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It seems Feral Interactive are continuing to help development of the Vulkan 'radv' AMD driver in Mesa, as they have pushed another patch.

This isn't the first patch from Feral, it's not the first from this particular developer either! I'm sure it won't be the last as well.

From the patch, which is already in Mesa-git:
QuoteIf we have any pending flushes on the primary command buffer, these must be performed before executing the secondary buffer.

This fixes potential corruption when the contents of a subpass which clears any of its render targets are given in a secondary buffer: the flushes after a fast clear would not have been performed until the vkCmdEndRenderPass call.


Good stuff from Feral there, pleasing to see them not just bring games to Linux, but actively help towards driver development too.

We know Feral have a Vulkan game planned for this year, as they already said so. This is likely work towards enabling them to support their Vulkan-powered games on the open source drivers. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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M@GOid Mar 10, 2017
Sometimes is easy for us to forget how complex a modern game is, using all layers of software between it and the hardware. With so many people working on these different layers, is interesting to see people on the higher end of the layers making contributions to the low end.

In the console games, it is said that game developers have so much access to the lower end that they can program to the "bare metal". Probably the most famous for these practices are the Naughty Dog studio, responsible for really good graphics for the hardware in games like Uncharted and The Last of Us.

So it is nice to see game porters in Linux having the initiative to mess with the lower end of the software to make their ports perform better. This is also a good example for other games developers that work in titles for the PC platform.


Last edited by M@GOid on 10 March 2017 at 4:34 pm UTC
Mohandevir Mar 10, 2017
Didn't they specified that a Vulkan version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is in the pipeline? ;)

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/feral-interactives-linux-ports-may-come-with-vulkan-sooner-than-we-thought-updated.8418
Liam Dawe Mar 10, 2017
Quoting: MohandevirDidn't they specified that a Vulkan version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is in the pipeline? ;)

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/feral-interactives-linux-ports-may-come-with-vulkan-sooner-than-we-thought-updated.8418
No they misspoke during that livestream and this has been cleared up a few times. To make it clear i've put a note at the top of that article.
Eike Mar 10, 2017
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Did we already hear apologies from everybody that said that Feral doesn't do anything for supporting AMD?


Last edited by Eike on 10 March 2017 at 6:44 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Mar 10, 2017
Quoting: EikeDid we already here apologies from everybody that said that Feral doesn't do anything for supporting AMD?
No those idiots either went silent or chose to complain about something else.
Mohandevir Mar 10, 2017
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: MohandevirDidn't they specified that a Vulkan version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is in the pipeline? ;)

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/feral-interactives-linux-ports-may-come-with-vulkan-sooner-than-we-thought-updated.8418
No they misspoke during that livestream and this has been cleared up a few times. To make it clear i've put a note at the top of that article.

Oh sorry! Didn't got that one. I still had the unupdated version of this article in mind.
Still it's sad. This game could have used the vulkan performance boost over OpenGL.
Leopard Mar 10, 2017
Feral is fantastic.I mean they're really doing some good backstage improvements like that.Not like releasing a game and just enjoying the money.
dmantione Mar 10, 2017
Quoting: EikeDid we already here apologies from everybody that said that Feral doesn't do anything for supporting AMD?

On the contrary, that was with good reason. The AMD support for some of their games was simply unacceptable, and I would say still not up to the level desired. The PRO driver is still not supported by any of their games and upgrading tot the latest unreleased Git version of Mesa is not always the most practical solution for people to play a game.

Their work on Mesa however, is visible and very much appreciated.


Last edited by dmantione on 10 March 2017 at 5:50 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Mar 10, 2017
Quoting: dmantione
Quoting: EikeDid we already here apologies from everybody that said that Feral doesn't do anything for supporting AMD?

On the contrary, that was with good reason. The AMD support for some of their games was simply unacceptable, and I would say still not up to the level desired. The PRO driver is still not supported by any of their games and upgrading tot the latest unreleased Git version of Mesa is not always the most practical solution for people to play a game.

Their work on Mesa however, is visible and very much appreciated.
The PRO driver has tons of issues. Mesa had been missing OpenGL features and performance work for a long time.

They can only work with what they have and they go above and beyond by actually helping with drivers.

Some people expect miracles.
dmantione Mar 10, 2017
No. I have both drivers installed with my RX460, where I can switch on reboot. Ignoring Feral games, the PRO driver has less user visible issues than the Mesa driver. I would very much like it to be otherwise, but in my experience three categories of issues reduce the experience with the Mesa driver:

- Bugs. For example, you got page faults while running Cities Skylines. This issue has meanwhile been fixed in Mesa, but bugs still plague Mesa users.
- User interventions. You need to set the right environment variables to run games. I.e. Bioshock Infinite.
- Unsupported OpenGL functionality.

Then there also the DAL story. While it has nothing to do with Mesa, but one way to get DAL working is to install the PRO driver. As without DAL you cannot connect 3 monitors, DAL is important for me.

Therefore, to get the best user experience, one still needs to install the PRO driver, I fear.


Last edited by dmantione on 10 March 2017 at 6:03 pm UTC
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