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Gday - Low FPS in EVERYTHING with R9 380 . Driver nightmere
charliebrownau Sep 9, 2017
Gday

I recently swapped from windows 7 to Linux
Ive used computers since 1985
Ive had some form of computer since 1988


My System:-
Intel Xeon E3-1230v3
MSI H97 matx
8gb RAM
Sap r9 380 4gb nitro
27" Asus HDMI + 19" Asus VGA
presonus audiobox USB - 2 port XLR
Yamaha HS8 monitor speakers
Logitech G19 Keyboard
Logitech MP Sphere webcam
Logitech 3D pro extreme joystick



So Ive gone from Mint Mate to Ubuntu 17.04 mate to Debian 9.1 Mate
in the last month


I am yet to find a single driver or edition of linux that
Works with both screens
plus doesnt do cracking on mic
plsu gets 60FPS in ETS2 + Warframe Sorry War Thunder


I did get the AMD GPU PRO driver from AMD website working under Ubuntu
but it did not power on the 2nd screen and I had issues with pulse audio stuffing up
mic wouldnt work and sound was cracking



Command line info:-
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL"

OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD TONGA (DRM 3.8.0 / 4.9.0-3-amd64, LLVM 3.9.1)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 13.0.6
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.1 Mesa 13.0.6
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.10
OpenGL ES profile extensions:



Ive come across AMDGPU opensource drivers but unsure how to install them
apprently they work with r9 380

As a new comer it seems Linux would benefit from an universal driver model
or at least the ability to list drivers and a good gui program to check
drivers and recommend new video card ones for all linux distros or at least
all debian distros


Also on some of the PPA mesa drivers the login screen
(Left screen) would go static like its an old tv
I would have to press shit alt F1-F4 to bring up command
line and login that way and go STARTX


I can see why SteamOS/linux gaming never took off at this stage
it is really not out of the box or just works quite yet
then the primary screen would kick in and work
BTRE Sep 9, 2017
For most people, it's not worth bothering with AMDGPU-PRO at all. For the best AMD on Linux experience, use an up-to-date Mesa with a recent kernel. I'm not a Mint/Ubuntu user but this is probably what you want, failing that the padoka/oibaf ppas.

I use a dual screen setup with an RX 480 and Mesa that didn't require any special configuration. I don't use sound over HDMI if that's what you're talking about (doesn't work anyhow on my card, requires upstream merges in the kernel and not sure about the 380) but haven't had crackling issues with pulse otherwise.

I have no idea what ETS2 is and I only play native games, so haven't tried Warframe. If you're open to new distros and can't make it work on Ubuntu, try Antergos which is a user-friendly version of Arch which is rolling release and has the newest stable stuff. It really does make a big difference having the latest Mesa stuff and a recent kernel since AMD contributes directly to both and there's a lot of improvements in each version.
charliebrownau Sep 10, 2017
Gday

Ive tired 3 distros
In Ubuntu I tired 2 kernals and about 6 different PPA mesa builds

All the mesa drivers had the same sub par 60fps results

War Thunder is free2play
You can get an demo of ETS2 and ATS from Steam

Give given War Thunder free2play steam and non steam a go
same results

ETS2 is a Native game
Insurgency is an native game
War Thunder is an native game

I am yet to get a simple DX9c game working on wine yet from my steam list

I would rather not have to move from the Debian/Ubuntu eco system

As I said using the AMD GPU PRO driver i resulted in proper FPS
but I had login screen issues and lost my 2nd screen

I havent needed HDMI Sound


This seems to be a common thing on linux forums/pages from what Im seeing
Problem with X , ohh I use this other distro then you should reinstall your whole OS
BTRE Sep 10, 2017
War Thunder doesn't run that well with Mesa, sadly. I get generally poor performance as well. Though with mesa_glthread (something new in Mesa 17.2) there's some improvement (see this and this. Still have no idea what ETS2 is, but I do own Insurgency and I get 60+ fps with everything but AA at max most of the time. Things like too much smoke can cause frame drops, still.

Can't help you with wine, since I use it rarely, mostly for old games. Though one advantage of running mesa is being able to use gallium nine, which is a native implementation of directx9. Though you'll likely have to add a PPA or patch wine yourself to use it.

And I'm not telling you to reinstall your OS, necessarily, just telling you to be up to date with your kernel and mesa since there are a lot of performance improvements on AMD cards with new versions of both. Hopefully someone that runs AMD hardware on Ubuntu will see this thread and may be able to help you further. If not, try asking in GOL's IRC or Discord server.
charliebrownau Sep 10, 2017
Thanks
I also installed Hitman free demo , got the same bad FPS results that were along with ETS2 and War Thunder

Insurgency does seem to be the odd man out , actually running crazy FPS on any driver



Ill look into the gallium nine driver, ill let you know how i go
charliebrownau Sep 10, 2017
I gave Ubuntu 17.04 a go , way too many issues with pulse audio

Could not find how to disable pulse and use ALSA with Mumble and my mic was stuffing up on Ubuntu

After 15-20+ years of using Windows with Drivers that I can manually install via a file
its unnatural to have to patch or replace the kernal to fix driver issues
Lakorta Sep 10, 2017
ETS2 is 'Euro Truck Simulator 2' btw.
Unfortunately most games are optimized for Nvidia. I can't help you much with AMD but using a up to date version of Mesa is quite important for good performance. I'm sure that if you search for that in the internet or the Ubuntu or Debian forums that you will find help (in case no one here can help you).
charliebrownau Sep 10, 2017
As I mentioned on some other sites
It seems as a windows user I cant understand why linux doesnt have an universal .driver format to install sound , network , wireless and video card drivers instead of having to jump thou hoops and drop to commandline all the time
Samsai Sep 10, 2017
Quoting: charliebrownauAs I mentioned on some other sites
It seems as a windows user I cant understand why linux doesnt have an universal .driver format to install sound , network , wireless and video card drivers instead of having to jump thou hoops and drop to commandline all the time
Because Linux was built as a monolithic kernel where 95% of the drivers are baked into the kernel itself. If you want to update your drivers or want a new driver you install a new version of the kernel. There is also a "universal driver format" through DKMS where you load your kernel modules from outside the kernel but generally this is only needed when you install proprietary GPU drivers. In general the fact that drivers are bundled with the kernel is a good thing because you actually should need to do less tinkering with your drivers since they are all in the same place and you don't need to hunt them down and you can do stuff like boot a live CD with full 3D acceleration support out of the box.

Regarding having to switch distros, Ubuntu and Debian (particularly Debian) are fairly awful for AMD GPUs because they freeze their kernels and Mesa versions and GPU drivers need constant improvements due to the complexity of the hardware and games that utilize these drivers. Thus it's not exactly unusual for your typical Arch user to sigh in annoyance when they see a user requesting tech support with an ancient Mesa version.

And finally, regarding Pulseaudio, same thing applies. Old versions of Pulse used to be horrible but if you get a fairly new version and possibly take a look at the relevant Arch wiki pages (which apply to pretty much all distros) you'll get a decent experience out of it.

All in all, "stable" distros are overrated and you should try to go as close to the edge as possible unless you absolutely need the stability.
charliebrownau Sep 11, 2017
Its funny you guys are recommending these rolling distros instead of an "stable one"
and I was reading tonight about how games are breaking in arch and the rolling distros

I will be looking into how to get AMD GPU (not pro) and this gallium nine mesa driver working under debian
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