Pcsx2: Meta: AMD Issues/Workarounds

[mirh]

Follows #1508 and hrydgard/ppsspp#8698
Gs dump is here.

Bissected up to either 16c2baa0df2d7859619d51d3995b78f057a8e965 or 29c97a9bf21a985e1524e0b428ff97aa678adcc4
Happens in Ace Combat 5 after "press start" screen _only_ after Blending Unit Accuracy has been set to none in OGL hw.

I'd just complain over at AMD but I'd like to get a more straightforward testcase for them.
Wouldn't be bad if somebody added "Upstream | External" label

List of AMD issues:

• ~SSO is broken. SSO is partially disabled in GSdx due to this issue.~
• ~Disabling blending causes a BSOD. This is related to SSO as the issue does not happen on v1.4 where SSO isn't mandatory and is disabled on AMD GPUs.~
• Dreadful performance. OpenGL can be slower by about 80% compared to Direct3D with same effects emulated.

Links to AMD forum issue threads:
https://community.amd.com/message/2748362
https://community.amd.com/message/2756964

Possible BSOD Citra Workaround
Merged from issue #2362
As Gregory requested so we don't forget about it.

Currently Citra added a workaround for the amdfail driver that fixes the crashing caused by SSO.
The commit is located here https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3499/commits/0cf6793622b01f3941fbc77fe04c3b68476004ca

Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/88vva4/citra_on_twitter_new_update_to_the_hardware/

Idea would be for this to be checked out and maybe implemented.

Some useful info

You unbind everything so you pay extra invalidation
What we need to do is
Create a pipeline by shader combination
So you only bind once stage to a pipeline
And then we bind and rebind pipeline
But I'm not sure it will fix the crash
Potentially citra workaround might not work on ours side.

[gregory38]

There is a way to dump blending setup

https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/blob/master/plugins/GSdx/GSRendererOGL.cpp#L675

Replace this line with if 1

Normally tracing can be enabled with the debug_opengl = 1 on dev/dbg build. As the bonus it will validate openGL functions call.

However, I'm not sure tracing work on windows, @FlatOutPS2 @ssakash @turtleli did one of you manage to make openGL tracing usable on windows?

[turtleli]

I fixed it last year (cbd2417833104d3de42f3ca69ce038a1ffc52fb6), I haven't used the tracing stuff since January/February though so I'm not aware of the current state (I assume it still works).

[Nucleoprotein]

@mirh
You can use BlueScreenView to get basic info about crash like bugcheck code etc.

[lightningterror]

There is a similar issue with GT4. HW OpenGL , Blending Unit Accuracy set to none.

I didn't get a bsod but the display driver stops working.

There's all kinds of artifacts on the screen. The screen flickers and the display driver is restarted.
After the display driver restarts pcsx2 doesn't respond and it needs to be closed from processes.
GPU load stays at 100% even after closing pcsx2. The only solution to fix the gpu load is a system restart.
An event log is written "Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

[Nucleoprotein]

@lightningterror
This seems to be exactly as my problem with Star Ocean First Departure and some other games in PPSSPP, maybe both triggers same code in AMD driver.

EDIT: Can you check this by unpacking this file to PCSX2 directory and testing again ? (this is old AMD OpenGL driver from 15.7 driver package)
http://www36.zippyshare.com/v/0NmGmAOF/file.html

[gregory38]

So they fixed the SSO/dual blending issue. Spent 6 months of tests. Finally release it, and boom first test explodes the computer.

Did someone open a report to AMD. Saying that using the dual blending unit crash the whole systems.

@mirh By the way the commit that you found just disable accurate blending on some equations. Initially
Cs*As + Cd, Cs * F + Cd, Cd - Cs*As, Cd - Cs*F were always partially done in software. I.e the multiplication was done in SW and the addition/subtraction in HW.
For example Cs*As + Cd.
Before shader output Cs*As and blending unit was set to Cfrag + Cd
Now shader output Cs and blending unit was set to Cfag * Afrag + Cd (note Afrag comes from the 2nd source).

