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In recent years, Linux computers have evolved to a major revenue source for Nvidia thanks to deep learning. However, not desktop users are behind this but serve

by est31 6y ago

In recent years, Linux computers have evolved to a major revenue source for Nvidia thanks to deep learning. However, not desktop users are behind this but servers, due to Nvidia's proprietary CUDA API. If they open sourced it or rebuilt it on top of mesa, it'd make it easier for AMD to implement CUDA, getting access to the deep learning ecosystem that's currently locked into CUDA. Nvidia's sales would take a huge drop. So I think it's even more likely that their drivers remain proprietary.

llukas 6y ago
Reality check? https://github.com/ROCm-Developer-Tools/HIP https://github.com/ROCm-Developer-Tools/HIP https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/hipDNN https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/hipDNN CUDA just works.
- est31 6y ago
  ROCm exists but many frameworks don't support it. https://ai.stackexchange.com/a/16541 https://ai.stackexchange.com/a/16541
  - t-vi 6y ago
    PyTorch supports ROCm quite well if you can follow three step build instructions instructions (https://lernapparat.de/pytorch-rocm/ https://lernapparat.de/pytorch-rocm/). TVM.ai also supports ROCm well. TF I didn't check. FP32 performance for the VII is comparable to GTX20280Ti e.g. on Resnet training. Tensor Cores are cool, but 90% of people don't use FP16 that much. I'm not sure that is the best reply that stackoverflow has ever seen.
    - fluffything 6y ago
      The problem is that ROCm does not support many AMD compute cards, like their top of the line Navi-based one-year-old 5700 family. Most frameworks do support ROCm though, so the ball is on AMDs court.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - t-vi 6y ago
        I can only speak for myself, but my understanding is that the Navi cards are not intended nor advertised for compute. Now, one might wish to get a consumer card with Arcturus after the Instinct MI100 is released or dislike that the Radeon VII is discontinued, or even that it wasn't split into render and compute lines, but basically, to me the complaint about Navi not being supported by ROCm sounds a bit like buying a boat and complaining that it can't fly. Driver support was bumpy for me with Linux 5.0 or so, but I haven't had trouble with just running whatever kernel Debian ships for quite a while now. But I must admit I don't use the GPU for anything but compute, so I don't know about graphics. But your mileage may vary, I don't want to make people swear.
        paulmd 6y ago
        a GPU is a GPU, it's all just programs running on the shaders. If AMD is unwilling to properly support its consumer GPUs in GPGPU workloads and NVIDIA is, then well... sounds like a good reason not to buy AMD. It's really not a major ask, people have been running GPGPU programs on consumer cards since forever, even though they're "consumer" and sold as graphics cards and not compute accelerators. NVIDIA basically does this on purpose, people use their personal hardware to get a foot in the door of the ecosystem and end up writing programs that get run on big compute GPUs which NVIDIA makes big profits on, it's very intentional. If AMD chooses not to do that, well... can't really blame people for avoiding their stuff when NVIDIA is willing to let you do this stuff on their cards and AMD isn't.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  Call me back when ROCm supports their flagship graphics card. The 5000 series has been out for an entire year without ROCm support at this point.
  - t-vi 6y ago
