The state of opensource radeon drivers?

kokoko3k · 2013-06-26 06:19:43

Hi, i'm a long time nvidia blob user.
I always avoided ATI gpus with flglrx because of incompatbility with newer kernels/Xorg and ATI gpus with radeon driver because of the low 3D performances.
But right now, i'm considering to buy an ATI as my next GPU to replace an nvidia 9800GT, because i really want to move to a full FOSS environment and nouveau seems worse than radeon.
I will use it for watching movies, browse the internet and play games.
Anyway is something that won't happens anytime soon (i'd say it is a matter of months), so some questions come to mind:

- How good is power managment?
- How good are 3D performances compared to windows proprietary drivers?
- Are there some incompatibility in running 3D games?
- Is H264 hardware decoding implemented?
- And if yes, does it work on youtube too?
- Is there a way to temporal-deinterlace in hardware by doubling video framerate?
- Are they *rock* solid?
- How's the desktop experience? in particular, i'm using kde4
- Tearing issues?

Yes, i know there are wiki articles out there, and i've read them, but i would like to have personal considerations.

Thanks!

Last edited by kokoko3k (2013-06-26 06:28:54)

ijanos · 2013-06-26 08:45:11

Using the open drivers for almost 3 years now with an RV710 card.

> How good is power managment?
Pretty good. My laptop stays cool and lose about 20minutes battery time to fglrx.
Dynamic frequency scaling is buggy though, you should set frequency manually.

> How good are 3D performances compared to windows proprietary drivers?
3D performance bad. It is enough for toy 3D applications but my card can run the Source engine with ease on windows but cannot really do anything in linux.

> Are there some incompatibility in running 3D games?
Don't think so. Other than speed issues.

> Is H264 hardware decoding implemented?
Work in progress. Consult this: http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
I can see this in my xorg.log but don't know how to use it, I don't really care about this as videos play smooth already.
[ 5.005] (II) RADEON(0): [DRI2] VDPAU driver: r600

>And if yes, does it work on youtube too?
Highly doubt that it will ever work. Adobe abaned linux flash, and only updates chrome builtin flash.

> Is there a way to temporal-deinterlace in hardware by doubling video framerate?
No idea.

> Are they *rock* solid?
Never had a problem in 3 years. 2D performance is great. 3D is enough for gnome shell compositing.

> How's the desktop experience? in particular, i'm using kde4
Gnome is smooth.

> Tearing issues?
None. vsync work fine.

Last edited by ijanos (2013-06-26 08:45:26)

Gusar · 2013-06-26 09:05:28

ijanos wrote:

Pretty good. My laptop stays cool and lose about 20minutes battery time to fglrx.
Dynamic frequency scaling is buggy though, you should set frequency manually.

You're the first I see to describe radeon's PM as anything even resembling "good". Others will say that even in the lowest power profile, their laptop gets hotter and consumes more power than with the blob. And they're not wrong with that, the current PM is far, far from proper. Proper PM is caught up in legal limbo. Until it's released, I wouldn't recommend using radeon on laptops.

ijanos wrote:

> Is H264 hardware decoding implemented?
Work in progress. Consult this: http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

It's fully working on HD4000 and up. Support for HD2000 and HD3000 is being worked on, but not even the AMD guys themselves can say when it'll be released, if ever.

ijanos wrote:

>And if yes, does it work on youtube too?
Highly doubt that it will ever work. Adobe abaned linux flash, and only updates chrome builtin flash.

VDPAU is there in the last non-chrome-builtin version, and yes it _does_ work with radeon. Chances are flash will crash a lot, it does on Nvidia, that's why people only use the P part of VDPAU (presentation) with flash and not the D part (decoding).

ijanos wrote:

> Is there a way to temporal-deinterlace in hardware by doubling video framerate?
No idea.

There's no deinterlacing at all, neither same-rate nor double-rate. There's denoising and sharpening I think.

ijanos · 2013-06-26 09:52:17

Gusar wrote:

You're the first I see to describe radeon's PM as anything even resembling "good". Others will say that even in the lowest power profile, their laptop gets hotter and consumes more power than with the blob. And they're not wrong with that, the current PM is far, far from proper. Proper PM is caught up in legal limbo. Until it's released, I wouldn't recommend using radeon on laptops.

I tried the open drivers back when there was no PM. It depleted the battery in an hour and and the GPU was around 80 °C during idle.
It is now 53-55 °C idle with the open source driver. The fglrx driver can achieve 49-51°C

I have a laptop and use it day to day, never had an issue with overheat, suspend works fine, I regurarly reach 2-3 weeks of uptime.

I know it can be better, I even opend a bug report about it https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31000

drcouzelis · 2013-06-26 12:34:56

I play Portal using the open source Radeon drivers with my fanless Radeon HD 5450.

kokoko3k wrote:

i really want to move to a full FOSS environment

The open source Radeon drivers are not free software, although they are open source software. If you want to move to a full free and open source environment then I would recommend using Parabola GNU / Linux instead of Arch Linux.

kokoko3k · 2013-06-26 12:35:36

Thanks for answering.
About 3D performance, i read some users saying that they are on par with fglrx, but they need some options not enabled by default, is this right?
I also wonder if fglrx are on par with windows.