[mirh]

Did someone open a report to AMD. Saying that using the dual blending unit crash the whole systems.

I first wanted to have a trace they could use to reproduce the issue before opening a report, but I have no time atm.

[gregory38]

Might not be easy to have a trace. Did you try to replay your gs dump ?

Anyway, they will need 6 months to release a fix (potentially it is already fixed......).

[mirh]

Did you try to replay your gs dump ?

I don't know how I can do it :p

[Nucleoprotein]

@gregory38
This crash seem not to be related with SSO at all, it's something else because PPSSPP does not use SSO and crashes in same way.

[gregory38]

I agree with you the bug is related to dual-souce blending. However they fix their codes to support dual-source blending with SSO. There is a huge probability that they introduce another bug/regression in the meantime.

Actually, with the bisected commit of mirh, you can be sure the issue is dual-source blending. Because the commit replaces some blending operation with single-source blending (old code) by dual-source blending (new code) when you disable accurate blending. The goal was to reduce the load on the GPU.

[mirh]

If only I could have a testcase.. 😝
Does the "gs dump player" (whatever it is and whatever it works) require BIOS?
EDIT: uh, MFW I find tools/GSDumpGUI folder. Inb4 I'll be the first guy happy for a BSOD.

[gregory38]

Player is only an exe that load GSdx.so file. So no bios. Technically the gs dump contains game textures & vertex. But I think a couple of frames can be seen as a fair-use. Honestly, I'm not even sure you need a testcase, you can reports that several projects are broken. Maybe someone will be clever enough to detect that test quality on dual source is bad.

@FlatOutPS2 how do you replay on windows ? How do you update the ini option, is it possible actually ?

[mirh]

Yes, yes, I just tested it. I guess it it will be quite fine.

Reported.

Honestly, I'm not even sure you need a testcase, you can reports that several projects are broken

It's just I was thinking that if we needed 7 months for something with sources and all, a dumb "closed" test would have been even less useful.

[lightningterror]

I can't really open the thread to check the report. Says access is restricted. Guess I can't see the staff comments on this.

[mirh]

They still have to approve it prolly.

[Dokman]

hey i was testing it with looney tunes space race and , butin my case with a R9 290X and driver version 16.7.3 beta and i don't have this bug

[mirh]

Try my testcase, then report back.
Of course not every game performs the same calls.

[lightningterror]

@mirh I tried it and the issues are the same as with GT4. Now we wait 6-7 months for a fix.

[gregory38]

No 6-7 month delay is only to deliver the fix. They first need to find the bug and then a solution.
At least you can use accurate blending to reduce the crash likelyhood.

[mirh]

OT, but w/e: just for the records, since a month CodeXL support cross-platform frame analysis (aka see which functions are spending the most CPU or GPU time)

[Nucleoprotein]

@mirh
Tested your bsod package you posted on AMD site - TDR looks same like in PPSSPP, so this seems to be same issue.

[lightningterror]

"I can confirm we determined this to be a driver issue. Our GL driver team is now working on a fix."

At least they are working on a fix.

[lightningterror]

Amd fixed this. It will be available in the newest drivers.

[FlatOutPS2]

Amd fixed this. It will be available in the newest drivers.

Great, now all we have to do is wait 3 months. :p

[Nucleoprotein]

Great, now all we have to do is wait 3 months. :p

@dwitczak from AMD:

We have fixed this issue internally. The bug should no longer reproduce in the next driver release, or the one that follows.

Seems so, or even longer...

[gregory38]

Technically, you are at least sure that it will be integrated in the last release of an AMD driver (because none will follow) :stuck_out_tongue:
The one that can guess the release version that will include the fix get the privilege to report next issue ;)

[mirh]

As I said in the Vulkan rpcs3 issue, they said _the_ next release. Not _a_ future release.
Or perhaps i'm just overanalyzing I dunno.

