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  • negusp - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Linux support, AMD?
  • negusp - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Yes, you dork.
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    I'm hopeful they can improve since I don't want to have my choice of Intel or Nvidia on Linux for my next graphics card upgrade.
  • coder111 - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Wait what? AMD is great on Linux. The most FPS you can get with open-source drivers. And it's getting better by the day.

    NVidia is still better if you are willing to run BLOBs. But I don't want to deal with that hassle.

    Read phoronix for more Linux benchmarks.
  • negusp - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    AMD is horrible on Linux. The fglrx driver has no support and the open-source drivers aren't great. OpenGL performance is really quite bad as well.
  • Azurael - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    I don't get it, have you guys actually used AMD under linux recently? On the 7870 I just pulled out of my machine (and presumably at least all the GCN1.x cores, I know the later models use amdgpu which I've not tried), the radeonhd driver is totally stable now and fully supports OpenGL 4.5 and so far as I could see matches or betters the performance of the Windows drivers (though it's difficult to compare cross-OS, I wasn't about to mess up my Gentoo install with the proprietaries)

    Since I stuck a GTX 970 in my machine, I've realised it's actually Nvidia who are the laughing stock with drivers these days. In a matter of months, I've had stability problems under Windows, performance regressions with new drivers, the open source 'nouveau' driver won't even boot on said 970 as of 4.8.x without a bunch of kernel patches that just about enable 2D acceleration (but not at 1440, only 1080)

    The proprietary Linux drivers are okay but it's a right pain in the backside having to remember to rebuild them every time I do a kernel update, plus they have no framebuffer console support so if something goes wrong before GDM starts successfully, I have to SSH into my machine to resolve it.
  • Azurael - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    I should add that I can't use a VGA framebuffer because it's an EFI-booting system, and efifb conflicts with the proprietary Nvidia drivers. They are a joke. And that's before we get on to the DX12/Vulkan performance. I wouldn't be at all surprised if my old 7870 matched the performance of my 970 there...
  • Beany2013 - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    When AMD works on Linux, it works well.

    However, I have an Ubuntu 16.10 box, with an R280, and AMD have basically thrown me under the bus. I can't even play back HD video without stuttering. There is no info on whether they will ever actually support <GCN 1.2 on ubuntu, period.

    I'm going to have to revert back to Ubutnu 14.04.4 (not .5, as it has the Xorg that AMD can't be arsed working with) to get accelerated graphics back. Or install Debian instead (which would break the workflow I've had in Ubuntu for a few years).

    or keep my workflow and by nvidia.

    If anyone has an R280 on Ubuntu > 16.04 and has it working, let me know - because this, and AMDs attitude (IE *all* the development on Windows, fuck all on Linux) is really starting to get on my fucking tits.
  • artifex - Monday, December 12, 2016 - link

    You're blaming your gear manufacturer because your preferred distro that used to work with it dropped support in more recent spins?
  • JopV - Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - link

    Uhm, no. FGLRX stopped development and no longer supports newer Linux kernels. So only distro's with old kernels will work, it can impossibly work on any modern distro.
  • psychobriggsy - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    AMD has been shipping proprietary AMDPRO drivers on Linux for quite some time, and if you want open source then AMD is the only choice really given Nvidia won't provide Pascal firmware images for Nouveau, and even then the AMD open source drivers are faster (in fact they compete very well with AMD's blobs on Linux now, they just don't provide OpenCL and Vulkan yet).

    Sure, if you game on Linux the Nvidia blobs are a bit faster than AMD overall, but it certainly isn't like a few years ago.
  • BrokenCrayons - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Phrononix is my usual source for GPU benchmarks in Linux. I'm a regular reader over there and much of my current opinion was based on their performance analysis.
  • YukaKun - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    Benchmarks don't tell the day-to-day story. I have used both throughout the years and AMD has gotten ahead of the game now. People's complaints took some time, but they got their stuff together and they have zero things to have envy of nVidia's drivers.

    Performance not-withstanding, AMD is in a great shape now in the Linux world. In fact, I have to say it works wonders with SteamOS. Maybe I am a lucky one, but my 7970Ghz did not have a single issue playing all of the Linux ported titles and now the RX480 doesn't either. Outside of gaming, no issues either. It's been quiet sailing so far and I hope it remains that way.

