Arch Linux

maboleth

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 234

Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

In nvidia it seemed so simple - install proprietary drivers, opencl libraries and you're good to go!

Amd promised phenomenal out of the box support, but while it did boot without any drivers, installing the right ones is a bit mystery to me?

First of all - why proprietary AMD drivers are on AUR and not in regular packages? (similarly the way Nvidia ones are).

2. what exactly to install, to use the maximum potential of my card?

3. Should I enable Wayland for kde? Any benefits?

Last edited by maboleth (2020-11-23 20:58:34)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,040

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

First of all - why proprietary AMD drivers are on AUR and not in regular packages? (similarly the way Nvidia ones are).

https://www.amd.com/en/support/gpu-pro-eula

2. LICENSE

Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, AMD hereby grants You a non-exclusive, royalty-free, revocable, non-transferable, limited, copyright license to use the Software solely in conjunction with systems or components that include or incorporate AMD processors, as applicable.

3. RESTRICTIONS

Except for the limited license expressly granted in Section 2 herein, You have no other rights in the Software, whether express, implied, arising by estoppel or otherwise. Further restrictions regarding Your use of the Software are set forth below. You may not:

    modify or create derivative works of the Software;
    distribute, assign or otherwise transfer the Software;
    decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise reduce the Software to a human-perceivable form (except as allowed by applicable law);
    alter or remove any copyright, trademark or patent notice(s) in the Software; or
    use the Software to: (i) develop inventions directly derived from confidential information to seek patent protection; (ii) assist in the analysis of Your patents and patent applications; or (iii) modify existing patents.;
    use, modify and/or distribute any of the Software so that any part becomes subject to a Free Software License.

Emphasis added.

maboleth

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 234

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

Alright, thanks for that!

But now I feel like the guy that didn't read the tiny text on the back of the paper.

While AMD gpu is Linux friendly and included in the kernel, to unlock the full support of your GPU card, you'll need to use proprietary driver in AUR - install manually wherever there's a new version.
Thus won't be updated automatically like other programs with pacman -Syu?! :-/

At least for now I feel there's a less hassle using Nvidia.

Last edited by maboleth (2020-11-23 21:42:08)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 19,040

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

Do you have any issues with the open source userspace for amdgpu?

Taijian

Member

Registered: 2016-04-10

Posts: 74

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

You're making the mistake of treating AMD like NVIDIA. Don't.

Simply install your kernel of choice and mesa + vulkan-radeon.

Done.

maboleth

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 234

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

Do you have any issues with the open source userspace for amdgpu?

Not exactly, but it's a bit complicated.

Mesa OpenCL does not provide "Image support", thus I had to install opencl-amd from AUR to have OpenCL enabled in Darktable. I've heard the same is true for Blender and other video-hungry programs.

Also, should I install VA-API or VDPAU? Or both? Because the cards listed there are long since deprecated. My is Radeon RX 5000 or Navi.

You're making the mistake of treating AMD like NVIDIA. Don't.

I'm not. But I didn't know I'd have to rely on AUR package for the required OpenCl support. As of 2020, Mesa is still not providing Image support.

Last edited by maboleth (2020-11-23 22:22:00)

maboleth

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 234

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

Also from 45-65 fps to 65-90fps when using AMD proprietary drivers in Steam games. That's over 20fps increase for me!

Sadly, all open source drivers fall flat over this. I'm satisfied with my new AMD card though and I'm glad I switched. I just wish this was in the official repos if it weren't for AMD restrictions, but oh well.

Last edited by maboleth (2020-11-23 23:45:48)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 15,388

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

opencl in mesa saw very little development in the last years, but it has been picked up by red-hat .
With mesa-git opencl 3.0 is supported and Image Support is WIP , https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mes … uests/7241

Keep in mind that amdgpu-pro is targeted at enterprise uses and is tested only on supported distros.
The most uptodate of the supported distros tend to be ubuntu LTS versions.
Currently that's on 20.04 and still relatively close to archlinux kernel/mesa etc , but the gap will grow larger fast.

Don't be surprised when amdgpu-pro stops working on archlinux.

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

maboleth

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 234

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

opencl in mesa saw very little development in the last years, but it has been picked up by red-hat .
With mesa-git opencl 3.0 is supported and Image Support is WIP , https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mes … uests/7241

Keep in mind that amdgpu-pro is targeted at enterprise uses and is tested only on supported distros.
The most uptodate of the supported distros tend to be ubuntu LTS versions.
Currently that's on 20.04 and still relatively close to archlinux kernel/mesa etc , but the gap will grow larger fast.

Don't be surprised when amdgpu-pro stops working on archlinux.

@Lone_Wolf
That doesn't sound promising if true though, but what is expected to change as arch progresses forward? What kind of problem? Compatibility, speed...?

You see, it's not just about the Image support of OpenCL. I mean sure - it's great if Red-hat picked it up and that I could potentially use mesa-git opencl for Darktable.

BUT, having +20fps improvement in games with proprietary drivers isn't something I can pretend it didn't happen. It's a major improvement, on par as having a next gen. hardware.

If I invested in my GPU you can bet on it I want to extract every drop of performance that I can.

maboleth

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 234

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

Hmm, I started all from scratch - uninstalled all amdgpu pro drivers and files, uninstalled and deleted steam in /local/steam dir and let the game build some cache.

I installed vulkan-radeon for Arch and chose the same for Steam.

Apparently I have the same fps as with pro drivers. Puzzled a bit, but so far so good!

Last edited by maboleth (2020-11-24 17:40:54)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 15,388

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

Glad it works better now.

RADV (vulkan-radeon) (and ANV /vulkan-intel)  performance is one of the strongest reasons to use open source drivers.

Some info to help you decide what to use :

vulkan implementations for amdgpu :

RADV -
opensource, maintained as part of mesa
devs tend to prefer general improvements over fixes only benefitting individual applications
Uses ACO (also in mesa) for very good shader performance. (Aco was started by Valve and they still are actively supporting it)

amdvlk -
opensource, maintained by amd
amd drops code every few weeks
lots of fixes for specific applications
compatible with mesa

vulkan-amdgpu-pro
closed source
can only be used together with the other amdgpu-pro parts

opencl options

opencl-mesa
opensource but has limited functionality

RocM
opensource, maintained by AMD
part of AMD GPUOpen strategy
frequent releases
used to be hard to get to work on archlinux, has improved a lot recently
doesn't support all cards / motherboards
can be used with mesa drivers

opencl-amd
closed source, part of amdgpu-pro
compatible with mesa drivers
can be installed separately from rest of amdgpu-pro

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2020-11-27 11:59:43)

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

maboleth

Member

Registered: 2020-01-03

Posts: 234

Re: Having AMD 5500 GPU after Nvidia and puzzled what drivers to choose!

Thanks a lot @Lone_Wolf on that list. It can be useful to anyone that is on the fence or undecided what to try for their AMD card.

Seems like I made the right choice. The only thing I'm waiting is for Mesa to finally built-in that Image support in OpenCl. So currently I'm running opencl-mesa and opencl-amd together.