Major AMD Catalyst Linux Update Expected Next Week


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Major AMD Catalyst Linux Update Expected Next Week

 

Due out next week is a very significant update to AMD's Catalyst Linux graphics driver as they continue to work towards the unified AMD Linux driver strategy. 

 
There hasn't been an AMD Catalyst Linux update in more than two months but it looks like the update due out next week will be worth the wait. This next AMD Catalyst Linux update due out on Tuesday, 9 December, will bring VA-API video decoding support (finally an alternative to using the ill-adopted, AMD-specific XvBA API), OpenGL ES 3.0 support, OpenCL 2.0, AMD FreeSync support on Linux, OpenMP 3.1 over HSA, and Linux packaging improvements. There's also 5K x 3K display support, frame pacing for Dual Graphics, and other enhancements for both the Windows and Linux graphics drivers. At least under Windows, there's very significant performance optimizations due out too. 
 
This driver will presumably be marked in the fglrx 14.50 series after talking about it in September and finally now materializing. 
 
lIJBZOT.jpg
 
Stay tuned for more coverage and Linux graphics benchmarks next week. Next week's driver though is not expected to utilize or depend upon the forthcoming "AMDGPU" kernel driver that has yet to be published.

 

Source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg1NTE

 

Thought I'd share this, given the concerns many people have in this forum regarding drivers.  Thoughts?

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Looks good. AMD hardware continues to be the best option for discrete card users. The FOSS driver is rather good for most of us. I'm especially interested in the VA-API support because I like to run mpv and flash with accelerated decoding/playback. Although at the moment, I'm using mozplugger to embed mpv in place of flash anyway.

Catalyst's vdpau support is a bit sketchy when it comes to playing video's with mpv though the Xvba backend. The best I can do with it is:

$ cat .config/mpv/mpv.conf 
vo=vaapi
hwdec=vaapi
af=drc
For some reason if I set -vo and -hwdec to vdpau I get:

[vo/vdpau/x11] X11 error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
Works fine with VAAPI though.
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Why don't you? :p

 

Nice to finally see an update.

 

because, not knowing of the needed patch for 3.17 the installation of the older catalyst failed on my system.  :(

after trying arround for hours i gave up and did a new installation, with going from ext4 to btrfs and new partition layout.

it's too new now to try something so critical as a new driver, especially since the older default fglrx driver works just fine here.

 

my hdd is only 320gb big. if it had 1tb i would have done a 2nd partition already, installed kubuntu 14.04 with kernel 3.18 and gave it a try.

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all i can say is about time ! 

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How do I install this on Ubuntu?

Did this on one of my systems yesterday (14.04), fairly painless.. after making a backup of course, I've had some pretty spectacular blowups installing manually in the past that required some trickery to fix, a safety net never hurts if you're unsure how to deal with that.

I didn't use the one specifically marked for Ubuntu, that one refused to install. Instead, using the "system picker" on the AMD site I used the Linux x86_64 option, gives you an archive that you build yourself.

Make sure "build-essential" is installed, and then run the included script in that archive as root. Tell it you want to build an Ubuntu package. First time through it'll bomb because some dependencies are missing, it'll list them in the log file. (Don't have it off the top of my head.) Install those and run it again, it'll do its thing, takes a minute or two. Once it's done it'll ask if you want to install it, say yes. Once that's done, run "aticonfig --initial" as root if needed. I read a few people had issues with the Catalyst Control Center not running, they reinstalled that with the deb on the AMD site, worked perfectly for me first time so I didn't bother.

Overall seems to work pretty well-ish; performance seems to be decent, still fairly braindead with multiple monitors but I don't think that's the driver's fault, a couple of games I monkey with in Wine as a test are broken too, but I don't use Wine seriously anyway and I'm not sure if it's the driver at fault or a Wine regression.. could be either.

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I've had a chance to try it out now (aur/catalyst-total) and it provides a nice performance bump on my hardware. Oddly enough though, my cpu usage is lower with -vo opengl than -vo vaapi. Perhaps mpv-git needs further optimisation to take advantage of it. -hwdec is still vaapi though, and that seems to work well with both the proprietary Omega and FOSS radeon drivers.

The XFCE compositor feels very snappy with the new Omega driver. Overall, I'm pleased. It's nice to see AMD focusing their attention on driver support.

Unfortunately, forcing flash acceleration via /etc/adobe/mms.cfg causes it to crash:

EnableLinuxHWVideoDecode = 1
OverrideGPUValidation = 1
Adobe really needs to get its act together regarding Linux. Mozplugger/Scriptish/Viewtube helps of course in that department. Substituting mpv for flash is a better solution anyway.

