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Mesa now supports OpenGL 4.4 Compatibility Profile for radeonsi

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Good news for those of you using an AMD GPU, as Mesa with radeonsi now has support for compatibility profiles up to OpenGL 4.4.

Why is it important to have this? To put it simply, there's a few games out there that required it and wouldn't run without it. It's another tick in the box for getting the best experience possible for those with an AMD GPU using open source graphics drivers on Linux.

Going by what the developer said, this in particular helps with games like Doom and Wolfenstein run in Wine. It's also something that should hopefully help to fix Dying Light, Dead Island Definitive Edition, Grand Ages: Medieval, Black Mesa and probably quite a few more that required it.

It's currently only in Mesa-git, the development version, meaning it should hopefully make the Mesa 18.2 release. The first RC of Mesa 18.2 is expected around July 20th, with a release due in August going by their release calendar.

Thanks for the tip, mirv.

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soulsource Jul 2, 2018
Next up: Firefox gets support for MSIE 5 CSS box model implementation and MSIE 6 Quirks Mode.

Sorry, but imho software using compatibility profiles should be fixed to use non-deprecated API functions. Exposing that functionality in the graphics driver just encourages developers to write code that uses it, what most likely means bad code.
tuubi Jul 2, 2018
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Quoting: soulsourceNext up: Firefox gets support for MSIE 5 CSS box model implementation and MSIE 6 Quirks Mode.

Sorry, but imho software using compatibility profiles should be fixed to use non-deprecated API functions. Exposing that functionality in the graphics driver just encourages developers to write code that uses it, what most likely means bad code.
Sad as you might find it, I doubt many game devs choose their tools based on what radeonsi supports or doesn't support. Your joke/analogue would make more sense if it had anywhere near the market penetration of Firefox.
x_wing Jul 2, 2018
Quoting: soulsourceNext up: Firefox gets support for MSIE 5 CSS box model implementation and MSIE 6 Quirks Mode.

Sorry, but imho software using compatibility profiles should be fixed to use non-deprecated API functions. Exposing that functionality in the graphics driver just encourages developers to write code that uses it, what most likely means bad code.

I agree, but we also have to think on the end user, the one that just want to play/work, so having this in the driver will improve the user experience on Linux.

In the other hand, AFAIK, compability profiles are kinda an "standard" (or at least the khronos group makes an specification). Maybe the problem is that the ones that makes the API let the devs to use this feature, and should be them the ones to blame on.
Shmerl Jul 2, 2018
Yep, it shows up in the OpenGL string now:

OpenGL renderer string: Radeon RX Vega (VEGA10, DRM 3.25.0, 4.17.0-trunk-amd64, LLVM 6.0.0)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 18.2.0-devel (git-2854c0f795)
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL version string: 4.4 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 18.2.0-devel (git-2854c0f795)
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.40


Killing compat profile could have made sense if Khronos would have done it. But they didn't, and now it's proliferated in Nvidia blob, so some clueless developers use it despite many warnings not to, and you get results like Dying Light. There is no option for Mesa but to implement it.


Last edited by Shmerl on 2 July 2018 at 3:24 pm UTC
pete910 Jul 2, 2018
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Quoting: ShmerlYep, it shows up in the OpenGL string now:

OpenGL renderer string: Radeon RX Vega (VEGA10, DRM 3.25.0, 4.17.0-trunk-amd64, LLVM 6.0.0)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 18.2.0-devel (git-2854c0f795)
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL version string: 4.4 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 18.2.0-devel (git-2854c0f795)
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.40


Killing compat profile could have made sense if Khronos would have done it. But they didn't, and now it's proliferated in Nvidia blob, so some clueless developers use it despite many warnings not to, and you get results like Dying Light. There is no option for Mesa but to implement it.

Does Dying Light work for you ?
Shmerl Jul 2, 2018
Quoting: pete910Does Dying Light work for you ?

I don't have the game, they never released Linux version on GOG.
pete910 Jul 2, 2018
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Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: pete910Does Dying Light work for you ?

I don't have the game, they never released Linux version on GOG.

Whats ya steam name? I'll gift you a copy!
Shmerl Jul 2, 2018
Quoting: pete910Whats ya steam name? I'll gift you a copy!

I'm not using Steam. No worries, it might end up on GOG eventually. Or not :) I wonder if such compat profile issues are the reason it's not there.
pete910 Jul 2, 2018
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Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: pete910Whats ya steam name? I'll gift you a copy!

I'm not using Steam. No worries, it might end up on GOG eventually. Or not :) I wonder if such compat profile issues are the reason it's not there.

No worries, Don't you use steam at all then ?
Shmerl Jul 2, 2018
Quoting: pete910No worries, Don't you use steam at all then ?

Yep, I'm only using DRM-free stores.
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