    That is because AMD split graphics vs. compute and you look at a non-compute card. The Vega-based chips work quite well and the Radon VII is (or was, I'm afraid) an excellent value proposition.
    - roenxi 6y ago
      So this is well outside my area of expertise; but that seems weird. I want AMD to shepherd the ecosystem to a point where I can run PyTorch with some support from a graphics card. Supporting some graphics cards and not others doesn't sound very promising. It is amazing to watch how much of a struggle AMD is having with getting PyTorch to work with ROCm. It makes me appreciate what a good job Nvidia must have done with CUDA.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Nvidia has split lines too. But they understand the importance of getting developers on their platform. (To be fair AMD has it planned, but it's behind several other priorities to them.)
    - hatsunearu 6y ago
      > Vega-based chips work quite well LOL what a fucking joke. Not even close. Also that one VFIO bug makes one of the great advantages of Radeon disappear and there is no fix in sight. Fuck AMD. Bunch of marketing hype and they ship garbage half baked crap to the market.
  - fluffything 6y ago
    Yeah... I learned this the hard way. I thought AMD had great Linux driver support, and open source drivers. Turns out AMD only has the open source driver part of the things, and this driver does not support a large chunk of their products. I'd take a binary driver over no driver any day (and in fact, I returned the amd card and am using intel now, which works great).
zucker42 6y ago
I don't have so much of a problem with CUDA staying closed, but rather Nvidia sabotaging Nouveau through signed firmware which they don't release (and obfuscate in their blob). Nouveau would be probably be decent by now (not as fast or feature complete, but usable for real workloads on newer cards) if it weren't for the fact that Nvidia has added features which have the direct effect of making it impossible to have a competitive open source driver. Maybe something will change on this soon. There was speculation about this: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-Open-Source-GTC-20 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-O.... But I'm not holding my breath, and it would be nice if the solution wasn't "wait and hope until Nvidia releases the software necessary to control their GPUs".
- fluffything 6y ago
  > I don't have so much of a problem with CUDA staying closed, but rather Nvidia sabotaging Nouveau through signed firmware which they don't release (and obfuscate in their blob) Do you have more info on this ? There is a big difference between not supporting open source, and actively sabotaging it. What are they doing, exactly ?
  - zucker42 6y ago
    Look up "nouveau signed firmware". Phoronix has a bunch of articles on it. The Nouveau developers also talk about it at FOSDEM 2018 (and probably a later conference). This comment is a good intro: https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-drivers/open-source-nvidia-linux-nouveau/998310-nouveau-persevered-in-2017-for-open-source-nvidia-but-2018-could-be-much-better?p=998427#post998427 https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-d... TL;DR starting with the 9xx series, Nvidia started making it so their GPUs would only run firmwares signed by them (likely to prevent counterfeits, i.e. 2060s sold as 2080s). So it is impossible to control the fans and reclock the GPU. There's no workaround, so even as the person who owns the device, I can't run my own firmware. AMD has signed firmwares too, but they actually release sufficient blobs to fully run the device.
    - 6y ago

