Feral Interactive have pushed another patch to Mesa to help fix up the 'radv' Vulkan driver

Sometimes is easy for us to forget how complex a modern game is, using all layers of software between it and the hardware. With so many people working on these different layers, is interesting to see people on the higher end of the layers making contributions to the low end.

In the console games, it is said that game developers have so much access to the lower end that they can program to the "bare metal". Probably the most famous for these practices are the Naughty Dog studio, responsible for really good graphics for the hardware in games like Uncharted and The Last of Us.

So it is nice to see game porters in Linux having the initiative to mess with the lower end of the software to make their ports perform better. This is also a good example for other games developers that work in titles for the PC platform.


Last edited by M@GOid on 10 March 2017 at 4:34 pm UTC

Didn't they specified that a Vulkan version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is in the pipeline? ;)

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/feral-interactives-linux-ports-may-come-with-vulkan-sooner-than-we-thought-updated.8418

Quoting: MohandevirDidn't they specified that a Vulkan version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is in the pipeline? ;)

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/feral-interactives-linux-ports-may-come-with-vulkan-sooner-than-we-thought-updated.8418

No they misspoke during that livestream and this has been cleared up a few times. To make it clear i've put a note at the top of that article.

Did we already hear apologies from everybody that said that Feral doesn't do anything for supporting AMD?


Last edited by Eike on 10 March 2017 at 6:44 pm UTC

Quoting: EikeDid we already here apologies from everybody that said that Feral doesn't do anything for supporting AMD?

No those idiots either went silent or chose to complain about something else.

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: MohandevirDidn't they specified that a Vulkan version of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is in the pipeline? ;)

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/feral-interactives-linux-ports-may-come-with-vulkan-sooner-than-we-thought-updated.8418

No they misspoke during that livestream and this has been cleared up a few times. To make it clear i've put a note at the top of that article.

Oh sorry! Didn't got that one. I still had the unupdated version of this article in mind.
Still it's sad. This game could have used the vulkan performance boost over OpenGL.

Feral is fantastic.I mean they're really doing some good backstage improvements like that.Not like releasing a game and just enjoying the money.

Quoting: EikeDid we already here apologies from everybody that said that Feral doesn't do anything for supporting AMD?

On the contrary, that was with good reason. The AMD support for some of their games was simply unacceptable, and I would say still not up to the level desired. The PRO driver is still not supported by any of their games and upgrading tot the latest unreleased Git version of Mesa is not always the most practical solution for people to play a game.

Their work on Mesa however, is visible and very much appreciated.


Last edited by dmantione on 10 March 2017 at 5:50 pm UTC

Quoting: dmantione

Quoting: EikeDid we already here apologies from everybody that said that Feral doesn't do anything for supporting AMD?

On the contrary, that was with good reason. The AMD support for some of their games was simply unacceptable, and I would say still not up to the level desired. The PRO driver is still not supported by any of their games and upgrading tot the latest unreleased Git version of Mesa is not always the most practical solution for people to play a game.

Their work on Mesa however, is visible and very much appreciated.

The PRO driver has tons of issues. Mesa had been missing OpenGL features and performance work for a long time.

They can only work with what they have and they go above and beyond by actually helping with drivers.

Some people expect miracles.

No. I have both drivers installed with my RX460, where I can switch on reboot. Ignoring Feral games, the PRO driver has less user visible issues than the Mesa driver. I would very much like it to be otherwise, but in my experience three categories of issues reduce the experience with the Mesa driver:

- Bugs. For example, you got page faults while running Cities Skylines. This issue has meanwhile been fixed in Mesa, but bugs still plague Mesa users.
- User interventions. You need to set the right environment variables to run games. I.e. Bioshock Infinite.
- Unsupported OpenGL functionality.

Then there also the DAL story. While it has nothing to do with Mesa, but one way to get DAL working is to install the PRO driver. As without DAL you cannot connect 3 monitors, DAL is important for me.

Therefore, to get the best user experience, one still needs to install the PRO driver, I fear.


Last edited by dmantione on 10 March 2017 at 6:03 pm UTC

None of which are Feral's issues.

I disagree. Downloading and compiling your own Mesa, patching your AMDGPU driver, I have done it all to play some of their games, is not a good user experience and not the user experience a game developer should aim for their customers. This is the user experience that Feral gives their AMD user at the moment, and yes, at this point it becomes their problem, because it is not a motivator to buy their games.

<3 Feral

Quoting: dmantioneI disagree. Downloading and compiling your own Mesa, patching your AMDGPU driver, I have done it all to play some of their games, is not a good user experience and not the user experience a game developer should aim for their customers. This is the user experience that Feral gives their AMD user at the moment, and yes, at this point it becomes their problem, because it is not a motivator to buy their games.

Then don't buy their games if it's that much of a hassle for you?

You're complaining about things out of their control. They often support Mesa and only ever Stable versions, they have never once said you need to compile anything.

It should tell all you need to know if they can support Mesa but not the PRO driver. Shouldn't it? Mesa is open source, you have no clue what the PRO driver is doing and no one but AMD can fix it.

More and more of their games directly support Mesa as Mesa has continued to mature. This will likely be a thing of the past in a year or so as Mesa will be in fantastic shape by then.

Anyway, not after a long argument on this. People always find something to whine about and it ends up in circles.

If Feral require using certain version of Mesa, they usually warn about that. Since Mesa is still actively gaining features, compiling it from source is an expected thing. Linux users shouldn't be scared of that. If you don't want to do it - then wait until the next stable Mesa version will come out with those features included. No one is forcing you to play games which depend on those features right now.

On a side note - I'm still waiting for any Feral Linux port to appear on GOG. I don't think any of them did so far. It's not in their hands of course, just pointing out the current situation.

