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This is quite an amazing little fix. Marek sent in a patch for Mesa that fixes a bug that has apparently been an issue for around 9 years.

You can see a bug report here (and the issue on Valve's github here), where it's stated that radeonsi has lockups while playing Team Fortress 2. Michel Dänzer commented to note that "the fundamental problem caught by Marek (good catch!) was there for almost 9 years". That's quite amazing for it to be around for so long, and to be fixed by such a small patch.

You can find that actual patch sent in right here. Marek notes it will fix Batman Arkham: Origins in Wine and probably other games too.

The next release of Mesa should again be a pretty decent release thanks to fixes like this getting in!

Thanks for emailing it to me RussianNeuroMancer. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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12 comments
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Lefl Dec 9, 2016
Finally!

I hope it fixes issues with XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Spec Ops the Line too, as both games had GPU lockups too
pete910 Dec 9, 2016
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Nice this has already made it to mageia 6, shame it's built built with llvm 3.8 :(
lordheavy Dec 9, 2016
Quoting: LeflFinally!

I hope it fixes issues with XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Spec Ops the Line too, as both games had GPU lockups too

It seems so :)
Redneck Dec 10, 2016
Quoting: LeflFinally!

I hope it fixes issues with XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Spec Ops the Line too, as both games had GPU lockups too

Spec ops and most unreal engine 3 games on Linux do not read the correct amount of VRAM causing bad performance, this script fix it by modifying config files: https://github.com/Kryuko/ue3_linux_opti

It's perfectly safe and you only need to run it when you install new ue3 games, so it works for every game you have already installed (spec ops, borderlands and so on).
Hope it helps!
1fyme Dec 10, 2016
It's finally coming to an end! I've been trying to play TF2 on Linux, and I've been encountering lockups. It's been about a year! I decided to get an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, just so I can game on Linux without a worry. I thought I had a bad AMD card, but searching the internet for others with the same problem lead to nothing more but details of a mysterious bug that would lock up the AMD Southern Islands GPU. Oh how frustrating it is to see Team Fortress 2 and X freezing in the middle of a game!

I hope this patch ends it. I'm glad to see that it has more attention now than before. I might switch to using my AMD Radeon HD 7870, to help test this patch and get this bug fixed.
Guest Dec 10, 2016
I ended up using fglrx to stop this bug previously but the flip side of that was tearing and stuttering performance :'(

Ridiculous bug imo, probably made a lot of people mad and switch to Nvidia. Another game affected by this was Brutal Legends. This bug was imo a big contributing factor in the "AMD drivers suck on Linux" effect.

9 years.


Last edited by on 10 December 2016 at 1:27 pm UTC
STiAT Dec 11, 2016
I actually love to read commit logs...

Quoteradeonsi uploaded garbage sampler states and the hardware
went bananas.
STiAT Dec 11, 2016
Quoting: meggermanI ended up using fglrx to stop this bug previously but the flip side of that was tearing and stuttering performance :'(

Ridiculous bug imo, probably made a lot of people mad and switch to Nvidia. Another game affected by this was Brutal Legends. This bug was imo a big contributing factor in the "AMD drivers suck on Linux" effect.

9 years.

Actually, I had this kind of lock up with nouveau in KDE/KWin. Gotta' try again if this still happens after the patch.
buenaventura Dec 11, 2016
Yay, how awesome, it still happens to me sometime. GO PROGRESS.
edddeduck_feral Dec 12, 2016
Quoting: LeflFinally!

I hope it fixes issues with XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Spec Ops the Line too, as both games had GPU lockups too

For people with Mesa/r600 we have had positive reports that this issue fixes a hang in the AMD drivers. For some reason if you were using RadeonSI/Mesa & Intel/Mesa should not have been effected by this issue so they should have been alright anyway.

Quoting: Redneck
Quoting: LeflFinally!

I hope it fixes issues with XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Spec Ops the Line too, as both games had GPU lockups too

Spec ops and most unreal engine 3 games on Linux do not read the correct amount of VRAM causing bad performance, this script fix it by modifying config files: https://github.com/Kryuko/ue3_linux_opti

It's perfectly safe and you only need to run it when you install new ue3 games, so it works for every game you have already installed (spec ops, borderlands and so on).
Hope it helps!

This will likely not help on Feral ports and with XCOM 2 (UE3 based) definitely will reduce performance compared to allowing the game to run on the default settings. We make changes to the engine and setup at a lower level and changing the ini files will impact the performance balancing lowering performance both in terms of frame rate but also in terms of frame smoothness.


Last edited by edddeduck_feral on 12 December 2016 at 11:33 am UTC
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