[FlatOutPS2]

As I said in the Vulkan rpcs3 issue, they said the next release. Not a future release.
Or perhaps i'm just overanalyzing I dunno.

The quote is "The bug _should_ no longer reproduce in the next driver release, _or_ the one that follows.". Those two highlighted words give some room for it to be postponed.

[mirh]

Next release or that one that follows, _kay_. Which is like a week or two.

That _should_ on the other hand may just express "courtesy" then.

[avih]

So right now they have 16.9.2 as the official release and 16.11.3 as the less official one (non-whql). What would "next" or "the one which follows" be? 16.11.4? 17.x?

[mirh]

Any one should just count I believe.
Also, I think there's no distinction between official and beta release, as long as build number increases.

trivia: non-whql isn't a thing anymore if you want your driver to work with W10 anniversary.

[FlatOutPS2]

So right now they have 16.9.2 as the official release and 16.11.3 as the less official one (non-whql). What would "next" or "the one which follows" be? 16.11.4? 17.x?

They don't count the hotfixes as new driver releases. Unless they streamlined the process very recently, it'll take a couple of months before we see this fix. We just need to hope they don't introduce another bug in the meantime...

[Nucleoprotein]

DX12 POPCNT fix was added in 16.10.2 hotfix so they can add OpenGL fix in hotfix too.
I think GL_ARB_separate_shader_objects fix also was added at first in hotfix.

[FlatOutPS2]

They can add all kinds of fixes to hotfix releases, but when they say the next driver release, they don't mean it will be included in the next hotfix release.

[avih]

So instead of what not, can anyone say which version they mean by "next"?

[mirh]

It's a surprise for everybody 😃

[avih]

In that case, my guess is that "next" refers to 17.x.x and "the one which follows" would be 18..x.x . How many years did it take them to move from 15 to 16?

[Nucleoprotein]

Thiers driver names are the date, ie 16.11 mean November 2016, so 18.xx will be in 2018.

[gregory38]

 I think GL_ARB_separate_shader_objects fix also was added at first in hotfix.

Well, 6 months for a hot fix, it is more than hot ;)

But for a kernel crash they will likely release it faster. So let's wait a month.

[Nucleoprotein]

In this year AMD have much more driver releases, even 4 beta releases per month. In past year there was (mostly) one beta release per month + stable per 3 months.

[jcdenton2k]

Better than damn Nvidia; I've been stuck on v372.70 cause they can't be bothered to do basic stability testing for their drivers now.

[Nezarn]

New driver came out, no fix. :(

[lightningterror]

I guess we must wait 6 month to be implemented :/
But If I were to guess I'd say the next one should be the one.

[avih]

Maybe someone should ask them what they mean when they say "next one"?

[gregory38]

Better than damn Nvidia; I've been stuck on v372.70 cause they can't be bothered to do basic stability testing for their drivers now.

Sure the BSOD of AMD is the definition of stability.

Maybe someone should ask them what they mean when they say "next one"?

IMHO, they don't even know when are released next driver (hence or following). Various branches, Q&A make it hard to predict. Honestly, I hope they will release at least this year.

[avih]

IMHO, they don't even know when are released next driver (hence or following). Various branches, Q&A make it hard to predict. Honestly, I hope they will release at least this year.

Maybe, and maybe not. We should at least ask.

[Nucleoprotein]

Sure the BSOD of AMD is the definition of stability.

NVIDIA drivers have issues too:
https://www.techpowerup.com/227881/users-report-multiple-issues-with-geforce-375-86-whql-drivers
And a little more older and more serious one (bricked GPUs): http://wccftech.com/nvidia-users-beware-latest-drivers-damage-pc/
So yep, I like more BSOD than bricked up GPU...

[FlatOutPS2]

IMHO, they don't even know when are released next driver (hence or following). Various branches, Q&A make it hard to predict. Honestly, I hope they will release at least this year.

