| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
phil_r
Apprentice
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 227
Location: Lincoln, NE, USA
|
 Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 3:16 pm Post subject: Planning to switch from nVidia gfx to AMD |
 |
|
Hi everyone. So I'm considering a move from nVidia to an AMD Radeon (RX5500 to be precise) and I've never set up such a card on Linux before. I know there's kernel options for AMD GPU and I also have an AMD Ryzen processor so I'm sure a lot of stuff is already in place for it, I guess my main question is there doesn't appear to be the Radeon equivalent of nvidia-drivers in Portage so how do you go about getting all the cool 3d stuff working with Radeon? I currently have a GTX 950 and it plays Doom 2016 in Steam perfectly. Is there something that will need to be installed as I can't see just the kernel option enabling all the openGL stuff... or is it simply a case of yeah, the kernel option is enough for the driver then Mesa et al handle the rest?
Thanks!!!
_________________
Just when you think you know the answers, I change the questions. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Banana
l33t
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 748
Location: Germany
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
phil_r
Apprentice
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 227
Location: Lincoln, NE, USA
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 5:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Thanks for that. I can see getting it to run will be... a challenge... but that post is a year old so hopefully some things have improved. I hate unmasking packages and using *-9999 for example...
_________________
Just when you think you know the answers, I change the questions. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chiitoo
Administrator
Joined: 28 Feb 2010
Posts: 2197
Location: Here and Away Again
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:59 pm Post subject: ><)))°€ |
|
|
There's no challenge these days from what I can tell (I just switched from a GTX 960 to RX 5700 XT myself).
No live, 9999 ebuilds needed.
Simply enable the appropriate kernel options, and have the firmware available.
OpenCL is broken, still, however, at least for Blender use (I'll still need to try the trick of using the proprietary driver for Blender only, to see if even that will work).
See also: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/AMDGPU
_________________
Kind regards,
Chiitoo.
You might remember me from Gentoo projects such as Forums, LXQt, Qt, and Wine. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ant P.
Watchman
Joined: 18 Apr 2009
Posts: 6866
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2020 3:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
OpenCL seems to work with the amdgpu-pro-opencl package installed, but yeah it's pretty broken otherwise. ROCM invokes feelings of trying to make fglrx work in 2006.
It looks like there's renewed interest in getting Mesa's OpenCL stack to actually be useful though, so maybe in the future we can use that. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
phil_r
Apprentice
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 227
Location: Lincoln, NE, USA
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2020 3:52 pm Post subject: Re: ><)))°€ |
|
|
| Chiitoo wrote: | There's no challenge these days from what I can tell (I just switched from a GTX 960 to RX 5700 XT myself).
No live, 9999 ebuilds needed.
Simply enable the appropriate kernel options, and have the firmware available.
OpenCL is broken, still, however, at least for Blender use (I'll still need to try the trick of using the proprietary driver for Blender only, to see if even that will work).
See also: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/AMDGPU |
Thanks - this is exactly what I was hoping for. Some kernel tweaks and firmware, just like getting the onboard wifi working. I can do that... don't want to futz around with packages.
How do you like the RX 5700?
_________________
Just when you think you know the answers, I change the questions. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chiitoo
Administrator
Joined: 28 Feb 2010
Posts: 2197
Location: Here and Away Again
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:38 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ant P. wrote: | OpenCL seems to work with the amdgpu-pro-opencl package installed, but yeah it's pretty broken otherwise. ROCM invokes feelings of trying to make fglrx work in 2006.
It looks like there's renewed interest in getting Mesa's OpenCL stack to actually be useful though, so maybe in the future we can use that. |
Yeah, I got it somewhat working with the open-source driver and 'amdgpu-pro-opencl' (though it only shows 20 compute units while the card should have 40... or was that ROCm... so confused now with all the three different things), and after adding certain things in Blender, it all goes bad still (but that seems to be a problem in the Windows world too).
I had to tweak the current ebuild a bit though, since it only installs files for "legacy hardware" and not the ones needed by Vega and Navi.
| phil_r wrote: | | How do you like the RX 5700? |
Aside from the OpenCL woes, I've liked it quite a bit indeed. A pretty huge jump from a GTX 960 to be sure! It's a PowerColor Radeon RX 5700 XT Red Devil OC to be precise.
