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OpenGL multithreading in Mesa is ready for wider testing

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A Mesa developer wrote into the public Mesa-dev mailing list to ask for testers of OpenGL multithreading in Mesa so that they can grow the whitelist of games that will use it.

The OpenGL multithreading can actually be used by all Mesa drivers, not just AMD. So anyone using an up to date version of Mesa-git should be able to get in on the testing. They went with a whitelist since it can actually hurt performance of some games. Games that are limited by CPU performance are the ones that will benefit from the OpenGL multithreading.

The mesa developer gave an example of some games they found to benefit already:
QuoteAlien Isolation: +60% (it varies depending on the location, increased since
Grigori's commits)
Borderlands 2: +50% (it varies depending on the location)
BioShock Infinite: +76% (benchmark)
Civilization 6: +20% (benchmark)


They also specifically asked people to test a few like Civilization 5, which already has patch to enable it as someone has already tested it!

You can find the full mailing list entry here, with instructions on how to proceed.

Update: Thanks to GOL user "ripper" we have a Wiki page to contribute findings: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Performance_impact_of_Mesa_glthread Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Drivers, Mesa, OpenGL
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21 comments
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ziabice Jul 11, 2017
Please, don't forget to write to Marek about the wiki and the drirc settings (from the original ML message):

QuoteThe first line of the entry is enough. Please send such lines for games
that get better performance from glthread to maraeo at gmail.com and I will
include them in Mesa with your name on the commit.
Shmerl Jul 11, 2017
Quoting: ziabicePlease, don't forget to write to Marek about the wiki and the drirc settings (from the original ML message)

I think he already knows about the wiki.
Liam Dawe Jul 11, 2017
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: ziabicePlease, don't forget to write to Marek about the wiki and the drirc settings (from the original ML message)

I think he already knows about the wiki.
Yeah he's aware of it.
Creak Jul 11, 2017
That's really cool! Especially for Alien: Isolation :D

I hope this whitelist is temporary though, because in the long term it's unmaintainable.

In the long term, I hope devs themselves will enable or disable this feature based on their own tests.
Pecisk Jul 11, 2017
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: SirBubblesI can't install most of these packages without removing a whole lot of vital stuff. Anyone else having luck on ubuntu 16.10?
I'm using NVIDIA, I realise this screws up my chances of successfully using this mesa ppa. Only just caught onto that. Sorry.

There is no point for you to use Mesa then, since Nouveau lacks reclocking and can't be used with high performance. If you want to test Mesa, the best thing is to get AMD GPU.

Not exactly true. Quote from https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/

QuoteExperimental support for manual performance level selection (also known as "reclocking") on GM10x Maxwell, Kepler and Tesla G94-GT218 GPUs. Starting Linux 4.5, available in /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/pstate, previously boot with nouveau.pstate=1 and use /sys/class/drm/card0/device/pstate.
Shmerl Jul 11, 2017
That reclocking isn't dynamic. But once they'll iron out dynamic aspect, it might actually become usable.
Pecisk Jul 11, 2017
Quoting: ShmerlThat reclocking isn't dynamic. But once they'll iron out dynamic aspect, it might actually become usable.

That hasn't stop me for playing games with it. It is bare bones and sketchy but it works most of the time :)
cRaZy-bisCuiT Jul 12, 2017
By the way, is there a best practice guide on how to file bug reports on freedesktop for games crashing? What I would try to do is posting the log of the game, a gdb trace but I don't feel like compiling Mesa etc. with debug symbols.
Shmerl Jul 12, 2017
Quoting: cRaZy-bisCuiTBy the way, is there a best practice guide on how to file bug reports on freedesktop for games crashing? What I would try to do is posting the log of the game, a gdb trace but I don't feel like compiling Mesa etc. with debug symbols.

apitrace is usually useful. https://github.com/apitrace/apitrace/blob/master/docs/USAGE.markdown
cRaZy-bisCuiT Jul 13, 2017
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