[HN Gopher] AMD CPU Use Among Linux Gamers Approaching 70% Marke...
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AMD CPU Use Among Linux Gamers Approaching 70% Marketshare
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 163 points
Date : 2023-07-02 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
| sylware wrote:
| My gaming rig is 100% AMD.
|
| Have state of the art, AMD linux dev kernel, mesa RADV etc, GPU
| firmware.
|
| But still on x11 native due to the steam client.
|
| Basically, it is a video game console hardware (since they are
| all AMD too) I can hack into.
| shmerl wrote:
| Shouldn't it work with XWayland?
| [deleted]
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Despite the major ground that AMD has gained in the CPU space in
| the past few years, I think it's still somewhat seen as the less
| mainstream of the two x86 CPUs, and I suspect that a userbase who
| has opted into an alternative OS is more likely to seek out
| alternative hardware as well, at least as far as is practical.
| Gamers in general have more freedom of choice in hardware
| compared to other segments of Linux users (fewer specific
| technical needs), so perhaps that's what's being expressed here.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| AMD competes hard with Intel on CPUs.
|
| And yet it takes a lazy, uncompetitive position against Nvidia,
| happily delivering overpriced and garbage new GPUs such as the
| 7600 RX with only 8GB RAM and a 128 bit memory bus.
|
| Nvidia pretty much refuses to drop prices beyond a token tiny
| amount on any of its current generation GPUs, many of which are
| underwhelming and extremely overpriced and unappealing to
| consumers.
|
| This gives AMD a chance to rip Nvidia to shreds in the GPU market
| but AMD chooses not to.
|
| Very strange.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| I built a new PC with AMD Zen 4 CPU end of last year, after using
| Intel for more than 10 years before that (last AMD I used before
| was an Athlon in the early 2000s! Intel Core 2 made me switch
| back to Intel then)
|
| I also use Linux exclusively, and play games on Steam using
| Proton (which works great for modern games. I do single player
| games though)
|
| However, no idea why there would be a correlation between Linux
| Gaming and AMD: I didn't switch to AMD because of Linux but
| because of AVX-512.
|
| I had no problems using Steam with the Intel CPU before that. But
| I find it wrong of Intel to not support AVX-512 in consumer CPUs
| (and having efficiency cores in my desktop PC is not something
| that excites me, and it's because of those that they dropped
| AVX-512), while AMD embraced it. If new Intel CPUs would have
| been simply like the i9-11900 but better (in a different way than
| the efficiency cores, more like faster, more performance cores,
| more SIMD etc...), I'd probably just have kept getting Intel ones
| out of habit.
| shocks wrote:
| I picked all AMD for my box specifically because of their open
| source Linux contributions. I have friends who have done the
| same.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| If you're strictly going by FOSS contributions you'd end up
| with an Intel CPU and an Arc GPU though.
| xslvrxslwt wrote:
| Absolutely lol, those people are amazing just spitting bs
| everywhere
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The intersection of technically apt people and value conscious
| gamers looking to squeeze more fps out of limited dollars picks
| the value brand with a rep for friendliness with open source.
| hero4hire wrote:
| Total marketshare was estimated at 1.5% for Linux gaming.
|
| The survey comes direct from Valve's Steam Survey. Potential bias
| aside the Steamdeck alone is estimated at 40%. Arch and Ubuntu
| ~8% each.
|
| Is there any other trustworthy metric of all "Linux Gamers" out
| there? I'm curious how much using the Steam Client effects or
| tilts results towards systems that easily run Steam. Self
| selection at it's finest. My logic side knows that with only a
| 1.5% rounding error to the total "PC" gaming isn't market
| significant. I should be happy with the trend.
|
| I own a Steamdeck. But it's like how my friends use their
| Nintendo systems. As an extension of my PC windows I was already
| personal project time with SteamOS and SteamLink. Point is, I
| wouldn't consider myself in the 1.5% even though I game wherever.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Steam survey doesn't represent reality, imho. When was the last
| time you were asked to participate? On how many machines,
| assuming you have more than one.
|
| I am sure Valve collects way more than they let on. Linux
| gaming is at a good place. However, I really wish AMD would
| release their CPU and GPU control software for Linux. Running
| newer AMF cards is painful because the stock BIOS settings are
| anything but sane. Gotta burn power to win benchmarks...
| striking wrote:
| The field of statistics is kind of based on the idea that you
| can take a sample and it might represent a population. Maybe
| you have a more specific complaint about the Steam Survey
| methodology in mind that I'm not picking up on?
