AMD have announced that they are working on a big driver update. The Linux driver will support FreeSync and have wider support for their different GPUs.
From the presentation:
Those look like the only real new things the Linux driver will get, as those two slides are the only time we are specifically mentioned.
Going by the slides, it sounds like it's an update that will use their newer AMDGPU driver. From the way it's presented, I would imagine FreeSync would only be supported on the proprietary part.
It includes tons of Windows-only stuff too, like an updater, support for capturing gameplay and more. Not really interesting to us though, so I won't go over all the other Windows-specific stuff.
It's worth noting, that this was supposed to be under an NDA until December 8th (it says it in the smallprint in the footer), so someone leaked this out, which is why you I can't find any official word from AMD on it.
Thanks reddit. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
From the presentation:
Those look like the only real new things the Linux driver will get, as those two slides are the only time we are specifically mentioned.
Going by the slides, it sounds like it's an update that will use their newer AMDGPU driver. From the way it's presented, I would imagine FreeSync would only be supported on the proprietary part.
It includes tons of Windows-only stuff too, like an updater, support for capturing gameplay and more. Not really interesting to us though, so I won't go over all the other Windows-specific stuff.
It's worth noting, that this was supposed to be under an NDA until December 8th (it says it in the smallprint in the footer), so someone leaked this out, which is why you I can't find any official word from AMD on it.
Thanks reddit. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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14 comments
AMD is also working on slimming down the DAL for AMDGPU, which is now called DC instead of DAL, and may be ready by kernel 4.11, but that is speculation. DC is also supposed to be bringing AMDGPU to GCN GPUS's offcial, instead of through experimental support.
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Interesting how they picked up two different Linux icons :)
I guess we'll have to wait a bit to see Freesync & Co. in the free stack. Oh well, I am not in a hurry, I have yet to buy a compatible card...
I guess we'll have to wait a bit to see Freesync & Co. in the free stack. Oh well, I am not in a hurry, I have yet to buy a compatible card...
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tuxintuxedo Dec 6, 2016
From what I heard, without DAL, there is no Freesync. And although some people hope, it is still not clear whether DAL will arrive for the 4.11 kernel. So I am not sure what we are seeing on this presentation or more precisely, when it will happen.
Last edited by tuxintuxedo on 6 December 2016 at 10:34 pm UTC
DC is also supposed to be bringing AMDGPU to GCN GPUS's offcial, instead of through experimental support.Experimental AMDGPU support for GCN 1.0 and 1.1 are not closely related to DC (DAL), as far as I know. It is experimental because there are still some issues and worse performance in some cases.
Last edited by tuxintuxedo on 6 December 2016 at 10:34 pm UTC
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boltronics Dec 7, 2016
I've been waiting ages for FreeSync support. All my hardware supports it, so I'm just waiting on the software stack to catch up.
I'll be very upset if FreeSync is only supported by the proprietary stack (which most AMD users on GNU/Linux rightfully no longer use anyway, based on the hardware survey here). It would be a stupid move by AMD, but I'm quite sure the intent is for it to arrive on the free software stack once the DC arrives and this won't be a problem.
I'll be very upset if FreeSync is only supported by the proprietary stack (which most AMD users on GNU/Linux rightfully no longer use anyway, based on the hardware survey here). It would be a stupid move by AMD, but I'm quite sure the intent is for it to arrive on the free software stack once the DC arrives and this won't be a problem.
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GustyGhost Dec 7, 2016
I've been waiting ages for FreeSync support. All my hardware supports it, so I'm just waiting on the software stack to catch up.
I'll be very upset if FreeSync is only supported by the proprietary stack (which most AMD users on GNU/Linux rightfully no longer use anyway, based on the hardware survey here). It would be a stupid move by AMD, but I'm quite sure the intent is for it to arrive on the free software stack once the DC arrives and this won't be a problem.
I am personally waiting for it to enter Mesa. Even if it takes longer, what's another year at this point? The rest of that package is fantastic.
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From what I heard, without DAL, there is no Freesync. And although some people hope, it is still not clear whether DAL will arrive for the 4.11 kernel. So I am not sure what we are seeing on this presentation or more precisely, when it will happen.IIRC, they ship, compile and insert the module as part of their PRO stack. Some distributions also patch it in.
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I'll be very upset if FreeSync is only supported by the proprietary stack (which most AMD users on GNU/Linux rightfully no longer use anyway, based on the hardware survey here). It would be a stupid move by AMD, but I'm quite sure the intent is for it to arrive on the free software stack once the DC arrives and this won't be a problem.
You can use it today, because all DAL code is open source and available and it works too. You just need to do a bit more work to use it at the moment. The easiest way is to download the GPU-PRO driver. It contains the source code for the amdgpu kernel driver, but with DAL support. Compile this amdgpu kernel for your own kernel, i.e.:
cd /lib/modules/4.4.27-2-default/build/
make modules M=/usr/src/amdgpu-pro-16.40-348864/
make modules_install M=/usr/src/amdgpu-pro-16.40-348864/
That is all, there is no need to replace anything else, the open source drivers happily work with this amdgpu driver, that's the advantage of a shared kernel driver. Then everything from Freesync, HDMI audio etc. starts to work.
I had to do this myself because I have 3 monitors, and apparently without DAL, you can use max 2 monitors.
Last edited by dmantione on 7 December 2016 at 11:38 am UTC
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Am i the only one using the AMDGPU-Pro driver :S:
On my APU rig just works™
On my APU rig just works™
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The full GPU-PRO driver is on my to-do list, but it is rather tighyly coupled to the supported Linux distributions at the moment. You can't just install the rpm's. I haven't been able to make it work for now, but will try again.
Last edited by dmantione on 7 December 2016 at 12:28 pm UTC
Last edited by dmantione on 7 December 2016 at 12:28 pm UTC
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cRaZy-bisCuiT Dec 7, 2016
does that mean support for GCN 1.1 and 1.0 GPUS?Yes.
FreeSync is coming to Linux - and as mentioned above several times, they might get it up and running with the DC code within the 4.12 merge window.
AMD sent out those patches several times in the past but it got rejected by the kernel developers for some good reason: The code is messy and bloated. They slimmed it down quite heavily already and sent it in again. In the end AMDGPU and AMDGPU-PRO will benefit from the recent code refactoring.
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Luke_Nukem Dec 7, 2016
Can we kill that fucking penguin already? We desperately need a better, more professional logo of some sort - not a decades old mascot that looks exactly like it is decades old.
Logo! Not Mascot! (for the professional environments) Leave the mascot to plushies and fans.
Logo! Not Mascot! (for the professional environments) Leave the mascot to plushies and fans.
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cRaZy-bisCuiT Dec 8, 2016
There is a guy from Youtube [0] that compiled the 4.7 kernel + DAL for Arch [1]. I did not try it yet but he said audio over HDMI is working. Since I don't have FreeSync displays I can't check if that is working.
Please keep in mind it's a pre-compiled kernel - use it at your own risk. I don't garantuee it's virus free since I don't know that guy.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry_klS9vwj4
[1] https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B-S6einraYmXVERvTENsX3ljZDQ?pageId=105427087875279588053
Please keep in mind it's a pre-compiled kernel - use it at your own risk. I don't garantuee it's virus free since I don't know that guy.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry_klS9vwj4
[1] https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B-S6einraYmXVERvTENsX3ljZDQ?pageId=105427087875279588053
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Using a DAL/DC Patched Kernel right now - it's great. It's for available for Fedora from this copr here
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