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Super hype for a zen+polaris GNU/linux machine. Not a big fan of nvidia anti consumer practices but AMD have always been rubbish on GNU/linux, hopefully this wi

Super hype for a zen+polaris GNU/linux machine. Not a big fan of nvidia anti consumer practices but AMD have always been rubbish on GNU/linux, hopefully this will change!

Unklejoe 10y ago
Me too. It seems like AMD is really trying to do well by the open source community. I do realize that this isn't out of the kindness of their heart, but rather the fact that they're the underdog, but still, it's good for the community. I really think things are going to turn in their favor within the next 2 years (at least in the graphical side of things). Every single one of the major game consoles are using AMD chips, and consoles are usually first priority for game developers. I am guessing this could have some advantages when it comes time to do a PC port. Also, with the new APIs such as Vulkan and DX12, the amount of optimization "games" you can play inside the driver is reduced since they are apparently much closer to the hardware. This could wash away some of the lead that NVidia has (as is proven by many recent DX12 benchmarks). Finally, I think the recent rise in popularity of Apple computers (last 5 years or so) could be a good thing for Linux gaming since they will both rely on the Vulkan/OpenGL APIs which could give more incentive for developers to do the port.
- oarsinsync 10y ago
  > Apple computers ... will both rely on the Vulkan/OpenGL APIs Apple haven't included any real OpenGL updates in years, and have meanwhile released Metal, their own cross platform (OS X / iOS) abstraction layer. Wouldn't get your hopes up expecting Vulkan support from Apple.
noinsight 10y ago
I actually started using AMD cards two years ago after I started having problems with the Intel drivers. The drivers were somewhat rough initially but lately they have been very solid. I just got a new computer and had to wrestle with PCI-E/graphics issues for the whole week but I got them solved now and it wasn't actually the Radeon driver as I originally suspected but rather Intel again (as I understand it).
- cm3 10y ago
  The Intel drivers have had many serious regressions in the last year, so they are not the pinnacle of quality anymore. Both the X driver and the kernel drm bits. One major regression set was introduced in 4.3 with the atomic modesetting changes. It's almost like Intel has cut funding for QA.
cm3 10y ago
The new AMD drivers will have only user space binary parts and everything in the kernel will be open source and integrated upstream. This way, you can have the latest and best AMD driver code for Vulkan and OpenGL bits.

Super hype for a zen+polaris GNU/linux machine. Not a big fan of nvidia anti consumer practices but AMD have always been rubbish on GNU/linux, hopefully this will change!

Unklejoe 10y ago

Me too. It seems like AMD is really trying to do well by the open source community. I do realize that this isn't out of the kindness of their heart, but rather the fact that they're the underdog, but still, it's good for the community. I really think things are going to turn in their favor within the next 2 years (at least in the graphical side of things). Every single one of the major game consoles are using AMD chips, and consoles are usually first priority for game developers. I am guessing this could have some advantages when it comes time to do a PC port. Also, with the new APIs such as Vulkan and DX12, the amount of optimization "games" you can play inside the driver is reduced since they are apparently much closer to the hardware. This could wash away some of the lead that NVidia has (as is proven by many recent DX12 benchmarks). Finally, I think the recent rise in popularity of Apple computers (last 5 years or so) could be a good thing for Linux gaming since they will both rely on the Vulkan/OpenGL APIs which could give more incentive for developers to do the port.

oarsinsync 10y ago
> Apple computers ... will both rely on the Vulkan/OpenGL APIs Apple haven't included any real OpenGL updates in years, and have meanwhile released Metal, their own cross platform (OS X / iOS) abstraction layer. Wouldn't get your hopes up expecting Vulkan support from Apple.

noinsight 10y ago

I actually started using AMD cards two years ago after I started having problems with the Intel drivers. The drivers were somewhat rough initially but lately they have been very solid. I just got a new computer and had to wrestle with PCI-E/graphics issues for the whole week but I got them solved now and it wasn't actually the Radeon driver as I originally suspected but rather Intel again (as I understand it).

cm3 10y ago
The Intel drivers have had many serious regressions in the last year, so they are not the pinnacle of quality anymore. Both the X driver and the kernel drm bits. One major regression set was introduced in 4.3 with the atomic modesetting changes. It's almost like Intel has cut funding for QA.

cm3 10y ago

The new AMD drivers will have only user space binary parts and everything in the kernel will be open source and integrated upstream. This way, you can have the latest and best AMD driver code for Vulkan and OpenGL bits.