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| The survey is a random sample every month. I think a fresh
| steam installation also triggers the question if you want to
| participate in it right then.
| duped wrote:
| I get asked about every six months.
| pengaru wrote:
| I can get behind the "Android isn't Linux" argument when it
| comes to claims of how numerous Linux users there are via
| smartphones. The userspace is quite distinct from anything GNU-
| like.
|
| But the Steamdeck uses very much a full-blown Arch-derived
| Linux distro. So I'm not sure it makes sense to categorize
| their users as anything other than "Linux gamers".
|
| The fact that AMD landed on the Steamdeck vs. NVIDIA or Intel
| is noteworthy. Their continued investment in mainline Linux
| support has clearly paid off.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > So I'm not sure it makes sense to categorize their users as
| anything other than "Linux gamers".
|
| It depends on what you're using this data for.
|
| If you are a game developer deciding what platforms to
| support then Steamdeck is fully distinct from Linux, imho.
| Support Steamdeck, it's likely worth it (depends on type of
| game)!
|
| However supporting Steamdeck may not require a native Linux
| port. It turns out the best way to support Linux May infact
| be to simply use the Win32 API!
|
| And even if you do support Steamdeck with a native Linux port
| it may not be worth your time to try and support Ubuntu and a
| billion flavors of Linux that are each broken in different
| ways.
|
| Supporting Linux clients beyond Steamdeck is likely not worth
| it for most games.
|
| Source: have shipped games with Linux support. Was extremely
| painful and not worth it.
| Scramblejams wrote:
| Just curious, what engine did you use for the games you
| shipped on Linux? And any differences in how well they
| did(n't) work that corresponded to which store you shipped
| on?
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| Custom engine. Store made no difference.
|
| FWIW Linux is easy to support if all you want to do is
| run a headless server on a single distro. Supporting more
| distros may require a little bit of dependency hell
| bullshit, but it's doable.
|
| What's a bloody nightmare is graphics and sound and the
| infinitely large matrix of janky environments gamers
| have.
| pengaru wrote:
| "Linux Gamers" _all_ have access to Proton /WINE. It's not
| some Steamdeck exclusive capability...
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| Steamdeck is a device with one hardware configuration,
| one set of drivers, one operating system, and one local
| environment. "Linux" is an infinite number of
| combinations derived from an a large and unbounded set of
| hardware, driver, OS, and environment choices.
|
| The reason that "supporting Linux is hard" is the
| combinatorial matrix of broken ass shit. Supporting a
| single configuration is easy.
|
| Proton/WINE works well on Steamdeck. It gets updated
| regularly by Valve for specific games when it doesn't. It
| is not as reliable for random gamer's random ass
| frankenstein setup.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Its not (just) about software support.
|
| The Deck uses a special, low power (specifically targeting
| ~9W), graphics heavy AMD SoC. It was actually the first of a
| new laptop CPU line that AMD seemingly canceled:
|
| https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-2021-2022-roadmap-
| part...
|
| AMD coincidentally had the right CPU at the right time. Intel
| and Nvidia had nothing comparable for Valve to use. In fact,
| the successor to the Deck chip is kinda an existential
| problem, as AMD's CPU-heavy laptop line (including the Z1) is
| less suitable.
| xigency wrote:
| > AMD coincidentally had the right CPU at the right time.
|
| They have been there pretty consistently, for example
| they've been the SoC provider for a few generations of Xbox
| and PlayStation consoles, now.
| Uvix wrote:
| Those have been desktop parts, not laptop parts.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Valve also had already spent considerable resources in
| making proton work well with AMD. even if an appropriate
| SOC was to be available from NVIDIA, it is possible that
| Valve would have chosen AMD.
|
| Mind, proton does work well with NVIDIA, but my
| understanding is that AMD gets the most testing.
| circuit10 wrote:
| NVIDIA doesn't have the license to make x86 chips with
| the modern patented features so they'd need to either
| have a dedicated GPU with an AMD/Intel CPU or develop, or
| invest resources into an existing, ARM emulation layer
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Or sell a small die for AMD/Intel to package, ala Vega-M.