by est31 6y ago

llukas 6y ago

Reality check? https://github.com/ROCm-Developer-Tools/HIP https://github.com/ROCm-Developer-Tools/HIP https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/hipDNN https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/hipDNN CUDA just works.

est31 6y ago
ROCm exists but many frameworks don't support it. https://ai.stackexchange.com/a/16541 https://ai.stackexchange.com/a/16541
- t-vi 6y ago
  PyTorch supports ROCm quite well if you can follow three step build instructions instructions (https://lernapparat.de/pytorch-rocm/ https://lernapparat.de/pytorch-rocm/). TVM.ai also supports ROCm well. TF I didn't check. FP32 performance for the VII is comparable to GTX20280Ti e.g. on Resnet training. Tensor Cores are cool, but 90% of people don't use FP16 that much. I'm not sure that is the best reply that stackoverflow has ever seen.
  - fluffything 6y ago
    The problem is that ROCm does not support many AMD compute cards, like their top of the line Navi-based one-year-old 5700 family. Most frameworks do support ROCm though, so the ball is on AMDs court.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - t-vi 6y ago
      I can only speak for myself, but my understanding is that the Navi cards are not intended nor advertised for compute. Now, one might wish to get a consumer card with Arcturus after the Instinct MI100 is released or dislike that the Radeon VII is discontinued, or even that it wasn't split into render and compute lines, but basically, to me the complaint about Navi not being supported by ROCm sounds a bit like buying a boat and complaining that it can't fly. Driver support was bumpy for me with Linux 5.0 or so, but I haven't had trouble with just running whatever kernel Debian ships for quite a while now. But I must admit I don't use the GPU for anything but compute, so I don't know about graphics. But your mileage may vary, I don't want to make people swear.
      - paulmd 6y ago
        a GPU is a GPU, it's all just programs running on the shaders. If AMD is unwilling to properly support its consumer GPUs in GPGPU workloads and NVIDIA is, then well... sounds like a good reason not to buy AMD. It's really not a major ask, people have been running GPGPU programs on consumer cards since forever, even though they're "consumer" and sold as graphics cards and not compute accelerators. NVIDIA basically does this on purpose, people use their personal hardware to get a foot in the door of the ecosystem and end up writing programs that get run on big compute GPUs which NVIDIA makes big profits on, it's very intentional. If AMD chooses not to do that, well... can't really blame people for avoiding their stuff when NVIDIA is willing to let you do this stuff on their cards and AMD isn't.
Dylan16807 6y ago
Call me back when ROCm supports their flagship graphics card. The 5000 series has been out for an entire year without ROCm support at this point.
- t-vi 6y ago
  That is because AMD split graphics vs. compute and you look at a non-compute card. The Vega-based chips work quite well and the Radon VII is (or was, I'm afraid) an excellent value proposition.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    So this is well outside my area of expertise; but that seems weird. I want AMD to shepherd the ecosystem to a point where I can run PyTorch with some support from a graphics card. Supporting some graphics cards and not others doesn't sound very promising. It is amazing to watch how much of a struggle AMD is having with getting PyTorch to work with ROCm. It makes me appreciate what a good job Nvidia must have done with CUDA.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    Nvidia has split lines too. But they understand the importance of getting developers on their platform. (To be fair AMD has it planned, but it's behind several other priorities to them.)
  - hatsunearu 6y ago
    > Vega-based chips work quite well LOL what a fucking joke. Not even close. Also that one VFIO bug makes one of the great advantages of Radeon disappear and there is no fix in sight. Fuck AMD. Bunch of marketing hype and they ship garbage half baked crap to the market.
- fluffything 6y ago
  Yeah... I learned this the hard way. I thought AMD had great Linux driver support, and open source drivers. Turns out AMD only has the open source driver part of the things, and this driver does not support a large chunk of their products. I'd take a binary driver over no driver any day (and in fact, I returned the amd card and am using intel now, which works great).

zucker42 6y ago

I don't have so much of a problem with CUDA staying closed, but rather Nvidia sabotaging Nouveau through signed firmware which they don't release (and obfuscate in their blob). Nouveau would be probably be decent by now (not as fast or feature complete, but usable for real workloads on newer cards) if it weren't for the fact that Nvidia has added features which have the direct effect of making it impossible to have a competitive open source driver. Maybe something will change on this soon. There was speculation about this: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-Open-Source-GTC-20 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-O.... But I'm not holding my breath, and it would be nice if the solution wasn't "wait and hope until Nvidia releases the software necessary to control their GPUs".

fluffything 6y ago
> I don't have so much of a problem with CUDA staying closed, but rather Nvidia sabotaging Nouveau through signed firmware which they don't release (and obfuscate in their blob) Do you have more info on this ? There is a big difference between not supporting open source, and actively sabotaging it. What are they doing, exactly ?
- zucker42 6y ago
  Look up "nouveau signed firmware". Phoronix has a bunch of articles on it. The Nouveau developers also talk about it at FOSDEM 2018 (and probably a later conference). This comment is a good intro: https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-drivers/open-source-nvidia-linux-nouveau/998310-nouveau-persevered-in-2017-for-open-source-nvidia-but-2018-could-be-much-better?p=998427#post998427 https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-d... TL;DR starting with the 9xx series, Nvidia started making it so their GPUs would only run firmwares signed by them (likely to prevent counterfeits, i.e. 2060s sold as 2080s). So it is impossible to control the fans and reclock the GPU. There's no workaround, so even as the person who owns the device, I can't run my own firmware. AMD has signed firmwares too, but they actually release sufficient blobs to fully run the device.
  - 6y ago