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RX Vega 56 - No 3D hardware accelleration?
nox Sep 14, 2017
Hello all!

As I've been a Nvidia user for a long, long time I must admit that I find AMD on linux kind of confusing. Of course, the fact that support isn't in the kernel yet does complicated things a little bit.

So, yesterday I installed archlinux and did something along the lines of:
Add mesa-git repo
Install mesa-git and lib32-mesa-git
Install linux-amd-staging


After a the reboot I was so happy! It booted into gnome desktop with no problems at all. No tearing. No issues what so ever. I can also confirm that amdgpu is the driver in use.

However, my happiness quickly turned into confusion as any 3d game seems to run with software rendering or at least doesn't utilize much of the GPU at all. (Rust for instance was pretty much locked to less than 1 fps)

Running radeon-profile the GPU utilization graph is flat. No matter what game I try.

So, to me, it feels like 2d accelleration works but 3d doesn't. Am I missing something crucial to make it work?

Today I plan on testing on Windows (just to make sure it works as expected) and on Ubuntu with amdgpu-pro.
nox Sep 14, 2017
Little update: Card works really well in windows, ignoring the fact that windows is absolutely terrible :D

Tried in Ubuntu with linux-amd-staging and mesa-git, 1 fps kind of performance still. Something isn't right here.

Might try amdgpupro next.
nox Sep 15, 2017
AMDGPU Pro worked better - but still not really successfully.

Gave up yesterday and went back to my old nvidia card, but we are carrying on with the testing after some motivation from the GoL discord!

So, after some more fiddling we've finally managed to make a difference, at least. No video output what so ever! At least it's a step in some direction.
pete910 Sep 16, 2017
Isn't llvm 5 needed for vega and mesa ?
nox Sep 18, 2017
llvm 5 is indeed needed but that wasn't the issue.

Still not 100% sure of what went wrong the first few times but we do have it running now. It's rather unstable (system lockups) but it works, I'm so happy! :D

For now I'll dualboot for gaming (still just linux compatible games of course) as freezing in certain situations sucks a bit too much :)


So, long story short: Switched to ubuntu and the M-Bab kernel and followed the m-bab instructions. Everything works.
PublicNuisance Sep 30, 2017
Quoting: elollvm 5 is indeed needed but that wasn't the issue.

Still not 100% sure of what went wrong the first few times but we do have it running now. It's rather unstable (system lockups) but it works, I'm so happy! :D

For now I'll dualboot for gaming (still just linux compatible games of course) as freezing in certain situations sucks a bit too much :)


So, long story short: Switched to ubuntu and the M-Bab kernel and followed the m-bab instructions. Everything works.
Glad everything is working. I was going to suggest the kernel as the issue. I know my RX 580 wouldn't work right due to kernel issues on Mint. Was very picky.
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