|
| Or contract Centaur before they went defunct, maybe?
|
| Both these things would be quite out-of-character for
| Nvidia.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| If you include mobile games on ARM64 the the number of Linux
| gamers is significantly higher than x86.
| tmtvl wrote:
| I don't think that's very relevant when we're talking about
| AMD CPU usage, although it does mean that Phoronix may very
| well be technically wrong when talking about "Linux" gaming
| statistics. That said it's quite clear they mean GNU/Linux
| desktop gaming using x86_64-based systems.
| moffkalast wrote:
| [flagged]
| karamanolev wrote:
| Android is a very thick layer/shell around the actual Linux
| kernel, maybe some or a lot of patches, but still Linux.
| How much compiled Linux code does it run? Quite a lot.
| macOS, AFAIK, runs NO Linux (the kernel) source code.
| reassembled wrote:
| macOS is not based on the Linux kernel, it's based on
| BSD.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Android uses Linux the kernel. macOS doesn't use Linux the
| kernel.
| [deleted]
| to11mtm wrote:
| I'll be pedantic and cynical;
|
| - Android isn't quite Linux
|
| - A good number if not the majority of 'mobile games' are
| gachas/cow-clickers.
|
| At least to me, it's a bit like lumping old folks who play at
| churches into a 'Gamblers that visit casinos once a week'
| metric.
| plq wrote:
| > Android isn't quite Linux
|
| If we're being pedantic, let me be clear that Android _is_
| Linux. It just doesn 't use the traditional userland,
| mostly implemented by GNU. So it's Linux but not GNU/Linux.
| smegsicle wrote:
| if we're being correct and practical, let me be clear
| that 'linux' _is_ gnu /linux, so android uses linux
| kernel, but is not 'linux'
|
| also, 'gaming' (union of pc and console) and 'mobile
| gaming' are significantly different demographics
| post-it wrote:
| While true, often people talk about the proportion of Linux
| gamers in the context of growing desktop Linux market share,
| "the year of the Linux desktop," etc. Since Android and
| desktop Linux programs are largely incompatible, mobile games
| on ARM64 don't matter in this context.
| bjoli wrote:
| I just built a Linux computer with a Ryzen 9 7900 paired with an
| intel a750 (couldn't resist the 200 dollar price tag).
|
| I boosted the power target to about 125 watts and it runs like a
| charm. The GPU also just friggin worked. Not "just worked" as in
| "forget about your Nvidia driver, compile a kernel and end up
| with a text only boot". I haven't done anything, and suddenly I
| can do av1 encoding or run 3 screens in 4k60 without a hitch.
| otterpro wrote:
| I am using AMD Ryzen CPU because I don't need to use water-
| cooling, and I get a really decent performance out with 8 core/16
| threads. Intel CPU runs way too hot, and I don't want to spend
| more money on AIO, when I don't need to. AMD CPU generally runs
| much cooler (except on the high-end and thread ripper stuff, but
| I don't have high-end).
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| So far, my Linux 5800x was my second most stable machine after
| a Haswell Hackintosh (i5 4590), honestly, I am keen on
| returning to that, my intel machine has caused me immense
| trouble tbh.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Which distro?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| PopOS was absolutely fantastic, and I can't recall any
| issues.
| dbeley wrote:
| Yeah AMD has the edge on efficiency it's odd it's kind of an
| "underrated" feature nowadays.
|
| Using less power (thus less W to dissipate that will end up
| heating your room) for the same computing power? Who wouldn't
| want that?
| charcircuit wrote:
| I would have expected it to be Qualcomm since most Linux gamers
| are using Linux on mobile devices.
|
| Edit: This is about the Steam store which is biased since most
| Linux gamers get games off of the Play store.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| iOS is macOS too according to this definition since they share
| the same kernel and a bunch of other stuff (probably more than
| Android & GNU/Linux at this point)?
| my123 wrote:
| Much more. Android doesn't use glibc (or even musl).
