doesn't mean he's always wrong.

Don't worry, I understand his point of view...
Did I said somewhere that @Shmerl is _always_ wrong? He seems an intelligent user and certainly has a good factual knowledge. I don't agree with him on certain points and I guess that I have a different style of communication, though I don't imply (at least I try to) anywhere that he is always wrong and I'm always right.


Last edited by jens on 29 March 2018 at 5:19 pm UTC
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