Last edited by kokoko3k (2013-06-26 12:36:23)

drcouzelis · 2013-06-26 13:49:59

kokoko3k wrote:

About 3D performance, i read some users saying that they are on par with fglrx, but they need some options not enabled by default, is this right? I also wonder if fglrx are on par with windows.

I don't know (I don't use fglrx and I don't use Windows), but you haven't said what you want to use the video card for besides to "play games". Does it matter if it's on par with another driver for another operating system if it can handle what you want to do with it?

kokoko3k · 2013-06-26 14:41:22

drcouzelis wrote:

but you haven't said what you want to use the video card for besides to "play games".

kokoko3k wrote:

I will use it for watching movies, browse the internet and play games.

drcouzelis wrote:

Does it matter if it's on par with another driver for another operating system if it can handle what you want to do with it?

Since nvidia drivers are on par with windows one, and given the fact that windows drivers hopefully make the most from the gpu,
Yes.
Because i'd like to switch from nvidia, but i hate more wasting my money.

drcouzelis · 2013-06-26 15:12:13

kokoko3k wrote:

Since nvidia drivers are on par with windows one, and given the fact that windows drivers hopefully make the most from the gpu, Yes. Because i'd like to switch from nvidia, but i hate more wasting my money.

But, this makes me even more confused. The reason you want to use a Radeon card is so you can use an open source software driver, but you want the benefits of using the closed source driver.

With the current state of video card drivers in Linux:

If you want to get the most performance from your video card then you use an Nvidia card with the closed source drivers.

If you want to use open source drivers then you use a Radeon card with the open source drivers.

If you are getting a laptop, then you have the option of getting an Intel video card, which won't be as powerful as the other two but you can use free software drivers.

I get the impression that you want to switch to open source software if it's currently convenient. If all you will use it for is "watching movies, browse the internet and play games" then the open source Radeon driver will work fine, unless you want to play graphics intensive games.

WorMzy · 2013-06-26 15:49:41

This may be of interest: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n … px=MTM5NjE

Looks like the 3.11 kernel will be one to watch if you're a radeon user.

Gusar · 2013-06-26 15:53:42

WorMzy wrote:

This may be of interest: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n … px=MTM5NjE
Looks like the 3.11 kernel will be one to watch if you're a radeon user.

I just came here to post this, you beat me by two minutes!

This is huge. Really huge. This was the last missing thing in the radeon driver. Proper PM. Kudos to AMD for finally making it happen.

kokoko3k · 2013-06-26 15:56:21

drcouzelis wrote:

But, this makes me even more confused. The reason you want to use a Radeon card is so you can use an open source software driver, but you want the benefits of using the closed source driver.

Please, don't add noise to the thread, the reasons behind my questions are not relevant, the questions and (eventually), the answers are.
Thank you anyway for showing interest.

WorMzy · 2013-06-26 16:07:20

Gusar wrote:

WorMzy wrote:
This may be of interest: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n … px=MTM5NjE
Looks like the 3.11 kernel will be one to watch if you're a radeon user.
I just came here to post this, you beat me by two minutes!

I wonder if this is how Karol feels all the time. Haha.

ConnorBehan · 2013-06-27 01:11:35

drcouzelis wrote:

The open source Radeon drivers are not free software, although they are open source software. If you want to move to a full free and open source environment then I would recommend using Parabola GNU / Linux instead of Arch Linux.

Well if you use a distribution that refuses to include the tiny bin files in /usr/lib/firmware/radeon, then there is no way to get 3D acceleration with any AMD card. Most people I know still called Linux free software before projects like Coreboot were available.

kokoko3k · 2013-06-27 11:45:51

Well, i've got my answers, and i thank everyone for them.

Now we can speek a little bit about the "FOSS" issue.
What's the problem with a firmware inside a driver? I mean... that firmware hopefully will be uploaded on the card and run by the card, not from your cpu.
"WHAT" runs that code is relevant, because almost any device you use runs a software for which you don't have the sources.

So if one has to complain about "linux+binary firmware" not being really free, then it has to think twice before powering on the tv or using the wash machine.

From my point of view, firmware inside a driver does not really belong to the driver, but to the hardware itself, and every card you buy at the store is closed; and things remains the same even if you don't upload a firmware to it.

drcouzelis · 2013-06-27 12:51:19

ConnorBehan wrote:

drcouzelis wrote:
The open source Radeon drivers are not free software, although they are open source software. If you want to move to a full free and open source environment then I would recommend using Parabola GNU / Linux instead of Arch Linux.
Well if you use a distribution that refuses to include the tiny bin files in /usr/lib/firmware/radeon, then there is no way to get 3D acceleration with any AMD card. Most people I know still called Linux free software before projects like Coreboot were available.

I simply wanted to point out the contradiction in the original question by kokoko3k. I assumed when he said he wanted to use a "FOSS environment" that he actually meant he wanted to stop using closed source software. If he, in fact, did want to use only free software like he said, then it would be important to inform him that there are no free software Radeon drivers.