| klardotsh wrote:
| Are we really doing this "well technically Android is Linux
| lololololol" nonsense in a thread that's very obviously
| referring to Linux on the Desktop? Next to nobody refers to
| Android as "Linux" in a general sense of the word, much like
| how next to nobody, outside of specific technical contexts,
| refers to birds as dinosaurs: while _technically_ birds may be
| the sole remaining member of the dinosaur family, we call them
| "birds" day-to-day.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| > Linux on the Desktop
|
| Technically Desktop/Laptop + Handheld since close to half of
| Steam users on Linux run it on the Deck
| blueflow wrote:
| What shit do i need to ship with my kernel so it qualifies as
| "Linux" to you?
| TX81Z wrote:
| There are dozens of us, dozens I tell you!
| teg4n_ wrote:
| I know they mention Steam Deck but I expect it's heavily skewing
| the results. I wonder what percent of linux gamers are accounted
| for by the Steam Deck. I expect it's rather large.
| atq2119 wrote:
| From the same Phoronix title page today, Steam Deck accounts
| for 40% of Linux Steam users. This means the other 60% are
| split roughly evenly between AMD and Intel.
| Hamuko wrote:
| What do you mean "skewing the results"?
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| They mean that most people don't think of Steam Deck users as
| "Linux Gamers". SteamOS is essentially an appliance OS. It's
| what comes with the Steam Deck. People don't choose it, it's
| the default.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| That's my take away too.
|
| I tend to still buy intel for new desktop builds - I'm not
| really bottle necked on the cpu for most of my computing needs,
| so I prefer the built in gpu for ease of maintenance and the
| better power efficiency (particularly idling, where intel still
| tends to do better).
|
| But my Deck means I'm showing up as AMD for most of my steam
| usage over the last few months.
|
| ---
|
| To avoid just being anecdata - I went and looked up some
| numbers (on google, they might still be wrong). As best I can
| tell, Steam claims about 1.9 million monthly active users on
| linux (may - 2023). Steam also claims that sales of the deck
| surpassed 3 million total units in 2023.
|
| So 50% of steam decks can end up buried in drawers somewhere
| and the steam deck would still be 70% of the active linux
| userbase.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That was my first thought, too: "Steam Deck uses AMD; that
| probably could singlehandedly drive it"
| kplex wrote:
| I'm due an upgrade to my gaming rig core soon, currently running
| an old 3950X with a 4090.
|
| AMDs crippling of new game releases by paying to have DLSSv3
| support omitted (most recently Jedi Survivor, and looking like
| Starfield) has completely soured me on the company. I don't feel
| inclined to support that behaviour financially with my next rig.
| Shekelphile wrote:
| > I'm due an upgrade to my gaming rig core soon, currently
| running an old 3950X with a 4090.
|
| I have a 3900x and I'll probably just hold onto it forever. New
| CPUs are faster but are 25%+ more expensive core for core on
| top of motherboards being 2-3x more expensive than their pre-
| COVID pricing for less features (specifically I need a second
| CPU linked pcie slot for a network card, and no affordable AM5
| motherboards seem to do 8x/8x lane splits like you could get
| with trivially affordable AM4 boards).
|
| > AMDs crippling of new game releases by paying to have DLSSv3
| support omitted (most recently Jedi Survivor, and looking like
| Starfield) has completely soured me on the company. I don't
| feel inclined to support that behaviour financially with my
| next rig.
|
| This isn't a new trend sadly. It's insanely annoying to boot a
| game and see only AMD's subpar stuff baked in whereas when you
| boot a vendor agnostic or nvidia sponsored game you usually get
| nvidia's stuff alongside amd's. They did it with the RE4 remake
| recently too, very annoying to be stuck with FSR when the game
| advertised DLSS 3 support and had it in the pre-release demo.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| I'm surprised it's not higher.
|
| Nvidia is actively hostile to Linux users. The worst part about
| gaming on Linux is dealing with Nvidia's drivers.
|
| To echo Linus Torvalds, and for good reason, fuck Nvidia
| severino wrote:
| > Nvidia is actively hostile to Linux users
|
| Actually, Nvidia is what allowed many Linux users to enjoy high
| quality 3D graphics on Linux for more than 20 years. You
| remember fglrx and that stuff? Well, Nvidia worked.