Well, I'd guess by next driver or the one after they mean a driver version in the next month or the month after. But if AMD is still typical AMD it'll be the month after the month after or the month after that. :p

[gregory38]

@Nucleoprotein Nvidia issues don't make AMD driver more stable ;)

@FlatOutPS2 yes I agree with you that why I wrote couple of day ago

But for a kernel crash they will likely release it faster. So let's wait a month.

[Nucleoprotein]

@gregory38 Yes, but AMD do not burn they own GPUs by broken drivers like NVIDIA ;)

I also agree we need to wait for 16.12.x ... or 17.01.x

[avih]

I'm not registered to their forums, but could someone ask for clarification on this?

[FlatOutPS2]

I'm not registered to their forums, but could someone ask for clarification on this?

I'd doubt you'd get a clearer responce. The developers usually don't know, and even when they do, it seems that fixes get postponed to later releases fairly regularly.

[lightningterror]

AMD driver 16.11.5
Bug is still present.

[mirh]

Oh FFS.
I guess "release" is just a silly euphemism to mean the specific branch then.

[Nezarn]

http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-software-crimson-relive-driver-leak/

Maybe they meant this new release? (I hope they will finally include the fix...) This comes out tomorrow.

[Nezarn]

Installed this new driver, still BSOD\driver crash....

[Nucleoprotein]

I expect that because this release is their "year release", expect fix in 16.12.x hotfix or 17.x drivers.

[mirh]

Release number has nothing to do with internal builds one or branches rolling out.
Aside of this, too bad it doesn't even fix ogl performance.

[Nezarn]

Also from what i've seen, this new driver is worse than older crimson drivers, settings app always crashes, and i get microlags in counter-strike global offensive lol

[Nucleoprotein]

Use "Clean Install" option.

[avih]

Can someone who's registered to their forums (where they posted their reply) please ask them what they meant by next release, and when, approximately, can we expect it?

[Nezarn]

@Nucleoprotein I always install drivers after cleaning with DDU. (and i always use custom install)

@avih I've asked them but got no reply. (maybe even they don't know what "next release" means) I've asked it on 11.29....

[lightningterror]

This is such a great driver. My only complaint is why they didn't implement this fix.
I guess we can't have everything.

Soon™

[Nucleoprotein]

@avih
Like @FlatOutPS2 said - the developers usually don't know when drivers will be released.

@Nezarn
From this driver release you do not need DDU, they finally added "Clean Install" option to installer!
I got Watman enabled for my R7 360 which is little strange, but setting app and drivers seems to work fine, just like 16.11.x Not tested ReLive yet.

[avih]

@avih I've asked them

Ah, thanks.

but got no reply.

:/

[lightningterror]

@Nucleoprotein That's because they enabled wattman for 260/360+ gpus

[Nezarn]

did anyone try 16.12.2 Optional yet?

[lightningterror]

@Nezarn Still not fixed.

[FlatOutPS2]

Small update from the AMD dev:

As stated, the issue has been fixed internally. I'm going to update this thread once it goes public.

So he still has no idea. xD

[mirh]

Showerthought: putting aside I damn hope next release will be massive (unless there just weren't many releases due to holidays..), I wonder if GSDumpGUI/pcsx2 run through wine on linux causes a kernel panic too.

[Nucleoprotein]

17.1.1 - still no fix

[gregory38]

ReLive driver ought to be called Zombie drier ;) AMD QA seems around 6 months. I'm afraid that it is still a matter of months. If you're lucky guy, you might even have an extra GL speed optimization, few months later.

[Nucleoprotein]

17.1.1 "Optional" drivers are for Resident Evil 7 so yep, Zombie driver ;)

[lightningterror]

17.1.2 No fix.

[gregory38]

So next release in AMD world means next release after you've waited an half-year.

[Nucleoprotein]

All 2017 releases so far are Non-WHQL, I expect this fixed in first WHQL one.

