So I have been using Bazzite/SteamOS in my living room PC for about 5 months and I love it, but I have decided (and/or leaning heavily) to switching back to Windows as there are just too many compromises I have to make on Bazzite and since I have 9070XT.
Compromises such as lack of full bandwiddth HDMI 2.1 in Linux (I can get 4K/120 with 8-bit 4:2:0 and it looks pretty good actually. You could tell most people it was 10-bit 4:4:4 and they couldn’t tell the difference in gaming.) but the deal breaker is lack of FSR4 support, which will come, but not until later this year
So, I am actually hoping you guys can level with me…
Is there ANY hope that the HDMI 2.1 issue can be resolved? If nvidia and Intel have figured it out, how come AMD hasn’t? There MUST be a way and I just want SOME hope that it could be resolved. I feel like it is something that could be HACKED into the kernel. Or I have heard people ask why AMD couldn’t implement the special instructions into the firmware… I feel like there has to be a way.
FSR4 support for linux likely wont come until the SDK is release, I am told. However, games that use FSR3.1 look far better than I expected and I honestly couldnt see much difference on bazzite vs windows.
Sell me on sticking with bazzite as the convenience of a completely consolized gaming experience is REALLY amazing.
TVs don’t have display port so that’s 100% a moot point. I don’t think there is a single model anywhere. Even if there was I doubt it would be in 65 inches like my living room TV.
There have been reports of the DP-HDMI2.1 solution working. Most cables of that type will work without VRR which is an unacceptable compromise, but a cable from CableMatters supposedly worked with everything. So I tried it and I had full 4K/120 with 10-bit 444 HDR and VRR from Cablematters. I thought I found the magic fix.
It worked perfectly….for about a day then it just stopped working. Just stopped. It would no longer allow me to select a refresh rate of 120Hz and I couldn’t get it work so I returned it.
I may try again once we get full DP2.1 to HDMI2.1 cables. I’m sure someone with a decent understanding of Bazzite could figure it out but I could never get responses on how to troubleshoot.
There will never be feature parity - Linux distros typically get support for this consumer-type stuff from manufacturers quite a bit later - ranging from days, to weeks, to months or longer for some features. So there will always be something missing.
This particular HDMI feature is especially aggravating… Luckily for me, with my under-powered hardware and old-ass TVs, going beyond 60 hz will not be an issue for several years in my household so I’m not giving up much of anything by continuing to steer clear of Windows.
I don’t get the feeling FSR4 is anything to give a crap about - seems like it’s no better than 3.1. So for you, it sounds like it’s really just console experience, vs correct video bitrate, if you have nothing else in particular against using Windows.
I must admit I don’t have any hardware capable of FSR4. Whatever they’re using on Jedi Survivor with old hardware looks like shit, though (outside a particular mod that fixes it.) And whatever they’re using on mechwarrior 5 clans looks like 100x better than that. I’d bet those games are supposed to be the same tech (3.1?), so ???
Ratchet and Clank and Horizon FOrbidden West are two examples of titles massively improved by FSR4.
Digital FOundry has a video on this.
Interestingly, I played HFW on Windows (using FSR4) and Bazzite and honestly they looked identical to me, leading me to believe that maybe MESA drivers have already implemented FSR4
A silly idea would be to use something like a capture card (in with the DP, out with the HDMI). But I’m not sure about lag input here (although I played games with Steam Remote, and can’t say I felt a lag).
HDMI 2.1 is off the table until HDMI consortium realizes it’s not a good long term strategy to piss off a large majority of the computer guru crowd. Sadly, that might take a while. In fact, it might require years until they realize their bottom line is falling out from them, due to a RISC-V like disruption.
Just you wait, HDMI… Just you wait…
More seriously, yeah, this downright “betrayal” of HDMI really sucks. It will get better eventually, Linux is just in too many places that, once HDMI 2.1 interfaces come out the smart TVs will start wondering why the bleep their AMD APUs can’t do HDMI 2.1. Not to mention PS5 and so on. But for now…
@merrick97 do what suits you best, no? I’d rather endure “poor HDMI” than fighting Windows.
On a grander scale, I will be looking for a panel with DisplayPort support, if I ever need one. Nevermind the price, because feeding a hostile HDMI organization with per-port royalties is another issue.
I’d like to think it’s a matter of time before TVs get a DP port added to them, but I’m not holding my breath.
My guess is that it’ll happen when LG or Samsung OLEDs get 240 Hz panels a refresh rate that has not benefit for casual watchers but tons of benefits for gamers.