    I can't say the same thing with nVidia in my laptop. I still, after 10 years aprox, still don't have switchable graphics and I am scared of upgrading the proprietary binary, since I've had issues with it, even using genkernel.

    Cheers!
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    Thanks for the information. I've been running a few older Nvidia GPUs (NVS 160m and 8400m GS) in my laptops without problems, but I don't use open source drivers. They experience has been very "sane" for my usage. I've yet to move my desktop with its GT 730 off Windows 7 which is largely a laziness thing as I already have an unused drive sitting in the case that just needs to be plugged in.

    I haven't personally tinkered with AMD graphics under Linux since I retired a couple of older laptops, one with a C-70 and another with an E-450 and their integrated GPUs. They were a pain to get working under Arch and Mint. I'm glad to hear that a current gen RX480 is working out for you. I might grab a RX460 in the next month or three and at that point I'll probably be more interested in transitioning to Linux and moving the system into a smaller case (microATX board in a full tower case...kinda a waste of space).
  • mr_tawan - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    Bad news is, the latest AMD's RFC for DAL/DC get slammed today.
  • psychobriggsy - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    Yeah, I definitely sense that AMD's Linux devs were being held back by a higher up PHB regarding the HAL that was being imposed. Hopefully this major burn will allow them to do things properly at the kernel level even if it needs some linux-specific stuff in the drivers.
  • IntoGraphics - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    No.
    Read Phoronix for "It Looks Like AMDGPU DC (DAL) Will Not Be Accepted In The Linux Kernel" :
    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&am...
  • VisS - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    What Crap ?
  • Colin1497 - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Out of the box this looks really impressive. Time to start the download.

    One question: Technical reason that rebadged r9-2xx series cards get HDR10 in their r9-3xx guise while the original r9-2xx's don't? BIOS or marketing?
  • Colin1497 - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Just realized how old I sound saying "start the download" like this was 1993 and it was going to take a week. It took a few seconds...
  • PseudoKnight - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    "took a few seconds..." cracked me up

    lol, now i'm imagining you starting up your download manager just in case your sister makes a phone call and you have to resume the download later.
  • A5 - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    It's possible the board designs spec a different HDMI/DP chip that supports it or something.

    Probably just a testing or marketing thing though.
  • Colin1497 - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Yeah, I have a box with a 285 in it (my son's). Doesn't have an appropriate monitor today, but the monitor is the next thing to get replaced, so it was personal interest driving the Q. :)
  • Manch - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Was wondering the same thing. Why the rebadge only. Ill start the download :D as soon as I get home. Then I'm requesting the feature for my 290X's
  • nathanddrews - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    The only differences over Hawaii that I know of are that Grenada has refined power delivery, power management, and faster 6 GHz VRAM. Pretty sure that Grenada and Hawaii share the same encode/decode blocks and display outputs, but it's possible that Grenada shipped with higher speed DisplayPort ports and it was never published due to the lack of concrete validation methodology at the time, but I doubt it. Pretty sure AMD/NVIDIA just buy DP/HDMI port hardware/controllers in bulk and order whatever is available at the time.

    Technically, HDR10 metadata can be streamed using older display connections (just like Dolby Vision), but without monitor/TV support, I'm curious to what AMD has planned. My guess is HDR10 will be limited to 8-bit Rec.709 on Grenada, whereas Polaris will get support for HDR10 10-bit Rec.2020, based upon port capabilities alone.

    Why TongaXT is included in the mix and not Hawaii, I don't know.
  • testbug00 - Sunday, December 11, 2016 - link

    Tonga is GCN gen3, Hawaii is GCN gen2.
    Gen1=Cape Verde, Pitcairn, Tahiti.
    Gen2= Bonaire, Hawaii
    Gen3= tonga, Fiji
    Gen4= P11, P11

    There is orland and I think one more 28nm GPU, but I do not know if they are gen 1, 2 or 3z
  • R3MF - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    "On the HDR front, AMD has been promoting that high end R9-300 series"

    What is it about a 390 series card that is absent in the 290 series card, to make the former compliant with HDR when the latter is not?