[lightningterror]

[FlatOutPS2]

@lightningterror Why? Do you desperately want to set Blending Unit Accuracy to "None"? :P

[lightningterror]

Perhaps it will offer better performance and I can switch to opengl for some games.

Tho it's not just blending accuracy i wait for but it's a good start.

https://community.amd.com/message/2756964#comment-2756964 is my main concern.

[gregory38]

Note: I tried my best to enable the "basic" level only when it is free (CPU) or really required. It is true that it can kill perf on a couple of games (sometimes it is even faster on basic, likely due to less blending state switch).

IMHO, you can wait 2018 if you want a release that improve the perf.

If you want to use openGL, sell your GPU to a poor guy. And buy an Nvidia GPU (you can reconsider AMD in 3/5 years when games are mostly Vulkan/Dx12).

[Nucleoprotein]

Performance of AMD OpenGL will not change even in few years, AMD stated that they will not open their OpenGL implementation (I think because of some patents) and their OpenGL remembers ATI ... I think they need to rewrite it from scratch to improve it and they have no money for that. RadeonSI on Linux already is faster than their ICD. ( http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=mesa171-pro60-nvidia&num=1 )

[mirh]

They actually should have already fixed the performance bug in internal builds.
We'll see how that will play then.

And read comments to your commits 🙃

[gregory38]

OMG Only remain to wait 6 months to get a public release. ;)

[FlatOutPS2]

They actually should have already fixed the performance bug in internal builds.

*They actually should have fixed _a_ performance bug in internal builds.
:P

[pixelherodev]

On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 1:36:19 PM EST FlatOutPS2 wrote:

They actually should have already fixed the performance bug in internal

builds.

*They actually should have fixed a performance bug in internal builds.

>

:P

Writes in Reminders: Never buy an AMD GPU.

[avih]

Writes in Reminders: Never buy an AMD GPU.

That's arguable. Other than PCSX2 with OpenGL, at least on windows, AMD GPUs provide good value for the most part.

[pixelherodev]

On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 2:05:28 PM EST avih wrote:

Writes in Reminders: Never buy an AMD GPU.

>

That's arguable. Other than PCSX2 with OpenGL, at least on windows, AMD GPUs

provide good value for the most part.

I'm a Linux user - from what I've seen, NVidia are the best, but I haven't owned a desktop in almost a decade, and both of my laptops have Intel GPUs.

[Nucleoprotein]

Today for AMD, Linux Mesa RadeonSI is better than AMD official OpenGL on Windows ...

[gregory38]

Hopefully Mesa will get soon a multi thread gl implementation (I pulled some strings on IRC). (I got a 30% increase on SotC rendering).

However it seems they have a mechanism to enable multi thread on the proprietary driver. Likely based on the app name. Maybe we just need to rename PCSX2 to get a speed boost.

[mirh]

Something I did try in the past (rage.exe iirc)
But (putting aside blb format is a mess) I guess multi-threading or not, if we hit that other bug it's useless.

[gregory38]

Which others bugs ?

[Nucleoprotein]

I think @mirh is referring to TDR bug (ie. that related to this issue)

[mirh]

Oh god.
This.
Which I have already said [somewhere] they PMed me saying they had "found an optimization to the OpenGL Program Pipeline implementation [that] should get rolled into a release soon"

Where of course soon means by next year, but whatever.

[gregory38]

Oh. It isn't a bug. It just an extra validation cost for the driver. If you put the driver is a separate thread, it will get available time to do useless validation.

[lightningterror]

Guess what? AMD totally messed up the drivers. This is how the display looks now on 17.2.1

[gregory38]

Did you try 1.4 without SSO?

[lightningterror]

Works fine , I knew this would work. Nice work amd you managed to bug sso again.

On the testcase provided by mirh I get yellow instead of green again.

[gregory38]

Lol I was right when I said the BSOD was related to the fix. Seriously I don't see the point of 6 months of QA for that !

[lightningterror]

Sigh ...