| mort96 wrote:
| This was me. I had a Radeon 290x. It worked alright, but
| fglrx was terrible (and the config UI was the only non-
| English app in my system, it didn't respect locale settings),
| and when AMDGPU first arrived, it was a horribly buggy
| flickering mess. I upgraded to a 1080Ti after high-end Vega
| failed to materialise, and nvidia's drivers kind of just
| worked, especially on Ubuntu (they were proprietary of
| course, but so was fglrx).
|
| It wasn't really before Wayland started being a serious
| option that nvidia started to become a problem. I've now
| upgraded to a Radeon 7000 series GPU, and the open source
| drivers are a breeze and Wayland works much better than it
| does under nvidia's drivers. But I maintain that at least
| during the GTX 900 series through probably the 2000 series,
| nvidia was the only reasonable choice, even on Linux,
| especially if you wanted anything mid-range or above.
| foresto wrote:
| > Nvidia is what allowed many Linux users to enjoy high
| quality 3D graphics on Linux for more than 20 years.
|
| That was very welcome at the time, but the bar has been
| raised. I now have the option of a GPU that plays games _and_
| integrates well with all my other OS features, so I switched.
| It has been great to be free from all the annoyances that
| came with the Nvidia drivers.
| johnny22 wrote:
| yep. nvidia was the only choice back then. I don't see how
| folks have forgoten that. But, now it's all AMD for me,
| because amd doesn't require a closed source driver or
| userspace. Apparently that will change in the next year or so
| though. It'll be interesting to see how the open nvidia stuff
| compares in the future.
| mort96 wrote:
| Nvidia will always require a closed source userspace, the
| only part they've opened is the kernel side. And the new
| kernel driver only works for 2000 series or newer.
|
| But it's still a pretty huge step in the right direction,
| even though it won't be as nice as AMD's fully open source
| and upstreamed driver.
| silisili wrote:
| Some people have no idea how nice it is now compared to 15
| or 20 years ago.
|
| I took an NVME out of an Intel machine, threw it into an
| AMD machine, booted it, and everything just worked,
| graphics included. No weird network drivers to track down,
| sound card drivers, proprietary graphics or even xf86-
| stuff needed.
| [deleted]
| MBCook wrote:
| This is CPUs, not GPUs.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| I've had nothing but issues with AMD on Linux. 7970,280x,rx580
| and vega64. All of them had horrible bugs for what I was doing
| and amd opengl sucks. I eventually got sick of all the hard
| lock bugs running emulators, and the driver devs not wanting to
| fix it because Nintendo was their customer.
|
| Then I switched to nvidia and everything just works with
| similar performance to windows.
|
| Unless installing the drivers is too hard, nvidia is the best
| was to game on Linux
| code_duck wrote:
| Installing the drivers is easy, but that doesn't mean they
| work immediately. I got a fairly old computer a couple of
| years ago and put an RTX 3070 in it... I tried installing
| several distros and each of them would go through the install
| fine, then give a blank screen when I tried to boot. I tried
| all sorts of configuration and driver installations, both
| free and offical NVidia. I finally got one to work like it
| should, but it took about 10 days of messing with it.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I installed the official drivers on Fedora 38 and Debian 12
| lately and had zero problems with it. DKMS just rebuilds them
| after each kernel upgrade.
|
| Chrome and other stuff still don't work great but is that
| NVIDIA's fault? Honest question, I don't know.
| shams93 wrote:
| Yeah what I found with these recent generation combo of nvidia
| + intel while powerful and while I can install linux, had
| issues with serious over heating causing a shut down where the
| nvidia driver was causing heat issues on the laptop, once
| switching back to windows 11, no more thermal issues.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| >> Nvidia is actively hostile to Linux users.
|
| Nvidia has excellent Linux drivers.
| Benanov wrote:
| Both these statements can be true. Their drivers can be
| excellent but try to do anything with your Linux machine
| after the Nvidia drivers are installed and you run into
| trouble.
|
| Ubuntu release upgrades used to be impossible w/ Nvidia
| drivers. You'd get into a situation where you'd boot into a
| text-only console, but because nvidia didn't do kms you'd get
| 40x25 with the first few characters off the screen.
|
| Now I buy AMD.
| treprinum wrote:
| Maybe my experience is vastly different, but Nvidia just works.
| I have a laptop with 3080, a Threadripper with 2x3090 and an
| Intel with a 4090 and A6000 and it works without any fuss in
| Linux (I mostly use it for Deep Learning but sometimes gaming
| as well).
