PC Drivers & Software

[aidan_walton]

The AMDGPU-PRO 18.20 preview driver for Ubuntu 18.04 will now not compile against the current kernel. This was always an issue in the past with just about any proprietary driver (other vendors included). I switched from Nvidia wholly because I was happy to see AMDs approach to the open-source community. I trusted that this support would continue and that it would result in improvements to my working environment. Currently this decision is questionable. Having said this please allow me to thank you for your work so far and I respectfully look to the future for further improvements.

As a blender artist I would like to get access to the OpenCL features. For this GCN architecture 2.0 or above is required. I use Radeon R7 260X/360, which does work with OpenCL as I have used this in the past with Ubuntu 16.04 and of course under Microsoft Windows. I am a under invested, struggling freelancer. I can not simply throw huge amounts of money at the latest and greatest GPU or CPU. I am forced to survive with what I have and careful spending on key elements of my system. Yet currently I am required to have a multi-boot system in order to have an sense of predictability with my daily work environment. This is 'clunky' and time consuming.

My questions to AMD (and others if appropriate) is straight forward, please understand, I don't expect miracles, but I need to develop a plan for how I organise my environment:

In the final release of AMDGPU-PRO support for this card (when it arrives?), will it have the OpenCL support as required for Blender?

1. Can you tell me and the rest of the community which kernel was used when developing this pre-release code (in order to help people compile against it currently)?

2. Can AMD suggest what will be any future upgrade process, (kernel changes included), if this closed source driver is used?

[Can we all expect to re-compile every time the kernel changes? I think all would agree that kernels, do have a habit of changing regularly, under Ubuntu they are installed with little warning of the significance as a part of the often daily system update process. This often kills graphics support and results in a failed boot process and the need to de-install the AMD driver from a limited command interface. Although this can be dealt with, it can be frustrating and every time, tends to leave the user 'crossing fingers' that the system will come up again after driver removal. Even after this there is still no guarantee that the PRO driver will then re-compile against any new kernel.]

3. Is it possible to explain in relatively simple terms, what is so critical inside the kernel that causes this on-going dependency. Is there no method for overcoming these dependencies?

4. Finally is it possible to make the OpenCL components available to the community to help them to be integrated into the open-source AMD driver code, which is regularly updated and always compiles correctly against the latest kernel.  Such as those available from Oibaf (https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/ubuntu/graphics-drivers)?

[This way the community is not so dependent on AMD].

Personally I am not trying to run games at high performance, I accept the limitations of my system, and I can live with a few glitches BUT, I am simply trying to take advantage of the 1 key reason that I invested in an AMD chip set. Accelerated Rendering for my 3D-modelling work. Will I always be facing these regular problems with AMD if I remain inside an open-source OS?

I hope you agree, that although we may represent a smaller proportion of your customer base, as FOSSers, we often influence other people's choice in hardware selection and some of us can get very vocal about our problems. Google searches, sure as eggs, start looking concerning when we have problems. Rumour has it that AMD are good people and OPEN minded towards the community. Is this still true?

In anticipation of a least a few suggestions and hints.

With respect and all the best wishes.

Aidan

[elstaci]

This Linux Forum is a good place to ask and maybe answer some of your questions : https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-drivers/open-source-amd-linux

From Phoronix Forum:

Radeon Software 18.20 Stable Released With Official Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Support

https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-drivers/open-source-amd-linux/1031764-rad...

[qnerd · Accepted solution]

Aidan,

you can go for the officially released version 18.30 for ubuntu 18.04, which you can get at

Radeon™ RX 580 Drivers & Support | AMD

Don't worry about the RX580 label, the driver is generic.

If you intend to use the amdgpu-pro for OpenCl, don't forget to install the OpenCl headers/SDK

via: apt-get install opencl-amdgpu-pro-dev

From your posting I understand that you are using a desktop system containing discrete graphic cards only?

qnerd

[aidan_walton]

Wonderful, success! Thank you so much.

Now I feel a little silly for being a little out of date with my info. The install worked flawlessly. A big thumbs up.

Now I wait for a kernel change to see what happens? ........

All the best

Aidan

[aidan_walton]

Hi,

I have come upon a small issue. Perhaps you can help.

I have had success with the PRO driver in allowing access to OpenCL features, but unfortunately some other software that needs OpenGL is now throwing up problems. The software complains that I need a version of OpenGL above 2.1. Now I am aware that the card I am using supports this version, on my system I see:

OpenGL version string: 4.5.13536 Compatibility Profile Context 18.30.2.15

However when I try to start the program in question is see this on the log:

libGL error: failed to load driver: radeonsi

I have some feeling the radeonsi is something from the opensource OpenGL driver?

Do you have any suggestions about how to move forward. Is it possible to use the fully opensource OpenGL implementation but still use the PRO OpenCL code. I see from the Ubuntu install instructions the OpenGL implementation is a default install option. Does this mean I can not mix and match like this?

Any help appreciated.

Aidan

[qnerd]

Aidan,

you might get around that experimenting with the '--headless' install switch.

