AMDGPU vs. Radeon DRM On Linux 4.13 For AMD GCN 1.0/1.1 GPUs

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMDGPU vs. Radeon DRM On Linux 4.13 For AMD GCN 1.0/1.1 GPUs

With the Linux 4.13 kernel currently under development there are new module parameters that can make it easier switching from the Radeon DRM default on GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.1 GPUs to instead using the newer AMDGPU DRM driver, but Radeon remains the default. Here's my test experiences and benchmark results of AMDGPU vs. Radeon for GCN 1.0/1.1 GPUs.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=24959

[humbug]

Good to see GCN 1.1 in such good shape on amdgpu.

[Holograph]

Radeon being the default continues to be absolutely unacceptable for us 290 owners (290x in my case). That Radeon performance is pathetic and is not what we paid for and it's downright unacceptable that they haven't fixed it, nor have they admitted that AMDGPU seriously needs to become the default driver for this card. Or they need to get their shit together with Radeon.

No chance I'm buying another AMD GPU for quite a while, if ever.

Really disappointed to see the issues continue. I'm really unhappy with my previous decision to buy this 290x.

I do realize this may sound like a broken record to people who've heard me complain about my 290x multiple times in the past but I don't know what else to do, because I paid for this card and it's just not up to quality in regards to drivers. I'll have to keep running custom kernels and such but I really don't appreciate having to do that because AMD can't fix the products that we paid money for.

[KRiloshart]

AMD graphic stack is completely weird, how do guys at AMD expect us to maintain 3 distros with different drivers.

1. Mesa + radeonsi ( gaming )
2. Amdgpu pro ( workstation )
3. Rocm ( open compute )

even their open source support is fragmented between rads and (coming soon) Vulcan.

They are wasting resources everywhere and still we wonder why there isn't HDMI audio support.

[KRiloshart]

* HDMI

[Namenlos]

Isn't amdgpu.exp_hw_support=1 enough for GCN 1.0? It was on older Kernel versions. Or are these new options just for not needing to blacklist radeon anymore?

I think it it important to mention that there is no video hardware acceleration on GCN 1.0 on amdgpu, sad to see that the article is missing this piece of information.

[GruenSein]

Radeon being the default continues to be absolutely unacceptable for us 290 owners (290x in my case). That Radeon performance is pathetic and is not what we paid for and it's downright unacceptable that they haven't fixed it, nor have they admitted that AMDGPU seriously needs to become the default driver for this card. Or they need to get their shit together with Radeon.

No chance I'm buying another AMD GPU for quite a while, if ever.

Really disappointed to see the issues continue. I'm really unhappy with my previous decision to buy this 290x.

TBH I don’t see your problem. There is the closed source driver that works with select distros, which was the only one you could’ve based your decision to purchase the GPU on since back then the open source driver was not even remotely as competitive as today. There was the Radeon kernel driver which was maintained with a lot less manpower. Now there is the amdgpu driver that amd has put its weight behind. It seems to run very well on your 290X based on these numbers giving you yet another well performing open source option. And you are complaining that it is not enabled by default? Life must be tough...

[Holograph]

Customers aren't beta testers. Linux itself may be free software but if AMD's claiming to support it and charging hundreds of dollars for products that supposedly have support, it's absolutely reasonable to expect the hardware to work without custom kernels.

When AMDGPU-PRO doesn't suck, feel free to bring it up again. Are AMD still recommending kernel 4.4 for AMDGPU-PRO? Because if so... LOL. They were doing that a few months ago, 4.9 was LTS and AMD was telling people to stick to 4.4 for -PRO.

I'm capable of compiling my own kernels and I'm familiar with setting up the kconfigs exactly for my own setups, but I do expect to be able to game without that all being expected of me. I'm not an expert or anything, just an intermediate Linux user, but I don't want to spend all my time tinkering. Sometimes I want to game. Not sure why you think it doesn't matter. I've used Linux for years (though I only completely dumped Windows from my own desktop for good last year). I'm familiar with the Radeon driver having terrible performance in all cases. I know it's a heck of a lot better than it used to be. But it's still not good enough considering AMD claims to support Linux.

[schmidtbag]

Radeon being the default continues to be absolutely unacceptable for us 290 owners (290x in my case). That Radeon performance is pathetic and is not what we paid for and it's downright unacceptable that they haven't fixed it, nor have they admitted that AMDGPU seriously needs to become the default driver for this card. Or they need to get their shit together with Radeon.

No chance I'm buying another AMD GPU for quite a while, if ever.

Really disappointed to see the issues continue. I'm really unhappy with my previous decision to buy this 290x.

This is an issue that only affects specific Hawaii chips, but not all. My 290 has run just fine since I got it new. It's kind of difficult for the devs to fix the problem because the GPUs they have on hand don't have the problem either. I get the impression most people don't. I'm guessing its just a matter of the binning process, where perhaps the clock tables are screwed up on some of them. I'm sure you could adjust this using the Hawaii BIOS editor. But what I don't get is how come you didn't RMA your GPU? Surely you'd realize this was a defect.

Also, they're not going to "admit" that AMDGPU needs to become the default driver because to my knowledge, these GPUs are still considered experimental in amdgpu. No company in their right might would recommend you use an experimental driver. Besides, AMD doesn't recommend you use anything for Radeon GPUs, because to my knowledge, none of them are officially supported; only FirePro/FireGL are. The fact of the matter is, with the AMDGPU driver, the 290(X) performs great, so what are you still whining about?

[Holograph]

This is an issue that only affects specific Hawaii chips, but not all. My 290 has run just fine since I got it new. It's kind of difficult for the devs to fix the problem because the GPUs they have on hand don't have the problem either. I get the impression most people don't. I'm guessing its just a matter of the binning process, where perhaps the clock tables are screwed up on some of them. I'm sure you could adjust this using the Hawaii BIOS editor. But what I don't get is how come you didn't RMA your GPU? Surely you'd realize this was a defect.

Also, they're not going to "admit" that AMDGPU needs to become the default driver because to my knowledge, these GPUs are still considered experimental in amdgpu. No company in their right might would recommend you use an experimental driver. The fact of the matter is, with the AMDGPU driver, the 290(X) perform great, so what are you still whining about?

Well clearly the Radeon driver doesn't work right. I'm a lot more interested in seeing AMD solve the issue with Michael's card. I've seen them try on these forums, talked about firmware and such. I feel if they were able to solve it, they already would have. It actually makes me significantly less confident in AMD's driver team that they've not been able to solve it with Michael's card. I'm not willing to accept the idea that Michael's card is messed up until AMD figures out the reason. They seem to be sweeping issues under the carpet rather than honestly trying to fix them. Every time Michael does a new round of benchmarks showing his 290 to continue being problematic, I feel more and more disrespected as a paying customer of AMD's.

Why would they admit that an "experimental" driver needs to be made the default? Gee, I dunno, maybe because it WORKS? Geez.