RadeonSI Gets More Shader Variant Optimizations, Other Improvements

[phoronix]

Phoronix: RadeonSI Gets More Shader Variant Optimizations, Other Improvements

Prolific Mesa developer Marek Olšák has published a new set of 20 patches today for the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver in order to further optimize this driver for AMD GCN GPUs...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RadeonSI-Shader-Variant-Opts

[Tomin]

"random improvements" so sometimes I get some gain and sometimes I don't?

[pal666]

driver for vega is shaping up

[M@yeulC]

Could someone explain how "asynchronous compilation" works, and what is it good for? If you don't have the compilation result qt some point, don't you risk to see some completely black (YMMV) objects in the render (addmitedly removing some stuttering)?

[log0]

Could someone explain how "asynchronous compilation" works, and what is it good for? If you don't have the compilation result qt some point, don't you risk to see some completely black (YMMV) objects in the render (addmitedly removing some stuttering)?

It is about compiling optimized (depending on opengl state) shader variants asynchronously, the default variant will of course stall.

An extension of this approach would be to go with a completely unoptimized default variant (assuming that it is much faster to compile) to reduce the default stall too.

[Tomin]

It can be a fix that improves code readability, a fix of grammar in a comment, a fix that deletes a superfluous assert(), etc. A "random improvement" usually has no effect on performance.

I was trying to make a joke, but apparently I failed. Maybe I should refrain from making jokes in English since my skill does not seem to be at that level.

Edit: Btw the text talks first about optimizations, but yes, there is word "also" in the sentence that talks about random improvements and clean ups and therefore it's referring to some other improvements than optimizations.

[bridgman]

I was trying to make a joke, but apparently I failed. Maybe I should refrain from making jokes in English since my skill does not seem to be at that level. .

It was a good joke, just subtle

[pal666]

Could someone explain how "asynchronous compilation" works, and what is it good for? If you don't have the compilation result qt some point, don't you risk to see some completely black (YMMV) objects in the render (addmitedly removing some stuttering)?

usually games compile shaders upfront, so you have your compiled shaders already. these patches are about optimizing certain combinations of shader stages and gl parameters, which are not known before use.

[M@yeulC]

usually games compile shaders upfront, so you have your compiled shaders already. these patches are about optimizing certain combinations of shader stages and gl parameters, which are not known before use.

Thanks for the explanation.

log0, thanks also. One would however have to weight in some stuttering against low framerates for a few seconds, if the shaders are really unoptimized.

Tomin, I got it, don't worry