Omega also supports many more acceleration profiles:

vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG4Simple            :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG4AdvancedSimple    :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG4Main              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Baseline           :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Simple              :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                :	VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            :	VAEntrypointVLD
It's about on par with the FOSS driver now as far as I can see.

Note: If you're currently using the Xvba backend, you'll need to uninstall that first, otherwise you'll get a filesystem conflict (Arch Linux).

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simplezz did you need to apply the patch i linked above? :)

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simplezz did you need to apply the patch i linked above? :)

Hi Jack, the AUR package I installed automatically includes the hotplug patch. Here's the contents of the package:

catalyst-total

arch-fglrx-authatieventsd_new.patch

atieventsd.service

atieventsd.sh

ati_make.sh

catalyst-hook.service

catalyst.conf

catalyst.sh

catalyst_build_module

cold-fglrx-3.14-current_euid.patch

fglrx_3.17rc6-no_hotplug.patch

fglrx_gpl_symbol.patch

hook-fglrx

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/amd-catalyst-omega-14.12-linux-run-installers.zip

lano1106_fglrx-13.8_proc.patch

lano1106_fglrx_intel_iommu.patch

lano1106_kcl_agp_13_4.patch

lib32-catalyst.sh

makefile_compat.patch

pxp_switch_catalyst

switchlibGL

switchlibglx

temp-links-catalyst.service

temp_links_catalyst

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Looks good. AMD hardware continues to be the best option for discrete card users. The FOSS driver is rather good for most of us. I'm especially interested in the VA-API support because I like to run mpv and flash with accelerated decoding/playback. Although at the moment, I'm using mozplugger to embed mpv in place of flash anyway.

Catalyst's vdpau support is a bit sketchy when it comes to playing video's with mpv though the Xvba backend. The best I can do with it is:

$ cat .config/mpv/mpv.conf 
vo=vaapi
hwdec=vaapi
af=drc
For some reason if I set -vo and -hwdec to vdpau I get:

[vo/vdpau/x11] X11 error: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
Works fine with VAAPI though.

 

 

I was kind of peeved that they dropped support for some of their older cards unless you also use a Linux distro that uses really old versions of the X display server, but to be honest, the open source drivers give me performance almost as good as the proprietary ones.  I tried Windows 7 on this computer a couple weeks ago with official drivers and to be honest, I wasn't seriously impressed with the performance of the games I wanted to play, so I just nuked it and came back to Ubuntu where I get the OS I like and the games run just as good with open source drivers.

 

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 4200

 

I've thought about just buying a newer card, I'm not an ATI fanboy and I don't do any "real" gaming on PC (Left4Dead 2 and Portal 2 are probably the biggest resource hog games I play on PC) , so I'll get whatever is cheapest, outperforms what I've got, and has proprietary driver support on Linux.

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Hi Jack, the AUR package I installed automatically includes the hotplug patch. Here's the contents of the package:

catalyst-total

 

ah tanks for calrification. what's your gpu spec? 

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I tried Windows 7 on this computer a couple weeks ago with official drivers and to be honest, I wasn't seriously impressed with the performance of the games I wanted to play, so I just nuked it and came back to Ubuntu where I get the OS I like and the games run just as good with open source drivers.

 

Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 4200

 

I've thought about just buying a newer card, I'm not an ATI fanboy and I don't do any "real" gaming on PC (Left4Dead 2 and Portal 2 are probably the biggest resource hog games I play on PC) , so I'll get whatever is cheapest, outperforms what I've got, and has proprietary driver support on Linux.

You might want to grab a r9 270 or something similar when you spot a good deal. It runs extremely cool (33c) and performs great with FOSS and proprietary drivers alike. GCN arch cards really benefit the most from the new Omega driver. That being said, if your 4200 runs fine for what you need it for, why change? :)

ah tanks for calrification. what's your gpu spec?

R9 270.
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R9 270.

 

i c

 

having a radeon 5450 myself and would love to know if installing the latest catalyst combined with kernel 3.18 works (one guy claimed it on phoronix but i don't trust it 100%) and if it works if it would be worth it. i read most of the performance improvement can be seen only on the newer gpus.

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having a radeon 5450 myself and would love to know if installing the latest catalyst combined with kernel 3.18 works (one guy claimed it on phoronix but i don't trust it 100%) and if it works if it would be worth it. i read most of the performance improvement can be seen only on the newer gpus.

It definitely works on Arch, but I couldn't speak for other distros at the moment. As far as improvements go, I think all cards benefit to varying degrees, with GCN architecture chips (HD 7000+) gaining the most.

You could always make a temporary partition to try it out on. You won't need much space, say 5-8GB. That way it won't affect your main system should something go wrong.

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