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Valve sponsors more work to improve Linux graphics drivers

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More improvements will be coming to Linux graphics drivers, as Valve have sponsored work towards continuous integration (CI) testing. Focused on AMD GPUs of course, since that is what the Steam Deck will be using so it's good news for both the Linux desktop and Valve's upcoming handheld.

From the Draft Merge Request created by Igalia developer Charlie Turner:

This series proposes to add more dEQP bare-metal runners, sponsored by Valve. For now the runners are conditioned on a selection of users (similar to how freedreno's restricted traces work), since there are not enough machines to hit the runtime targets required for inclusion in the automatic pre-merge pipelines. There's nothing secret about the test loads, the restriction is purely practical for now and any interested user may request access to the runners.

A follow-up series will add trace testing runners to the CI, using a similar approach to the above.

dEQP (drawElements Quality Program) contains tests for multiple graphics APIs and should hopefully pick up issues before they end up going out to the public driver releases. All part of the work towards keeping Mesa Linux graphics drivers running smoothly. There is only so much developers can test directly on owned hardware, and CI testing is essential towards reducing the burden of that (and it's used across many computing fields).

All good news, and should keep getting better.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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8 comments

LordDaveTheKind Jan 24, 2022
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Very delighted about it. Last weekend I plugged in my Radeon card in my main computer, to try it with some of the games I'm currently playing on Steam (God of War, CP2077 and Forza Horizon 5). It has lasted for about 2 hrs probably.
ShabbyX Jan 24, 2022
FYI, dEQP is the original name of the OpenGL CTS, before Google bought the company and donated it to Khronos. The correct name now is VK-GL-CTS.

Also, lol, I didn't remember what it stood for.
Liam Dawe Jan 24, 2022
Quoting: ShabbyXFYI, dEQP is the original name of the OpenGL CTS, before Google bought the company and donated it to Khronos. The correct name now is VK-GL-CTS.

Also, lol, I didn't remember what it stood for.
Heh, interesting, even the official GitHub ReadMe still calls it dEQP though https://github.com/KhronosGroup/VK-GL-CTS
ShabbyX Jan 24, 2022
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: ShabbyXFYI, dEQP is the original name of the OpenGL CTS, before Google bought the company and donated it to Khronos. The correct name now is VK-GL-CTS.

Also, lol, I didn't remember what it stood for.
Heh, interesting, even the official GitHub ReadMe still calls it dEQP though https://github.com/KhronosGroup/VK-GL-CTS

Yeah, and so do the command line options. Despite all the work that's continuously done to add tests, there is no one actually cleaning anything up there :D
STiAT Jan 24, 2022
So Valve will sponsor different hardware configurations in the CI to test? Won't cost them a lot, since they'll very likely get it for free by the vendors, but it's nice anyway to provide the testing infrastrucuture for better CI testing.
TheRiddick Jan 25, 2022
Be nice if they can get the RayTracing+DXR support up to snuff so people have more options then just buy a NVIDIA card if you want functional RT...
Shmerl Jan 25, 2022
Quoting: TheRiddickBe nice if they can get the RayTracing+DXR support up to snuff so people have more options then just buy a NVIDIA card if you want functional RT...

That's going to happen sometime soon I suspect. Jason Ekstrand mentioned possibly working on it here.
Milanium Jan 29, 2022
It is a lot less stressful if your CI tests fail before players complain. Great to see big gaming money contribute to Open Source with infrastructure.
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