[FlatOutPS2]

They did immediately respond to the new issue: https://community.amd.com/thread/205702

I assume they'll release a fix for this relatively soon, but they'll probably reintroduce the BSOD, so this issue should stay open for now. :p

[gregory38]

Could someone add a link to the previous community report with the previous testcase in BSOD thread ? In case the AMD's guy try to debug it again from scratch.

I assume they'll release a fix for this relatively soon

Yes 5 months instead of 6 ;)

[lightningterror]

https://community.amd.com/message/2716352#comment-2716352

[gregory38]

Sorry. My sentence wasn't clear.

Post this link in https://community.amd.com/thread/205702 (in case AMD engineer 1 isn't fully aware of what did the AMD engineer 2)

[mirh]

Also known as Abbott and Costello.

[gregory38]

And I'm sure there are nice guys.

In the meantime, we can edit again the informative GSdx message
https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/blob/master/plugins/GSdx/GLLoader.cpp#L360

• Enable it on Linux
• Reword "AMD has a fix for the issue that will be released in the coming months"

And I guess, we can blacklist all 2016/2017 drivers...

@mirh do you have any news on the SSO perf improvements ? Could you PM them to have an unofficial build so we can check their fixes (SSO perf, SSO blending, SSO kernel crashes). If we could avoid to wait 6 months to discover yet another epic failure.

[FlatOutPS2]

In the meantime, we can edit again the informative GSdx message

Let's wait a few days, maybe they'll notice the issue quickly and will again release the fix in the coming months. :p

[lightningterror]

And then they introduce another bug which breaks something else and wait another 6 months.

2020 a working driver maybe ?

[gregory38]

Situation used to be much worst. Trust me it was a nightmare to port Dx code on a broken gl driver. I got bug/crash since the day 1. Back then, it was faster to add SSO on the free driver rather than to wait a working driver. Current status is nearly working driver ;) I'm glad we have the free driver on Linux.

[mirh]

Enable it on Linux

I know nothing about AMDGPU-PRO similitudes with windows driver to be honest.

Reword "AMD has a fix for the issue that will be released in the coming months"

I'd reword like "Listen folks, AMD gl driver situation.. is complicated. A fix is expected in coming months. Till then don't say we hadn't told you to just use crappy but-not-so-crappy D3D 😉 "

And I guess, we can blacklist all 2016/2017 drivers...

I'm not sure it's up to a program to have to care of BSOD in drivers..
Said this -I should damn study- I revised whatever I found out in #1508
And TL;DR we have:

• pre-may: SSO broken, period
• may-july: SSO broken in test case, pcsx2 seems fine (not tested for BSOD though)
• july-february: SSO fixed everyhwere, BSOD
• >yesterday: no BSOD (?), SSO broken (back to point 1 I guess?)

Moreover, performance sucks everywhere (and iirc if it wasn't for 448fee76c1cd761c82aa3535cff460d9f55fa11f it would suck even more)
So.. I dunno, I have my mind quite confused atm. We should go back to the drawing boards of "cases to handle" in the first place.

Moreover, I still have a glimmer of hope for legacy cards with a hacked half-assed kind-of-whatever driver from guru3D, but this is another story for the future.

2020 a working driver maybe ?

Exactly when MS will drop W7 and I'm 100% sure I'd already be hand in hand with tux!
OT EDIT: I wonder if by then firefox will have hardware acceleration by default!

[gregory38]

I know nothing about AMDGPU-PRO similitudes with windows driver to be honest.

Easy, the proprietary driver is the same mess as windows. Maybe without the BSOD. So we need to add a warning for Linux users (if any is still using this driver, poor guy).
Mesa is fine. If we find a bug, I can open an issue / post a patch and it will be released soon (1-2 months).

Don't bother, I will disable SSO for all 2016/2017 AMD drivers. The best case is a working driver in end of year.

[gregory38]

Could someone ask Dwitczak if he managed to reproduce the SSO + dual blending issue. Just to be sure, he got the 2 testcases.