It is not clear how far this will get you, though.

qnerd

[aidan_walton]

Thanks for the suggestion,

Actually after switching back and forth between the fully open drivers and the PRO driver, I have now settled on accepting OpenCL is missing and remained within the Ubuntu's maintainers driver code base. This is rather frustrating as clearly I have lost OpenCL support. Well not quite but the current fully open source OpenCL support is currenty stuck at only 1.1. Blender needs OpenCL 2.1, so I needed the PRO drivers for this only.

In fact as a matter of feedback this proved to be not the only reason I have currently decided in this direction.  I can also say that the PRO drivers where not perfect. I was seeing artefacts and some other strange effects when running the PRO driver. Specifically I think (excuse my ignorance) frame buffer issues. Whenever I pulled a menu the drop down list would be corrupted looking like random bitmap garbage, this remained so until I hovered the mouse over the drop-down area, only then would the menu list be correctly populated. Also inside another application that was using OpenGL I was seeing blocks of the screen constantly filled with the same type of bitmap garbage. This would not clear out and remained an issue. None of these where a real show stopper, but in combination with loosing access to other applications because of this OpenGL issue, I am concerned that the current state of the interplay between the PRO driver and the rest of Ubuntu's code base is not quite there yet.

You did not in fact explain what will happen with the PRO driver when the kernel changes. My past experience tells me that this will result in a need to re-compile the PRO drivers against the new kernel, and unless this changes, I will always be nervous of using the proprietary code.

Thanks for the effort but I suppose its back to slow renders or out-sourcing to a cloud based render farm. Although for quick testing while developing in Blender this is not a very effective option.

I am 'all ears' with regard to suggestions to improve my current experience.

All the best

Aidan

[aidan_walton]

Hi,

Okay I tried the --headless option and yes indeed this has fixed the problem. So thank you. Now I have success with OpenCL and OpenGL. I will keep you posted on the issues with artefacts, but I have to say I'm a little confused about what this configuration actually represents.

I assume that now I have the AMDGPU-PRO variant kernel modules, but the maintainers OpenGL, Mesa and acceleration implementation, using only the PRO OpenCL code where needed to run OpenCL code on the graphics card?

So far I have seen all applications running successfully, maybe also this will also resolve the menu artefacts. I will keep you posted.

Thanks again

Aidan

[qnerd]

Aidan,

sounds good so far!

Did you encounter problems with OpenCL since installing?

qnerd

[aidan_walton]

Hi,

No OpenCL seems fine, but I do have some questions about OpenGL. This seems to work, but the implementaion has stopped certain test suites from working, so I dont really know what it is capable of. I am currently operating my system based on the results of running: ./amdgpu-pro-install -y --opencl=pal,legacy --headless

It would be very helpful if you could explain more fully what exactly is ment by "omitting the OpenGL portion" in the statement from the installation instructions.

"In some scenarios, it may be desirable to install only the OpenCL portion of the Pro variant (omitting the OpenGL portion), which can be accomplished by adding the --headless option. The typical use case is headless compute."

The question is, what state does this leave the OpenGL implementation on a non-headless system? In fact choosing this option has allow some software that required OpenGL to work (or at least not to complain about the OpenGL framework version) where previous when I installed the AMDGPU-PRO with PRO OpenGL (./amdgpu-pro-install -y --opencl=pal,legacy) they would not. So am I falling back to maintainers drivers for the OpenGL? If this is the case why have the test suites for OpenGL stopped working? They complaing about a series of libraries that they are expecting to find. These work just fine with the Ubuntu default drivers.

I have some kind of OpenGL support as testing with basic tools like glxgears is successful.

Thanks

Aidan

[skgs1970]

Dear qnerd,

Sorry to barge in here. I do have a similar problem. My build is ryzen3 2200G on A320M MSI board with latest bios, 16GB Corsair vengeance DDR4 2400 MHz, 1TB seagate barracuda 7200rpm. It has18.04.1 LTS with amdgpu18.30 drivers.

The problem is during booting, it never boots in the first instance, even  it requires a reboot. The system will freeze at purple screen or the next screen with certain errors messages for AHCI, it only boots when I use the reset button. The sequence of booting continues after the second screen with AHCI errors, but now it shows me dev/sda/ clean message and boots in to login screen. The 18.04.1 LTS with 4.15.34 kernel and the amdgpu 18.30 drivers worked fine with opencl.

I want to use it for scientific work in human genome field. One of the  program UGENE loads the opencl drivers and worked well. Although VLC did give problems initially but but after loading the amdgpu-pro drivers it started working well.

I tried to use latest kernel 4.18.11 , although the booting happens without any glitch, there is no opencl support and the amdgpu drivers doesn't support the latest kernel.

Do you have any suggestions. I have been scouring various forums, but have not found a solution for it. I don't mind going to the default kernel with 18.04.1 LTS if the booting issue is resolved.

[jennyvi]

good thing i decided to open this forum, information has been noted. thanks a lot!

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