    Is this purely HDR10 support, or does it include Dolby Vision as EA have said Mass Effect Andromeda will use on the PC? If not, do AMD think this matters?
  • ET - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Hardware compatibility looks incomplete. It makes no sense for example that user feedback isn't available on APU's, or that VP9 4K60 works on discrete and Stoney Ridge but not on Bristol Ridge.
  • R3MF - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    Re: Linux support

    Does "SLED/SLES 12" support indicate there will be a driver compatible with Opensuse Leap 42.2?
  • PseudoKnight - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    I really appreciate AMD adding features and improvements to even their five year old cards (own a 3 year old card). I've also liked this new direction they've been taking with their software since Crimson. It never felt quite finished (with some things being tacked on) but this looks like it might finally rounds things out. I'm particularly looking forward to testing out ReLive DVR. I suspect I'll stick with OBS Studio, but here's hoping it surprises me.
  • valinor89 - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    I have tried the Relive recording and I get crashes on my Gigabyte R9 280x saying the vcore is unstable. My card has a 1100 factory overclock and the voltage is stuck at 1,200v. I have been using OBs with VCE and I have no problems, but seems like something in the new Relive feature doesn't like my card. Also, having the record logo all the time is anoying, specially as it also appears in the video.

    TLDR: Your mileage might vary
  • Senti - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    > At present the system does not offer recommendations as to what to buy (or where), or where to read reviews on potential upgrades. I highly recommend a site I know called AnandTech. I’m sure you’ve heard of it?

    Yeah, I've heard it used to be great hardware site. Now all it can do is fancy-print marketing slides. For example, Tom already posted benchmarks of Radeon Chill while we likely won't see anything substantiation for weeks.
  • Michael Bay - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    You forgot your 960 whine.
  • Senti - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    You can write your 960 whine, don't be shy. Otherwise people would have no idea what it means.
  • darckhart - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link

    then again, drivers are now 200 MB downloads where they used to be 25 MB at most...
  • valinor89 - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    Mine was a 440 MB download with all the software... I guess those include the almost legacy CGN drivers for my 280x and they can streamline the ones for the new 400 series.
  • Gigaplex - Saturday, December 10, 2016 - link

    It's half a gig (499MB) on the AMD download site...
  • Michael Bay - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    Presentation that by all rights should have been titled "look, our drivers are not as awful anymore!".
    Jesus christ.
  • AndrewJacksonZA - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    "H.265 encoding has been a part of GPUOpen, but with the new launch the tools are being expanded for in-game DX12 frame processing."
    Is that technology used while recording gameplay to disk, or else when is it used? BF1 was shown, which prompted me to think that it's for gameplay recording.
  • zodiacsoulmate - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    85M download... i have to download different version 10 times to get a working one. i guess i contributed
  • Ian Cutress - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    That's OK, I install one version and use it for 10+ systems. It evens out.
  • SydneyBlue120d - Friday, December 9, 2016 - link

    Is VP9 GPU decoding finally enabled with this release? Thanks.
  • overseer - Sunday, December 11, 2016 - link

    Warning! I got black screen right after installing of the ReLive driver. Was running ok with RX 480 and 16.9.2 whql driver and chose clean install with the new one, then desktop went black upon the last bit of installation. Tried reboot and recovery, no use. Now I have to reinstall my Win 10 - what a ReLive for the computer, oops..
  • darkvader75 - Sunday, December 11, 2016 - link

    This driver causes my screen to go black randomly like my card is turning off. I have 2 AMD Fury's in crossfire. I reverted back to the 11.5 and have no problems.
  • profdre - Thursday, December 15, 2016 - link

    Same black screen problem here: Win 10 boots, but at the exact time I try to right click on the desktop, screen goes black. Win 10 64 bit Pro, R9 290X. This is crap, AMD, test your drivers. I had to safe boot and uninstall with AMD Uninstaller and then installed the second newest version.
  • twtech - Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - link

    Who comes up with these names for AMD? I cringe reading some of them from the corniness. "ReLive"? "RyZen"? Sounds like MMO handle names of a 14 year old.
  • IntoGraphics - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    "Supported operating systems for this are Ubuntu 14.04 / 16.04, RHEL 6.8 / 7.2 / 7.3, and SLED/SLES 12 SP2."
    This should be written on the boxes of AMD based graphics cards. But AMD cock suckers prefers to take your money for nothing in return. Well to be honest you do get a lemon for your money. AMD, there are more Linux distros than Ubuntu, RHEL, CentOS, and SLED/SLES. If the green camp can release a common Linux driver for all distros ...
  • Furzeydown - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    That's .... just for the AMDGRU-PRO drivers. The open source Mesa drivers (which are arguably better, for gaming at least) are available as part of the Linux Kernel. Sheesh.

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