Ubuntu 14.04 To Ubuntu 17.10 RadeonSI OpenGL Performance

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 14.04 To Ubuntu 17.10 RadeonSI OpenGL Performance

As part of the multi-year comparisons for marking AMD's open-source strategy being 10 years old, here's a look back with fresh OpenGL Linux gaming benchmarks from Ubuntu 14.04 through Ubuntu 17.10 using a Radeon HD 7950 graphics card with the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver. There's also a similar comparison with a Radeon R9 Fury.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=25442

[schmidtbag]

Pretty amazing difference in just 2 years. I imagine the differences would be even greater using a weaker GPU, due lessened bottlenecks from outside sources (CPU, PCIe bus, RAM, etc).

[danieru]

WOW! +50-100 fps in xonotic and openarena. Thanks for testing openarena, really appreciated

[tildearrow]

Missing dot:

Xonotic has also encountered very significant performance improvements

[tomtomme]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 14.04 To Ubuntu 17.10 RadeonSI OpenGL Performance

As part of the multi-year comparisons for marking AMD's open-source strategy being 10 years old, here's a look back with fresh OpenGL Linux gaming benchmarks from Ubuntu 14.04 through Ubuntu 17.10 using a Radeon HD 7950 graphics card with the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver. There's also a similar comparison with a Radeon R9 Fury.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=25442

Michael : could you verify if 16.04 LTS ran Mesa 17 as it says in the data table?
If so, how did it Happen? Do Ubuntu LTS images get the later Hardware enablements automaticaly? Then it would not represent the original out of the box perf.

[Brisse]

Michael : could you verify if 16.04 LTS ran Mesa 17 as it says in the data table?
If so, how did it Happen? Do Ubuntu LTS images get the later Hardware enablements automaticaly? Then it would not represent the original out of the box perf.

Latest HWE (16.04.3) runs kernel 4.10 as far as I know, but the data table says 4.4.

[Michael]

Latest HWE (16.04.3) runs kernel 4.10 as far as I know, but the data table says 4.4.

I downloaded the original 16.04.0 from old-releases.ubuntu.com, but would need to check to see if when installing steam via the package archive if it ended up pulling in the newer Mesa packages.

[Cyber Killer]

Great job everyone working on FLOSS Radeon drivers, I really appreciate the effort and effect it got!

[thelongdivider]

That's really encouraging for open source drivers on AMD.

[Timo Jyrinki]

Latest HWE (16.04.3) runs kernel 4.10 as far as I know, but the data table says 4.4.

In 16.04, unlike before, the HWE goes as follows:
- Mesa and libdrm get updated for everyone, roughly 3 months after the previous half-yearly release, until it will match 18.04 around August 2018. So currently they match what's in 17.04, due to be updated by January to 17.10 versions. You can't opt out other than not installing updates at all.
- For 16.04.0 and 16.04.1 installations, the X.org and kernel stay at original versions (with security updates) unless opting-in to the HWE stack. So in this test, 4.4 kernel is in use because the installation media was .0 or .1.
- For 16.04.2, .3, .4, .5 the user starts with HWE stack available at the point release time for both X.org and kernel, and get updates automatically to the newer ones until they match 18.04's ones around August 2018. So at the moment every .2/.3 installation is already on 4.10 kernel (matching 17.04), and will get 4.13 around January

So in summary stable, patched Mesa is deemed good enough to be offered to everyone with a few months' delay, and they're also offering a more fresh automatic kernel and X.org updates to all desktop users that install using .2 or newer. I guess this reflects both streamlining how many dozens of different versions they're maintaining, and how the upstreams are also more mature than before.

Server installations can choose which kernel route to use regardless of the installation media.