| pizza234 wrote:
| > but Nvidia just works
|
| Not really. On some/several/many Nvidia cards (I had a few),
| one can't even boot with a stock Ubuntu CD, because Nouveau
| has (unfortunately) a very lacking support, and proprietary
| drivers are not preinstalled by default on the CD.
|
| AMD's drivers are at least open source and integrated in the
| kernel. On the other hand though, having owned several Nvidia
| and AMD cards, I didn't find any brand to be noticeably more
| stable than the other (each one had issues).
| Remmy wrote:
| I just did a fresh Arch install last week. Running 6.4.1
| kernel on a ThreadRipper CPU with an RTX 2070 Super and an
| RTX 3060. Driver version 535.54.03 and CUDA 12.2.
| Everything "just works". There was no manual configuration,
| tweaking or hacking around needed. No issues running
| Wayland, Proton is handling gaming beautifully and not a
| sign of screen tearing.
|
| The experience is different for everyone it seems.
| charcircuit wrote:
| That sounds like a bug with Ubuntu not having the proper
| drivers.
| SadTrombone wrote:
| > Nouveau has (unfortunately) a very lacking support, and
| proprietary drivers are not preinstalled by default on the
| CD.
|
| In my opinion an open-source driver not written by Nvidia
| and an Ubuntu ISO not packaged by Nvidia aren't indicators
| of Nvidia "just work"ing or not. There are many distros
| where Nvidia drivers come installed out of the box.
| mindslight wrote:
| In my opinion, formed from over two decades of Linux, a
| piece of hardware having a libre driver written for it is
| the exact indicator of what can be relied upon to "just
| work". The last proprietary graphics driver I ran was
| fglrx for a laptop R1400. One day AMD/ATI just straight
| up removed that card from the driver, with the newer
| driver being required for the newer X, unilaterally
| declaring my laptop obsolete. Never again.
|
| (where I can help it. Mobile is obviously a forced-
| obsolescence dumpster fire)
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| NVidia are the only GPU manufacturer that actually support
| Linux.
| dbeley wrote:
| No they're not
| publicmail wrote:
| Both AMD and Intel have actively-maintained open source
| drivers in the Linux kernel.
| deadbunny wrote:
| What? AMD develop their open source drivers and submit them
| to the kernel and they have their own set of Linux specific
| closed source drivers.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Yes, and the open-source ones are not accelerated, and the
| closed-source ones don't work.
| itsboring wrote:
| Wow, software 3D rendering must have really gotten fast
| then. I play all my Steam games on Linux using the open
| source amdgpu driver. Or maybe I just imagined all those
| extra frames in RDR2. Someone should tell Valve that the
| Steam Deck could be a lot faster.
|
| Or, I guess the other option is that you're spreading
| misinformation.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| Please don't spread misinformation. AMD GPUs have had
| full 3d acceleration out of the box for several years
| now. I use Linux exclusively and had great performance in
| 3D games on R9 380, RX 570, and RX 580, all using the
| mainline (obviously FOSS) driver.
| trelane wrote:
| Yep, and the docs are freely available.
|
| https://gpuopen.com/amd-isa-documentation/ for AMD.
|
| https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/graphics-
| for-li... for Intel
| pengaru wrote:
| To be fair, pre-amdgpu, nvidia's proprietary linux drivers
| were sadly an exceptional "supported" situation.
|
| Back then it was basically just Intel's integrated graphics
| that had first-class mainline support. The AMD linux
| support is a relatively recent shift historically speaking.
|
| Intel really should get a lot more recognition for its
| mainline Linux graphics support though. Without their
| contributions over past decades we might not even have a
| modern graphics stack at all in-kernel.
| [deleted]
| deadbunny wrote:
| CPU, not GPU...
| [deleted]
| littlestymaar wrote:
| This is about CPU, son AMD vs Intel, not GPU for which AMD is
| competing against Nvidia
| paulmd wrote:
| the positive/negative parasocial relationships people have
| with AMD and NVIDIA (respectively) borders on "splitting" in
| the personality-disorder sense. AMD represents everything
| wholesome and good about computing and nvidia represents
| everything bad and malicious about computing, to a lot of
| people. And when they see one of the brands they just have to
| hammer that post button to signal their virtue.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You're reading way too far into someone getting the context
| wrong.
