

Linux 3.12 Brings Big AMD Radeon Improvements - Tsiolkovsky
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_linux312_preview

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Nux
I've got a RadeonHD 3200, currently with 3.11 it overheats and shuts down
automatically. AMD decided not to support this GPU with newer Xorg.

Curious if 3.12 will make a big difference. I don't need performance, I just
need the damn thing not to melt down and shut down.

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notok22
If you try what ensmotko says, can you give an update? I'm in the same
situation.

~~~
simcop2387
On my old laptop, an HP G61 something, I had a Mobility 4200. I hadn't been
able to test it with the released 3.11 (replaced it before it was out), but I
did always add the patches from the drm-next branch that was developing all of
this. It did make a decent change in the temperature of the whole laptop. From
being about 60C down to about 40C if I remember right. At least when I wasn't
trying to run minecraft.

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Sanddancer
Out of curiosity, what are the comparisons to the closed-source driver under
Kernel 3.12? The scant bits of info I can find -- a comparison to the windows
catalyst driver -- seem to suggest that the open source driver is still a good
deal slower ( [http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1307253-SO-
LEGACYAMD15#sy...](http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1307253-SO-
LEGACYAMD15#system_table) ). Additionally, Steam's been available for Linux
for years now, what's the framerate like on games that aren't Quake 3
derivatives?

~~~
slacka
I have a AMD 5970. Default gallium3D are 40-80% of the catalyst drivers in the
testing I've done, similar to the numbers phoronix gets.[1] If you're willing
to put up with some glitches, you can enable the SB backend and bring it to
80-95%, especially at higher resolutions.

I have a steam account and several Humble Bundles. From my experience, the
catalyst drivers always perform better and have fewer glitches. Many indie
titles are unplayable with gallium drivers. From openbenchmarking, Unigine
won't even run under the gallium drivers.[2]

What I'd really love to see is AMD commit to merging their Catalyst and
gallium drivers/teams. Sure the current 1 or 2 AMD open source guys can get
good results running Quake 3 derivatives. But without a full team backing them
up, I don't see how they can test hundreds of games for glitches and
performance regressions.

[1]
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_hd500...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_hd5000_dpm93&num=5)

[2] [http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1109040-LI-
AMDRADEON19](http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1109040-LI-AMDRADEON19)

~~~
Spittie
On your second link, that's a quite old (almost two years, if I'm not wrong)
benchmark. Unigine is now supposed to run on the free drivers, see
[http://www.gearsongallium.com/?p=752](http://www.gearsongallium.com/?p=752)

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phaemon
Oddly enough, I was just reading a similar article from last year about Linux
3.5 bringing massive improvements to Radeon. It would be interesting to see
something older like 3.2 compared to 3.12.

~~~
blinkingled
Dynamic Power Management (3.11) and ASPM (3.10) support itself should make a
huge difference for power consumption. Add in the various performance
improvements in both the kernel driver and Mesa user land the FPS should be up
quite a bit. (The Phoronix benchmarks say as much as 40% improvement.)

~~~
XorNot
The Radeon driver is still, despite it's faults, a way smoother experience
then the fglrx driver - notably so if you want to use a compositing window
manager (support still missing from AMDs proprietary end).

~~~
blinkingled
Yep, never ever used fglrx after radeon got usable. Allows me to upgrade
kernels whenever I want and now a days it runs cool, has UVD supported and
3D/2D performance is quite decent for desktop use.

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vanderZwan
For those who like me had trouble finding the actual benchmark results
mentioned in the article:

[http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1310099-SO-
RADEONRV716](http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1310099-SO-RADEONRV716)

