So I just got a r9 390 and the Linux desktop performance is abysmal. I have tried the open source and closed source drivers from the Ubuntu additional drivers menu and the desktop is super choppy and laggy. The open source drivers are better but still stutter. Is there anything I can do?
Specs
fx8320
msi r9 390
8 gigabytes of ram
asus m5a99fx pro r2.0
Software
Have tried Ubuntu 15.04 and 14.04 and same situation.
Would like to keep unity desktop but have tried others and same thing.
Thanks.
There's not a whole lot of options right now when it comes to AMD gpu's on Linux. I have a R9 290 on a machine running Chapeau 23 (Fedora 23 spin) and the open source driver seems to be the best option right now. I haven't experienced any bad desktop performance, however. I have a few games that won't run correctly and I had to do a work around in order get steam to function properly.
Yes I knew going in that I wasn't going to be gaming on Linux but I at least thought I would have decent desktop performance.
It maybe something specific to the Unity desktop or the kernel that Ubuntu is on right now. I'm using Gnome w/ kernel 4.2.6. Desktop performance is pretty snappy, but I'm also running it on an old OCZ ssd that I took out of my old gaming machine. The only problem I've ran into is getting handbrake to work.
Ill give Chapeau 23 a try, I have not tried fedora based distros yet.
It maybe a Unity problem. I have no issues either on GNOME or KDE on Opensuse.
Unity is a mess at the moment with the switch from GTK to QT and them trying to implement Mir.
Welp I have tried installing Chapeau and the performance is the same as on the ubuntu side, laggy animations and screen tearing on my second monitor. I might just try i3 and compton to solve screen tearing and lag.
You could try to upgrade the kernel to the latest version.
Maybe that might improve the performance somewhat.
Go back to ubuntu 14.04
Fuck the ubuntu driver thing. Go directly to AMD's website and download the driver.
make the file executable
Install
profit.
Or you can follow this guide, here and enjoy pulling your hair out. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMDGPU-PP-4.5-Steps
Or you could chuck that gpu up on ebay and get yourself a GTX 970 and call it a day.
Already said that I went back to 14.04, I also installed the drivers from AMD and they are worse then the open source ones. Considered getting a 970 but didn't like that there was only 3.5G VRAM.
Noooo you said you downloaded the AMD drivers from the ubuntu additional drivers tool.
I am telling you to install them directly from the AMD website.
Those are two different things with (hopefully) two different outcomes.
And yeah, the 3.5GB vram thing sucks, but crappy amd drivers suck worse.
Soooooooo yeahhhhhh.
But like I said, you could also try installing the 4.5 rc1 (going to be rc2 in a few days) kernel and then enabling power play.
Its not that hard. Its just a pain in the butt.
Oh sorry for the misunderstanding I just installed from amd's website and they were still bad. You may have a point to getting a 970, its just I am reluctant to have to go through the trouble of selling the card I just got 2-3 weeks ago.
https://mesamatrix.net/ and use wine + gallium nine https://wiki.ixit.cz/d3d9 . Get the latest kernel and use the closed source drivers from amd. You'll be golden.
Now that they are installed, check and see if you have a driver control panel. Somewhere in there is the ability to turn on "tear free option"
I really can not remember, where it is or how it worked.
You are probably still within the return period. Check and see.
I was kind of in your situation. I got an AMD290x and within a few weeks I sold it and got an asus GTX 970.
Works great, super quiet, drivers are easy to install, and it does not conflict with GDM display manager.
I turned on tear free and it stutters even worse on all desktop environments. I tried gnome xfce and unity.
Yeup
5 little letters can solve all your problems. It starts with N and ends with VIDIA.
It really is sad, because I like AMD, but I am so freaking sick of their flat out shitty software engineers. I am not touching another AMD products until they can hire proper driver makers.
And as far as I can tell, they are literally open sourcing everything because they are incapable of hiring proper software engineers. Soooooooo yeah.
hmm, I experienced flickering windows on kubuntu 15 with an nvidia card. The proprietary drivers fixed that, but now the computer takes longer to boot and I have to see the nvidia logo at fullscreen right before login at every single boot...
Face palm.
We are dealing with a situation where the proprietary drivers will not solve the issue.
So any circumstance where you have a working system without sacrificing your first born is probably a good thing.
Also, if you go into the settings in KDE and change the opengl rendering options and then enable full screen repaints, you could have solved your issue without the proprietary drivers anyways. (so long as you have a reasonably modern computer with a reasonable amount of power)
Well sadly I'm returning my 390 for a 970 G1. Drivers are unbearable, sadness ensues.