I realize that's pedantic of me, but when free software is concerned, it's always pedantic.

To summarize:

Open source software: Used because of technical merits. Opposite: Closed source software
Free (freedom) software: Used because of moral beliefs. Opposite: Non-free software

kokoko3k wrote:

What's the problem with a firmware inside a driver? I mean... that firmware hopefully will be uploaded on the card and run by the card, not from your cpu.
"WHAT" runs that code is relevant, because almost any device you use runs a software for which you don't have the sources.

There isn't really a "problem". It's just that, technically, a binary blob in an open source driver does not meet the technical definition of free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation, specifically "the freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish."

So if one has to complain about "linux+binary firmware" not being really free, then it has to think twice before powering on the tv or using the wash machine.

The FSF only deals with general purpose computers.

kokoko3k · 2013-06-27 13:19:01

drcouzelis wrote:

a binary blob in an open source driver does not meet the technical definition of free software as defined by the Free Software Foundation, specifically "the freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish."

You see the binary blob and the opensource driver as two different entities, and so does the GNU page speaking about BSD:
http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#BSD

So do I, where's the "problem" then?

Doesn't the Opensource radeon drivers come WITHOUT a firmware and *you* have to manually download it?

I know what the driver does.
Among other things i can study and modify, it uploads the firmware to the board. am i right?
Can i change that? yes i can.
IMHO the firmware is just data, not the program itself, as the driver doesn't really execute it.
Maybe i am wrong and it does?

What if a firmware has been already uploaded to the card ROM from the manifacturer so that the driver doesn't have to, is an opensource driver for it FOSS just because it does not transfer that data?

Couldn't be FOSS a bootloader that is able to boot code you don't have the source of?

in bold are the parts i'm really not sure of.

EDIT-skip the torrent part

Last edited by kokoko3k (2013-06-27 13:40:35)

drcouzelis · 2013-06-27 14:16:54

kokoko3k wrote:

Doesn't the Opensource radeon drivers come WITHOUT a firmware and *you* have to manually download it?

In Arch Linux, the firmware is in a separate package, called "linux-firmware". The driver and the firmware are developed together. You have the option to install the free software driver and not install the non-free firmware, but you will not be able to use hardware accelerated 3D graphics.

I know what the driver does.
Among other things i can study and modify, it uploads the firmware to the board. am i right?
Can i change that? yes i can.
IMHO the firmware is just data, not the program itself, as the driver doesn't really execute it.
Maybe i am wrong and it does?

Sure, that's a fine description of what happens.

This topic has been discussed a lot in the past. It sounds like, in your opinion, you don't feel there is anything morally wrong with using the Radeon driver. That's fine, it's just different from the opinion of the Free Software Foundation. You are, of course, welcome to use whatever software you'd like.

EDIT: I guess you could say you don't know what the firmware does. You can look at it yourself here:
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kerne … are/radeon
http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~baker/devices/lx … icrocode.h

Last edited by drcouzelis (2013-06-27 14:18:06)

kokoko3k · 2013-06-27 14:42:45

The driver and the firmware are developed together.

Probably that's what i was missing.
So the firmware is developed by the same people that codes the opensource driver and the firmware is a sort of "helper" for the driver?

In that case i finally understand the FSF concerns clearly.

ConnorBehan · 2013-06-27 22:17:45

Are the firmware files really that specific to the "open source" drivers? They do very simple, generic things like bringing up the CP registers. In fact, what they do must be practically nothing. They are about half the size of a compiled "hello world" program in C! It's not like the firmware has to be updated whenever there is a change to the DRM / DRI / DDX either. They are only written once.

As for having the firmware reside in ROM so that it never touches your hard drive... I think a few manufacturers do that. But if you do experimental things to your card like running "vbetool" you might accidentally wipe this and have to get the files back.

kokoko3k · 2013-06-28 06:16:49

Yes, probably they are harmless, but i can understand the problem as the source code could be partially obfuscated by relying on binary data.

Things would be different if that firmwares was written by someone else and the driver coders didn't understand what's inside.
But if are the same people writing firmware AND the code that utilizes them, the risk is higher.

Last edited by kokoko3k (2013-06-28 06:17:10)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-06-26 06:19:43

The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#2 2013-06-26 08:45:11

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#3 2013-06-26 09:05:28

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#4 2013-06-26 09:52:17

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#5 2013-06-26 12:34:56

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#6 2013-06-26 12:35:36

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#7 2013-06-26 13:49:59

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#8 2013-06-26 14:41:22

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#9 2013-06-26 15:12:13

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#10 2013-06-26 15:49:41

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#11 2013-06-26 15:53:42

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#12 2013-06-26 15:56:21

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#13 2013-06-26 16:07:20

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#14 2013-06-27 01:11:35

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#15 2013-06-27 11:45:51

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#16 2013-06-27 12:51:19

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#17 2013-06-27 13:19:01

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#18 2013-06-27 14:16:54

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#19 2013-06-27 14:42:45

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#20 2013-06-27 22:17:45

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

#21 2013-06-28 06:16:49

Re: The state of opensource radeon drivers?

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