[gregory38]

I don't see any news on AMD threads. Could anyone bump both threads to have news.

• https://community.amd.com/thread/205702
• https://community.amd.com/message/2716352

[mirh]

After having reported even another bug.. I'm pretty disheartened tbh...
In other news, really, why are we blacklisting drivers that -for-as-much-we-are-involved- works?
You could put everything before July (if not May) on legacy_fglrx_buggy, and the remainder [working] drivers under fglrx_buggy_driver, with only blending locked or something, at most. Or otherwise just mention in a note to be careful.
EDIT: ok, thinking better the point is: someday AMD will even fix the driver, and I don't want to waste time on something volatile

[gregory38]

After having reported even another bug.. I'm pretty disheartened tbh...

I won't blame you.

The gain of SSO is rather small if not null. There will be performance gain when AMD release their driver optimization, if they release it one day. Biggest gain will be to drop dedicated code for AMD.

[mirh]

Biggest gain will be to drop dedicated code for AMD.

Dedicated as in.. These bugs workarounds?
That will never happen 😛 . We'll always have to detect older driver, should noobs (or people legitimately and unknowingly actually condemned to stick with a particular release) come to our door.

[gregory38]

Please let's me dream in peace ;) Back then the VLIW legacy driver wasn't a thing.

[mirh]

Speaking of which.. I just tried the latest mightiest hackiest driver mankind managed to cook for that (which I think I had mentioned somewhere).. And unfortunately it's still not enough to pass intact ps2 boot screen.

So.. RIP my hopes, and your feelings.
EDIT: or perhaps I could try to check since ~10.10 (when SSO was first spotted) if there ever was a fixed release

[gregory38]

I'm not sure I blacklisted enough 2017 version. I guess I could extend to the full year and likely till 2020 :(

[mirh]

It still was a 2016 driver. Just ~June instead of February (it takes time for people to find and repack them though :s)
Unfortunately it's still based on the same older "pre-May" branch without partial fix.

[Lithium64]

Developers of AMD's proprietary drivers frequent the phoronix forum daily, you could get in touch with them there, chatting directly with them could be that the fixes are delivered faster.

[mirh]

Airlie, Arceri, Bridgman, Deucher, Olšák have really nothing to do with proprietary drivers, let alone Windows. Sure, perhaps we may ping them to ping somebody else.. But I think by now gregory must have complained enough on #mesa.

[gregory38]

I didn't complain on mesa channel. Just said that got difficulty with AMD-PRO, but it is like saying "fire can burn". Honestly, if they decided to recreate a driver from scratch, it wasn't to be bothered with the crappy driver.

AMD will do faster release if you release an AAA games. Otherwise they really don't care.

[lightningterror]

17.3.1 no change.

[lightningterror]

17.3.2 no change.

[lightningterror]

17.3.3 no change.

[MrCK1]

Minor version bumps are unlikely to have the fix included.

[mirh]

Minor version bumps are unlikely to have the fix included.

Monthly release versioning has nothing to do with actual driver build branch

[avih]

Monthly release versioning has nothing to do with actual driver build branch

Do we have any info at all on actual "driver build branch" and when it's updated?

[Lithium64]

Anyone tested 17.4.1? Driver branch is up from 16.60 to 17.10

[lightningterror]

17.4.1 no change.

[gregory38]

I don't want to kill the mood but the normal process is
1/ AMD said they fix the bug
2/ You wait 6 months (they want to be sure that you're waiting the fix)
3/ Try the new released build and :sob:

So far we have reach step 0. And I'm not even sure someone at AMD is working on it.

[FlatOutPS2]

We're actually at step 0/ AMD knows about the issue.

We've yet to receive a public message stating they'll fix it.

[gregory38]

We're actually at step 0/ AMD knows about the issue.

You read my mind, it was a typo ;)

IMHO, the best way to get a fix is to implement my initial testcase in the Khronos's conformance test suite (CTS). AMD won't be able to advertise GL4.4/4.5 support for their future submission until they fix their driver.

