When'll AMD Opensource Drivers be feature-complete for Evergreen chips

[crazycheese]

And then perhaps it'll take another decade to catch up with the features of the devices of that time... Life's too short....

Anyways, thanks all!

Several months maximum.

[duby229]

And then perhaps it'll take another decade to catch up with the features of the devices of that time... Life's too short....

Anyways, thanks all!

No thats not true. The foundation work that is being done today will still apply tommorrow. OGL is implemented in mesa, so newer drivers won't need to re-implement that. Obviously hardware specific functionality will need to be implemented in hardware specific drivers. But the foundation work that is being done today will be able to be used to build those drivers.

[Figueiredo]

No thats not true. The foundation work that is being done today will still apply tommorrow. OGL is implemented in mesa, so newer drivers won't need to re-implement that. Obviously hardware specific functionality will need to be implemented in hardware specific drivers. But the foundation work that is being done today will be able to be used to build those drivers.

I aways thought that would be the case, and still do, but everyday, the state of radeonsi convinces me a little bit more otherwise. Don't get me wrong, I thank mesa/gallium devs (the people) everyday for their work, but the lack of commitment from everyone (the companies) except for intel to the oss infrastructure is astounding. Sadly intel is not yet a GPU behemont, so their work goes somewhat unoticed.

[crazycheese]

I aways thought that would be the case, and still do, but everyday, the state of radeonsi convinces me a little bit more otherwise.

There are two different things: support newer architecture (GCN) and improve MESA/OpenGL. The AMD developers are working on both. They could shift strictly to GCN, but then we would have OpenGL2.
Do you want OpenGL2 with your GCN?...

[Figueiredo]

There are two different things: support newer architecture (GCN) and improve MESA/OpenGL. The AMD developers are working on both. They could shift strictly to GCN, but then we would have OpenGL2.
Do you want OpenGL2 with your GCN?...

Obviously AMD and all the other mesa/gallium devs are doing great work, if you re-read my comment you'll notice that the criticism is directed at the company, which should hire more devs, since the current ones are not able to bring up support for the old architechture, the one and write the whole stack at the same time.

Also to be considered, is that AFAIK intel devs are the ones doing the major work bringing up support for more modern OpenGL revisions. At least as far as Phoronix reports, AMD devs usually port mesa intel OpenGL support to radeon drivers. Again, not to discredit AMD devs, but the company as a whole which should invest more in a market which is growing in front of our eyes (android, steambox and all).

This is why the current situation is such a shame, intel GPUs still being sub-par does not do justice to their commitment to opensource drivers. Haswell will probably get a little closer at solving that. If one vendor offered good hw+good oss drivers we'd be all over it, and the others would see the market they are loosing.

[crazycheese]

@Figueiredo:
I have noticed vector of your criticism even in previous post and I agree with you completely.
However, Mr. Bridgeman claimed they spent $ 1.5 mio already in response to my post, so these are the results for this money... :/
Also, they refused to support opensource officially. By that I mean everything from box art to primary site integration.

They play the marketshare-"hide'n'seek" game, just like Mozilla does with WebP, clearly understanding that reaping big crops begins with plentiful seeding, not vice versa.
They even denied to gather statistic or do public poll, meaning they are not interested in Linux - at most only in "supportive role", "as it needs". This is non-comparable to, say, Google... Say, maybe it would be awesome if Google buys AMD... at least the chances for getting quality drivers will be flattened for every OS they support
Still... the job that is done in opensource, meaning it will not disappear or die in corporate cases.

This is why I still support them and every developer who contributes.

Intel - in my opinion, damaged its position significantly, by designing UEFI and supporting Secure Boot - both in a way that could damage/without clear path for non-microsoft OSes.
Before that happened, I was choiceless behind Intel. For systems I buy they are still an option, but.. that option has lost its "monopoly".

Also, Intel CEO(?) somewhere claimed they will never step into GPU performance market...

[duby229]

I aways thought that would be the case, and still do, but everyday, the state of radeonsi convinces me a little bit more otherwise. Don't get me wrong, I thank mesa/gallium devs (the people) everyday for their work, but the lack of commitment from everyone (the companies) except for intel to the oss infrastructure is astounding. Sadly intel is not yet a GPU behemont, so their work goes somewhat unoticed.

Again I can't help but disagree with you. Intels one and only goal with their graphics drivers are to provide somewhat useable support. I mean they still arent going to gallium and have no plans to do so. Using their drivers requires a different configuration than everything else. They are moving more and more out of sync with the rest of the community everyday. They have done very little to improve the state of the graphics stack .

The bottom line is that Intel doesnt care about linux. As long as their hardware is somewhat functional. They have gone out of their way to do as little as possible.

[Jarrod558]

Thanks Bridgman for such nice explanation.

[manmath]

Ok. There's no denying that:

#1 AMD is contributing towards OSS and specially Mesa
#2 AMD developers are putting their best efforts towards making its graphics chips the best candidates on Linux platform
#3 There has been much progress in OSS Radeon drivers

Having said that, I'd add that this much is not enough. AMD still loses in every possible ground (here it may be out of context).

#1 Intel releases garbage graphics chips, but they work better on Linux. Many times a low class intel GPU works better than a high class radeon GPU.
#2 Well, we'll hang on for some time and use proprietary catalyst. But then the catalyst implementation is not good or hasslefree (nVidia has at least great implementation of its proprietary graphics, it might be out of context here).

I've high regard for AMD graphics chips and the devs. I'm so happy when hd 6310 (its still a cheap e-350 gpu) runs on win7 in my 2nd boot, but the same is so poor and messy on prime linux boot (both catalyst and oss radeon). The crux of the matter at present is - AMD is not a compelling proposition on Linux despite its honest (though meager) contribution towards opensource radeon.

Of course, I'll wait for the day when it really matures.

[bridgman]

I'm so happy when hd 6310 (its still a cheap e-350 gpu) runs on win7 in my 2nd boot, but the same is so poor and messy on prime linux boot (both catalyst and oss radeon).

Can you be a bit more specific about the "so poor and messy" issues you're seeing with the radeon driver ? Other than immature power management (which IIRC on your hardware will result in low GPU clocks) what other problems are you having ?