It may also have some issues when using the factory overclocks (it has a switch for choosing between two different BIOS), but I'm not sure I feel like sending it back because of that.
Also, one thing I've been meaning to post about, and maybe eventually file a big somewhere on: different from nvidia-drivers (and maybe nouveau?), when I switch to a tty, things seem to suspend a bit... too much. Not sure if it's related to 'Suspending AIGLX clients for VT switch'.
That is, things like compiling software or encoding videos using ffmpeg will be 'paused' at some point, and some network activity will also be cut off (but not all).
I'm sure NVIDIA is doing something less secure here, but I can't quite believe this is normal either...
Another issue that is not Linux-exclusive: AMD cards tend to have weirdly high power-use in dual or more monitor set-ups even if only one is powered on (I forget if this is actually related to DisplayPort, which has its own issues too, like where the monitor disappears when just powered off, not un-plugged...).
All that said, even though I've been mostly happy with it, I might still sell it to a friend who might be even happier while using it with Windows (not that it is completely trouble-free over there either).
_________________
Kind regards,
Chiitoo.
You might remember me from Gentoo projects such as Forums, LXQt, Qt, and Wine. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SlashBeast
Developer
Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 2912
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I can also comment on Polaris, Vega and Navi on Linux -- it just works for majority of things. Although I did not used OpenCL or ROCm, I do have handful of devices with integrated Vega (Ryzen 2400G, Ryzen 4750G, Ryzen 4750U) and dGPU like Navi and Polaris (rx 570, rx 580, rx 5700) and not a single real problem with it excluding Polaris on higher refresh screens. Plug and play.
On thing that I remember with Polaris was that for once it did not had fan-stop mode managed by card, where Navi cards can stop fan on it's own, even when you're in BIOS setup, so I needed a script to control the fan and shut it down below 55'C, but I've read recently that now the kernel driver can take care of it and stop fans on Polaris too.
Another issue I remember with Polaris was with 75 and above Hz screens. It would artifacts sometimes unless I've pinned it to either low or high power state, but it was really a long time ago, and now I really only use Vega iGPU and Navi so cannot re-test it.
One drawback is that do not expect any encoding support from those cards. While there's hardware decoding, there's no support for any hardware encoding on Linux with ffmpeg. So all the things that uses ffmpeg in the background, like Plex, will also be pinned to CPU. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chiitoo
Administrator
Joined: 28 Feb 2010
Posts: 2197
Location: Here and Away Again
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| SlashBeast wrote: | | One drawback is that do not expect any encoding support from those cards. While there's hardware decoding, there's no support for any hardware encoding on Linux with ffmpeg. So all the things that uses ffmpeg in the background, like Plex, will also be pinned to CPU. |
Oh yeah, this is one of the big downsides for me that I forgot to mention. Been meaning to look into it quite a bit.
Have you ever looked into 'amf'? I guess it will reguire 'amf-amdgpu-pro' from the proprietary package (and maybe the actual proprietary driver too...).
_________________
Kind regards,
Chiitoo.
You might remember me from Gentoo projects such as Forums, LXQt, Qt, and Wine. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SlashBeast
Developer
Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 2912
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:58 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I was doing some minimal search about amf and from what I saw it's windows-only feature, after digging some more I saw posts from PLEX developers that stated that because of lack of AMF or any other hardware encoded on Linux, PLEX there can use only CPU to encode.
Given how superior NVENC is I think if I were after video encoding with GPU I would just get 1660 SUPER or similar card. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Chiitoo
Administrator
Joined: 28 Feb 2010
Posts: 2197
Location: Here and Away Again
|
| Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yeah there does not seem to be too much information about it around, but these give at least some hope maybe (although I'm unsure what 'amdgru-pro' is... heh heh):
At the very least it seems like only h.264 is possible, and no HEVC for example so indeed, in this case NVIDIA still seems a lot more super(ior)-like still...
_________________
Kind regards,
Chiitoo.
You might remember me from Gentoo projects such as Forums, LXQt, Qt, and Wine. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Banana
l33t
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 748
Location: Germany
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2020 12:24 pm Post subject: Re: ><)))°€ |
|
|
| phil_r wrote: | | ]How do you like the RX 5700? |
Since I do nothing special with this card, I can only say it runs. Without any problems so far. Also the switch to a 3K 140Hz monitor was nothing special.
_________________
My personal space |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
Desktop Environments