| paulmd wrote:
| Even here on HN, even when it isn't a mistake, basically
| any thread that mentions nvidia essentially devolves into
| "Linus said fuck nvidia". It's effectively a thought-
| terminating cliche and it poisons almost every GPU
| discussion.
|
| It's really not just the Linus thing either. Every time
| AMD does anything anti-consumer people feel the need to
| temper it with praise about all the good they've done,
| and give them every benefit of the doubt about "maybe
| this isn't true, maybe they had a good reason, etc" while
| every single thing nvidia does is viewed through the most
| negative and malicious possible lens.
|
| It's pretty clearly some variety of splitting plus
| parasocial attachment, AMD is "the good one" and nvidia
| is the bad one.
|
| Anyway, it just sucks because it poisons discourse. How
| many posts did we get into this thread before the "Linus
| said fuck nvidia" canard came out? Zero.
| izacus wrote:
| Nah, these off topic rants are pretty much there in every
| single topic here. Every AMD/nVidia article has bunch of
| people just ranting without even trying to read the
| topic.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _AMD represents everything wholesome and good about
| computing_
|
| Must be an opinion of someone who has never had to deal
| with AMD customer support.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| This is about CPU, not GPU. Also dealing with AMD GPU drivers
| is just as difficult.
| dbeley wrote:
| Just as difficult? AMD GPUs are plug-and-play on linux (if
| you have latest gen you should run a recent enough kernel but
| that's basically it), whereas Nvidia GPUs need their
| proprietary drivers which adds much more complexity for
| beginner users.
| atq2119 wrote:
| AMD GPU drivers come with Linux distributions by default.
| There's literally nothing you have to do, unless your GPU is
| very recent.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| My gpu is quite recent and the only thing I had to do was
| make sure I'm running a recent kernel.
| mort96 wrote:
| I also had to make sure I'm running a decent enough MESA
| and a recent enough llvm and a recent enough linux-
| firmware. It's not trivial.
|
| But if you're on a distro with a recent enough version of
| those things, it Just Works.
|
| I do wish distros like Ubuntu were more on the ball with
| regards to hardware support though. Ideally, someone
| running an up to date Ubuntu LTS should have a system
| which just works with new AMD hardware within at most a
| few weeks. It's currently a matter of many many months.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > Also dealing with AMD GPU drivers is just as difficult.
|
| This was true ten years ago, and remains true only for
| hardware dating back to that time period. My old HD7850 is a
| royal pain to get running properly on a modern distro.
|
| For any remotely recent GPU that's supported by what's built
| into the linux kernel, it's pretty much seamless. There are
| no specific driver updates to deal with, which model of card
| does not matter, etc. It's all just built into the kernel.
| yoshamano wrote:
| This has been my experience with my Radeon RX 6750 XT and
| Manjaro. I didn't have to do anything and it just works. I
| use Steam/Proton to game and that just works as well.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The 7850 was from the transition period where the radeon
| development was ending but it also didn't get immediate
| amdgpu support.
|
| An earlier card will use radeon and be easy to setup, a
| later one will use amdgpu and be easy to set up. That
| generation takes a bit of work.
| Shekelphile wrote:
| I'm not even sure why people have this myth that AMD's GPU
| support is good on linux. Having an upstreamed driver doesn't
| mean much when it's just as buggy and unstable as the closed
| drivers were 10-15 years ago. Everyone I know using a modern
| AMD GPU on Linux evangelize the fuck out of them while
| simultaneously complaining about constant black screens/hard
| freezes/poor performance in games/etc. I've never experienced
| such issues with nvidia and besides the annoyance of having
| to make sure you have the proprietary blob installed there's
| no real issues.
| minimaul wrote:
| I genuinely don't recognise what you're describing - for
| context I have a AMD APU system (5750GE - zen 3 and vega
| GPU cores), and a steam deck. I've had the APU for over a
| year now. I also have a desktop with a NVIDIA 3090.
|
| All three are stable for general desktop use on Arch Linux
| (so up to date kernels etc). The NVIDIA set up has massive
| compute advantages (CUDA), but for desktop use if anything
| I have fewer issues on AMD - especially relating around
| desktop tearing and video which is where I have the most
| pain with NVIDIA.