And I wonder how exactly Feral operate. Are they approached by some studios / publishers to make a port, or it's Feral's initiative to propose such things and they actively look for studios to work with?


Last edited by Shmerl on 10 March 2017 at 6:35 pm UTC

Quoting: dmantioneI disagree. Downloading and compiling your own Mesa, patching your AMDGPU driver, I have done it all to play some of their games, is not a good user experience and not the user experience a game developer should aim for their customers. This is the user experience that Feral gives their AMD user at the moment, and yes, at this point it becomes their problem, because it is not a motivator to buy their games.

What do expect?!? They are even improving the drivers for the users, which is not their job at all. It's not their fault - but the manufacturer's - that the drivers are not at a better level!

Quoting: liamdaweThen don't buy their games if it's that much of a hassle for you?

It is a dilemma. As a Linux gamer you want to support the Linux gaming industry, but you don't want to support developers that do a poor porting job. I own 2 Feral titles and 7 Virtual Programming titles, so I can confirm it does influence my buying decisions.

QuoteYou're complaining about things out of their control. They often support Mesa and only ever Stable versions, they have never once said you need to compile anything.

I fully agree with you one should not complain about things beyond the control of a developer. However... there are two things relevant here.

The first is that if the topic is brought up with Feral, for example in a game forum, the answer is always either "we don't support" or "we point the finger to AMD". In the latter case, I have seen several cases were this was completely unjustified and the error was on Feral side. I haven't yet seen a example where an error was indeed on the AMD side. Now, if Feral say AMD's driver has "problem x in OpenGL extension y" I shut up immedeately and complain to AMD. In that case I even play a role into getting it fixed, because I have contacts deep into AMD. But I never saw any example.

The second thing is that if AMD drivers are terrible shit, there should be lots of games that don't run on them and many developers that complain all around. Except for Feral games I only know only one single example: Civilization Beyond Earth. All other games that I know of run flawless on the PRO driver, and most run on the Mesa driver. I can accept that one game doesn't run, two, even three. But the majority of a catalogue of a developer? Simple statistics of Feral and the rest of the available games, tell that it is highly likely that at least part of the cause must be on the Feral side.

QuoteIt should tell all you need to know if they can support Mesa but not the PRO driver. Shouldn't it? Mesa is open source, you have no clue what the PRO driver is doing and no one but AMD can fix it.

Here you assume again that all of the error on the AMD side. Now let's assume this is indeed the case, then I agree with you that working with Mesa and making the game work with that is the only thing that a developer has under his own influence. So, yes, on this point they are doing the right thing, although it is still the case that their games depend on very experimental Mesa versions.

Because there is a much more mature driver available, I still think they should be able to properly point out what is wrong with that driver and not resort to simple finger pointing.

Allthough I am an Opteron customer for AMD, the GPU people at AMD do respond to my e-mails and I am far less important for them than Feral. For an important Linux vendor like Feral, getting the right contacts at AMD to discuss driver issues should be no problem. And again, other porters have been able to get their problems fixed.

QuoteMore and more of their games directly support Mesa as Mesa has continued to mature. This will likely be a thing of the past in a year or so as Mesa will be in fantastic shape by then.

I sincerely hope so and I do expect things will be better, but there also is risk of a scenario that games and other games will continue to demand the maximum from drivers (because with Mesa, multiple games still don't run out of the box) and that we will be compiling and patching source code for many years to come.

It is also a realistic scenario, that if Linux gaming really takes off, that the PRO driver will continue to be necessary for quick stability and performance fixes for games that we see on the Windows platform very often.

QuoteAnyway, not after a long argument on this. People always find something to whine about and it ends up in circles.

Well, without feedback on what is wrong, a developer has no information on what needs to improve. Criticism is not always fun, but it is not possible to make the world better, but without either. Long arguments should not go in circles though, they should be constructive. I am making all the efforts to point things out in a constructive way.


Last edited by dmantione on 10 March 2017 at 7:15 pm UTC

^^ Dude, don't buy their games if you don't like the missing support. Steam page clearly states which GPUs and drivers are supported. And latest Feral games support STABLE MESA, no need to compile from git.
The games run extremely well on the OSS drivers. Even AMD employees actively contribute the gallium3D drivers, indicating a clear focus to MESA rather than PRO driver.

Quoting: babai^^ Dude, don't buy their games if you don't like the missing support.

I am completely fine if that is your position. However, if Nvidia users that have no actual experience with this call me an idiot, I think I should be allowed to defend myself.

Quoting: dmantione

QuoteMore and more of their games directly support Mesa as Mesa has continued to mature. This will likely be a thing of the past in a year or so as Mesa will be in fantastic shape by then.

I sincerely hope so and I do expect things will be better, but there also is risk of a scenario that games and other games will continue to demand the maximum from drivers (because with Mesa, multiple games still don't run out of the box) and that we will be compiling and patching source code for many years to come.

This doesn't make sense really. Need to compile Mesa arises only if some feature is so recent, that it wasn't released in the stable Mesa yet. Since Mesa gained OpenGL 4.5 support last year, that was fairly common case, but it's not going to happen all the time. Besides a few non versioned OpenGL extensions, Mesa already implements OpenGL 4.5 proper. So further work will go into optimizations.

Vulkan can be in such situation though, until radv will reach completeness. But again, after rapid development, usually features aren't added so often. Therefore there is no point to complain. Either compile from source in such case, or wait for Mesa to catch up. I don't think Feral should be blamed for anything like that. On the contrary, their contribution to Mesa should be welcomed. And if they consider pro driver broken - so be it. Users should be switching to Mesa anyway (the only place where PRO is now useful for non legacy stuff is full Vulkan support).


Last edited by Shmerl on 10 March 2017 at 7:25 pm UTC