A Mesa developer wrote into the public Mesa-dev mailing list to ask for testers of OpenGL multithreading in Mesa so that they can grow the whitelist of games that will use it.
The OpenGL multithreading can actually be used by all Mesa drivers, not just AMD. So anyone using an up to date version of Mesa-git should be able to get in on the testing. They went with a whitelist since it can actually hurt performance of some games. Games that are limited by CPU performance are the ones that will benefit from the OpenGL multithreading.
The mesa developer gave an example of some games they found to benefit already:
They also specifically asked people to test a few like Civilization 5, which already has patch to enable it as someone has already tested it!
You can find the full mailing list entry here, with instructions on how to proceed.
Update: Thanks to GOL user "ripper" we have a Wiki page to contribute findings: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Performance_impact_of_Mesa_glthread Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
The OpenGL multithreading can actually be used by all Mesa drivers, not just AMD. So anyone using an up to date version of Mesa-git should be able to get in on the testing. They went with a whitelist since it can actually hurt performance of some games. Games that are limited by CPU performance are the ones that will benefit from the OpenGL multithreading.
The mesa developer gave an example of some games they found to benefit already:
QuoteAlien Isolation: +60% (it varies depending on the location, increased since
Grigori's commits)
Borderlands 2: +50% (it varies depending on the location)
BioShock Infinite: +76% (benchmark)
Civilization 6: +20% (benchmark)
They also specifically asked people to test a few like Civilization 5, which already has patch to enable it as someone has already tested it!
You can find the full mailing list entry here, with instructions on how to proceed.
Update: Thanks to GOL user "ripper" we have a Wiki page to contribute findings: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Performance_impact_of_Mesa_glthread Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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TheRiddick Jul 10, 2017
With my FuryX and Warthunder and mesa17.2dev glthread causes the game to crash on launch, however there are people with other cards reporting it works. I will need to check again since last time I tried was a month ago, unlikely much has changed. Might be specific to AMDGPU, perhaps other people were using radeonsi which would explain things.
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I haven't tested already (I'm not on MESA git), but can someone try the older Unity3d titles with this patchset? The first game that comes to mind is "The Last Tinker: City of Colors", which performed very poor and was for me completely unplayable.
EDIT: fixed some typos
Last edited by ziabice on 10 July 2017 at 8:52 am UTC
EDIT: fixed some typos
Last edited by ziabice on 10 July 2017 at 8:52 am UTC
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somebody1121 Jul 10, 2017
I haven't tested already (I'm not on MESA git), but can someone try the older Unity3d titles with this patchset? The first game that comes to mind is "The Last Tinker: City of Colors", which performed very poor and was for me completely unplayable.
EDIT: fixed some typos
You don't need mesa-git to try this, is already on the last stable version but i don't know if there are new performance patches.
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Since the developer didn't say it in their post to the mailing list, I looked around and it seems you do, to quote them:I haven't tested already (I'm not on MESA git), but can someone try the older Unity3d titles with this patchset? The first game that comes to mind is "The Last Tinker: City of Colors", which performed very poor and was for me completely unplayable.
EDIT: fixed some typos
You don't need mesa-git to try this, is already on the last stable version but i don't know if there are new performance patches.
You need Mesa master. Older glthread performs badly.
4 Likes, Who?
I created a wiki page for it, if somebody wants to help out:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Performance_impact_of_Mesa_glthread
@liamdawe, maybe it can be mentioned in the article?
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Performance_impact_of_Mesa_glthread
@liamdawe, maybe it can be mentioned in the article?
3 Likes, Who?
I have to say this is very exciting time to be Linux gamer. Will have to do some Nouveau tests with power settings and this patch.
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I created a wiki page for it, if somebody wants to help out:Done.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/Performance_impact_of_Mesa_glthread
@liamdawe, maybe it can be mentioned in the article?
1 Likes, Who?
SirBubbles Jul 10, 2017
I can't install most of these packages without removing a whole lot of vital stuff. Anyone else having luck on ubuntu 16.10?