|
| Black screens & hard freezes are nonexistent. Gaming
| performance on the Steam Deck and APU is reasonable for the
| hardware. Proton works better for me with AMD than NVIDIA
| (which makes sense, after all Valve's development of it is
| aimed at the steam deck primarily).
| Shekelphile wrote:
| My experience is that universally my linux gamer friends
| who own AMD products have worse experiences than I do -
| they are absolutely usable, but not worth buying at all
| if your primary purpose for owning a GPU is gaming.
|
| > Black screens & hard freezes are nonexistent. Gaming
| performance on the Steam Deck and APU is reasonable for
| the hardware. Proton works better for me with AMD than
| NVIDIA (which makes sense, after all Valve's development
| of it is aimed at the steam deck primarily).
|
| Most likely you are playing games that Valve has already
| deployed patches/hacks for. Go off the beaten path from
| Steam and the proton runtime and you will find quickly
| that AMD is severely buggy.
|
| Black screening is especially common with vega dgpus,
| can't say if it extends to the igpus are not but if you
| google 'vega black screen bug linux' you will find
| hundreds of reddit posts and bug reports about this going
| back to 2018.
| minimaul wrote:
| I'm playing quite a wide variety of titles - from recent
| AAA on the Steam Deck to really old titles that have
| never even been on Steam. Plus emulators for all sorts of
| systems - from really old up to things like GameCube/Wii
| or even Switch.
|
| I can't speak to discrete cards, but it's been pretty
| reliable for me.
|
| I'm curious as to if your friends are using distros with
| older Mesa/kernels? That might explain some of the
| disparity.
|
| edit: for some more context - I have tried a linux
| desktop about once a year every year for the last decade.
| Every time I've bounced hard due to issues on a variety
| of hardware - intel only, intel CPU + nvidia GPU, intel
| CPU + AMD GPU, AMD CPU + NVIDIA GPU, etc. Last year (feb
| 2022 or so) is the first time I've made it work for me
| for the long term, so maybe it's just that in that time
| it's finally got to a good point? :)
| lom wrote:
| It's CPU?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Do you game on a laptop? The only thing you do with Nvidia on
| desktop is $install-cmd nvidia
| renewiltord wrote:
| I've stuck to nvidia for years and it's reliable on Linux.
| Needs proprietary drivers for full performance. I don't think
| they're actively hostile since they have drivers available. It
| used to be that you struggled to get acceleration. Nvidia
| drivers were the only reliable way. I had an ATI GPU too and
| drivers were not as good on Linux.
|
| Article is about CPU, though, and both manufacturers seem
| comparable. I have Ryzen for price/performance.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Not very significant. Linux gamers represent 1.5% of the market
| share, 40% of them are steam deck users, which use AMD
| components. But the steam deck is closer to a game console,
| people don't really chose the hardware and OS, they buy a pre-
| built system, and who care what's inside if it can play games
| well. It is more hackable than a Nintendo, but hackers are, I
| think, a minority.
|
| If you remove the steam decks, AMD market share goes down to 50%,
| similar to their Windows counterparts.
| pengaru wrote:
| > who care what's inside if it can play games well
|
| Intel might
| timschmidt wrote:
| Gamers in this category have a choice between Steam Deck and
| Windows alternatives like the Asus ROG Ally, GPD Win, and many
| others. One could see the success of Steam Deck as being
| directly related to it's choice of OS. As a consumer, I want a
| game device, not another copy of Windows to administer.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| It's a shame AMD doesn't really have working acceleration or GPU
| compute. I guess they're cheaper than NVidia for a reason, but it
| would be nice to have an alternative. Likewise, though, I guess
| all the video editing and VFX pipelines use Linux and NVidia for
| an equally good reason.
| minimaul wrote:
| Their compute stack is still very lacking compared to CUDA, but
| it is improving.
|
| The OSS 3D acceleration for Radeon cards is functional,
| implements Vulkan and OpenGL competently, and is fast. It's
| built primarily by AMD & Valve engineers (and contractors).
|
| Saying they do not have working acceleration is completely
| untrue.
| cma wrote:
| Vulkan compute?
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Nothing uses Vulkan.
| shmerl wrote:
| AMD GPUs are also on the rise, given poor Linux user experience
| with Nvidia.
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