Mesa 18.0 has been officially released today after a bit of a wait, further advancing Linux graphics drivers.
As usual, if you concerned about stability, the Mesa developers do suggest waiting for the first point release 18.0.1 for any pressing issues to get fixed up. The first point release should be due in early April, with a second due later that month as well.
Since I don't actually use Mesa, being an NVIDIA user I'm not personally too clued on on just how well they're doing. From what I hear from people close to me who are on Mesa, it's come a really long way for both AMD and Intel graphics in terms of performance and compatibility with games.
Feature highlights:
- Disk shader cache support for i965 when MESA_GLSL_CACHE_DISABLE environment variable is set to "0" or "false"
- GL_ARB_shader_atomic_counters and GL_ARB_shader_atomic_counter_ops on r600/evergreen+
- GL_ARB_shader_image_load_store and GL_ARB_shader_image_size on r600/evergreen+
- GL_ARB_shader_storage_buffer_object on r600/evergreen+
- GL_ARB_compute_shader on r600/evergreen+
- GL_ARB_cull_distance on r600/evergreen+
- GL_ARB_enhanced_layouts on r600/evergreen+
- GL_ARB_bindless_texture on nvc0/kepler
- OpenGL 4.3 on r600/evergreen with hw fp64 support
- Support 1 binary format for GL_ARB_get_program_binary on i965. (For the 18.0 release, 0 formats continue to be supported in compatibility profiles.)
- Cannonlake support on i965 and anv
Naturally there's a lot of bugs that have been fixed as well as a result of the advancement. You should see more games work as a result of this release on top of the performance improvements (of which there's been quite a few).
Note: Their release notes state it's 17.4.0 due to an issue with git struggling to detect the move (their words).
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: GuestHow do I report Mesa bugs I find? Through an email?
Thanks
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Mesa
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Pompesdesky Mar 28, 2018
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: 14AMD GPU experience on Linux isn't attractive.
It's pretty smooth these days for games. And way more attractive than Nvidia integration wise.
I have to second that, I've been using Mesa for more than a year now and I've encountered no problems using an RX480. My son using an older HD7950 has some minor ligthing issues in Grid Autosport when facing the sun or another light source but it's not game braking, just a bit weird :D
Other than that it's really smooth overall.
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cRaZy-bisCuiT Mar 28, 2018
Actually I used to have a few games that didn't run on my system. But right now all of my ~ 200 Linux games work pretty flawlessly now. The only game I remember that doesn't run is Cossacks 3. I guess it's the fault of the devs of the game but I can't say for sure.
Apart from that my 3570k + 16 GB RAM + RX 480 runs everything fast enough in combination with my 1080p setup, nothing to complain. Old legacy Windows games may run even better with wine nowadays then on Windows 10.
Apart from that my 3570k + 16 GB RAM + RX 480 runs everything fast enough in combination with my 1080p setup, nothing to complain. Old legacy Windows games may run even better with wine nowadays then on Windows 10.
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Quoting: GuestMesa ? Hm well..
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=101739
Reported since July last year. No Mesa devs have even looked at it or acknowledged it.
So what's stopping you from adding it here? This list is made specifically for games.
Also, proposed
glsl_correct_derivatives_after_discard=true sounds like the same method as needed for TW2. Interestingly, TW3 in Wine needs the same setting with wined3d.Last edited by Shmerl on 28 March 2018 at 12:29 pm UTC
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Quoting: GuestHow does that "Games broken on Mesa" list help get it fixed exactly?
Games related bugs gets more visibility among other Mesa bugs. Mesa developers asked for such list, as a way for users to request attention for games bugs. Feel free to use it, or not.
Quoting: GuestYou claimed that Mesa is superior because it's public. As i've just demonstrated, this is not necessarily true.
It is. With Nvidia blob reporting method you have no clue if anyone already reported the issue or not. So lot's of duplication is expected, no way to track history, workarounds and so on.
Quoting: Guestglsl_correct_derivatives_after_discard=true kills the framerate apparently
Not with TW2, but it does reduce it with TW3. Not sure about Arma games - never played them.
Last edited by Shmerl on 28 March 2018 at 2:18 pm UTC
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Quoting: Ari El UnoI mean r600 (HD 2000 series) not Evergreen. I'd bold it.Quoting: tonRWell, as long Mesa not break I'm fine with that. Very curious how Mesa performance on Intel onboard graphic..
QuoteOpenGL 4.3 on r600/evergreen with hw fp64 supportWow! HD2000 series? That's pretty old graphic card. It was on my wishlist along side GeForce 8 when I was teenager. Never got it. :(
Nope.
Evergreen is Radeon HD 5000 series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_5000_Series
Quoting: GustyGhostThanks (for suggestion) but no thanks, I'm currently very happy with my current desktop setup. Besides, my current cheapo GPU is better than both of my dream card (Radeon HD 2600 GT / GeForce 8600) so I'm fine with that.Quoting: tonRWell, as long Mesa not break I'm fine with that. Very curious how Mesa performance on Intel onboard graphic..
QuoteOpenGL 4.3 on r600/evergreen with hw fp64 supportWow! HD2000 series? That's pretty old graphic card. It was on my wishlist along side GeForce 8 when I was teenager. Never got it. :(
The fastest cards from the HD 2000 series are going for like twenty dollars on ebay right now so you can easily fulfill that wish if you want.
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Quoting: ShmerlNo driver is bug free. Nvidia has its share of bugs, but you won't see most of them reported. The benefit of using an open driver is that bug reports are public.
Let me second that. I've been using nVidia on Linux for a pretty solid ten years now, and there's been many bugs that mostly kill the desktop experience when compared to Mesa. For example, there was that infamous repaint bug that's been driving me mad for nearly TWO YEARS.
After a year without any response from nVidia whatsoever, users were left wondering if there was only someone taking care of Linux support. After a year and a half, a ticket was filed, and I was notified by email. Six months later, they found a solution.
Now they want to push their own solution for Wayland without working on it on a regular base, so I doubt we will ever be able to run it. Come on, we barely got modesetting implemented...
And I ain't talking about the overwhelming tearing with full screen videos!
Last edited by omer666 on 28 March 2018 at 4:56 pm UTC
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Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: 14AMD GPU experience on Linux isn't attractive.
It's pretty smooth these days for games. And way more attractive than Nvidia integration wise.
Mentioning your less favorite vendor will only start another useless flame war. You could instead try to _only_ point our how happy your are with your choice without any side snitching.
Last edited by jens on 28 March 2018 at 5:11 pm UTC
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Quoting: GuestAnyway, the point was responsiveness of bug reporting. You claimed that Mesa is superior because it's public. As i've just demonstrated, this is not necessarily true.
He wont see your point due to his unconditional love for Open Source and FOSS in general.
Last edited by jens on 28 March 2018 at 6:50 pm UTC
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Quoting: Guesti hope this is going to help when i finally get one of those amd apus with vega graphics
from the limited testing i have been able to do on the rig i built for my mrs seems to handle games okay at 768/900p but 1080 results are very mixed 1080 p low is playable but i would rather drop to 900p and get a solid 60.
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