I'm using NVIDIA, I realise this screws up my chances of successfully using this mesa ppa. Only just caught onto that. Sorry.
Last edited by SirBubbles on 10 July 2017 at 1:21 pm UTC
I'm using NVIDIA, I realise this screws up my chances of successfully using this mesa ppa. Only just caught onto that. Sorry.
Last edited by SirBubbles on 10 July 2017 at 1:21 pm UTC
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I can't install most of these packages without removing a whole lot of vital stuff. Anyone else having luck on ubuntu 16.10?
I'm using NVIDIA, I realise this screws up my chances of successfully using this mesa ppa. Only just caught onto that. Sorry.
There is no point for you to use Mesa then, since Nouveau lacks reclocking and can't be used with high performance. If you want to test Mesa, the best thing is to get AMD GPU.
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Incandescent Jul 11, 2017
I can't install most of these packages without removing a whole lot of vital stuff. Anyone else having luck on ubuntu 16.10?
I'm using NVIDIA, I realise this screws up my chances of successfully using this mesa ppa. Only just caught onto that. Sorry.
As Shmerl said, Mesa is really only useful for AMD and Intel GPU's.
Also, just in case you aren't aware, Canonical will be ending their support for Ubuntu 16.10 this month. So be sure to upgrade to a newer version so you'll be able to continue to receive security updates. :)
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Please, don't forget to write to Marek about the wiki and the drirc settings (from the original ML message):
The first line of the entry is enough. Please send such lines for games
that get better performance from glthread to maraeo at gmail.com and I will
include them in Mesa with your name on the commit.
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Please, don't forget to write to Marek about the wiki and the drirc settings (from the original ML message)
I think he already knows about the wiki.
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Yeah he's aware of it.Please, don't forget to write to Marek about the wiki and the drirc settings (from the original ML message)
I think he already knows about the wiki.
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That's really cool! Especially for Alien: Isolation :D
I hope this whitelist is temporary though, because in the long term it's unmaintainable.
In the long term, I hope devs themselves will enable or disable this feature based on their own tests.
I hope this whitelist is temporary though, because in the long term it's unmaintainable.
In the long term, I hope devs themselves will enable or disable this feature based on their own tests.
0 Likes
I can't install most of these packages without removing a whole lot of vital stuff. Anyone else having luck on ubuntu 16.10?
I'm using NVIDIA, I realise this screws up my chances of successfully using this mesa ppa. Only just caught onto that. Sorry.
There is no point for you to use Mesa then, since Nouveau lacks reclocking and can't be used with high performance. If you want to test Mesa, the best thing is to get AMD GPU.
Not exactly true. Quote from https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/
Experimental support for manual performance level selection (also known as "reclocking") on GM10x Maxwell, Kepler and Tesla G94-GT218 GPUs. Starting Linux 4.5, available in /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/pstate, previously boot with nouveau.pstate=1 and use /sys/class/drm/card0/device/pstate.
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That reclocking isn't dynamic. But once they'll iron out dynamic aspect, it might actually become usable.
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That reclocking isn't dynamic. But once they'll iron out dynamic aspect, it might actually become usable.
That hasn't stop me for playing games with it. It is bare bones and sketchy but it works most of the time :)
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cRaZy-bisCuiT Jul 12, 2017
By the way, is there a best practice guide on how to file bug reports on freedesktop for games crashing? What I would try to do is posting the log of the game, a gdb trace but I don't feel like compiling Mesa etc. with debug symbols.
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By the way, is there a best practice guide on how to file bug reports on freedesktop for games crashing? What I would try to do is posting the log of the game, a gdb trace but I don't feel like compiling Mesa etc. with debug symbols.
apitrace is usually useful. https://github.com/apitrace/apitrace/blob/master/docs/USAGE.markdown
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cRaZy-bisCuiT Jul 13, 2017
Thanks!
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