[lightningterror]

Can we still hope for a working driver?
The issues have been reported for a long time now.
There is also lack of communication , they don't even bother letting people know what's happening , all I see is silence on the threads. Now we are waiting months just for any response.

[gregory38]

Can we still hope for a working driver?

Yes you can still hope. Personally I took a fast track solution. I just got an Nvidia GPU :) That being said the
free driver is becoming quite interesting on Linux.

There is also lack of communication

A lack, let's be honest there is no communication at all. They aren't fair play. Maybe people can try to reach them on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit (other social network that I'm not aware).

[Lithium64]

I posted the bug on AMD subreddit, please help with upvotes and comments
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/63n9m4/amd_please_fix_this_bug/

[lightningterror]

You forgot https://community.amd.com/thread/205702

But I highly doubt it will change anything.

[Nucleoprotein]

Hym, PPSSPP crashes for me again when using 17.4.1 but GS dump test does not - strange.

[Lithium64]

@lightningterror I updated the post with this info

[mirh]

A less desperately bait-y title perhaps wouldn't have hurt.

[lightningterror]

17.4.2 no change.

Guess it was a good idea to blacklist all of 2017 drivers.

[gregory38]

The good idea would have been to blacklist driver up to 2020 ;) Actually, I think you blacklisted all drivers.

[Squall-Leonhart]

Doubt AMD can fix it, they have no real software engineers left and the source inherited from ATI is a cluster fuck.

[gregory38]

Please don't say that. Let's remain respectful.

Could someone open yet another new thread in game community to ask them politely
1/ if they aware of both issues
2/ if someone is looking into them, and even better is working to find a fix :)

[Squall-Leonhart]

That was being respectful.

Being aware and being capable of fixing it are two very different things, AMD don't have much talent left in the engineering department, which is why they remake their 'pretty' UI every other year.

They need to rewrite their OpenGL client driver from scratch, and that's assuming this is even a fixable issue given AMD hardware has history of not supporting the functionality that their ICD exposes properly.

[gregory38]

Ok. You still make claim based on nothing ;) Unfortunately people (aka users) are more interested of a nicer GUI than a better OpenGL support.

I don't think it won't be too complicated to fix. However it requires at least a single engineer to look at the issue carefully. Well maybe 2 engineers actually. Because it seems there is a bad interaction between the kernel driver and the upper GL layer.

[avih]

However it requires at least a single engineer to look at the issue carefully. Well maybe 2 engineers actually. Because it seems there is a bad interaction between the kernel driver and the upper GL layer.

Three. Because there could be bad interaction between the kernel engineer and the upper GL layer engineer!

[Squall-Leonhart]

https://community.amd.com/thread/210605

i make a claim based on amd having consistent issues :p

[gregory38]

Oh interesting. Of course, it is the same bug as OpenGL. So they might release a fix around July/August :)

However a question remain will the future driver BSOD again ? It would be nice if someone reminds them the 2 others test cases to avoid a bad surprise this summer

[lightningterror]

17.4.4 no change.

Is there any point even mentioning these ? xD

Actually, I think you blacklisted all drivers.

I only did for 2017 and below , nothing else xD

[mirh]

Is there any point even mentioning these ? xD

Well, I was worrying about your health when you missed 17.4.3 s:

[lightningterror]

Well, I was worrying about your health when you missed 17.4.3 s:

I didn't put it on purpose , all it did was provide support for the 500 series , nothing else was changed.

[gregory38]

Well, I was worrying about your health when you missed 17.4.3 s:

Lol. You make my day :)

@lightningterror don't bother to test AMD driver. Even when they said it is fixed, you need to still need to wait 6 months. If we are lucky they will fix the OpenGL issue with the Vulkan bug. Release is expected in August (24th January + 6 m). And if we aren't lucky, we will get a new surprise :)

[avih]

Is there any point even mentioning these ? xD

Yes, please! :)

[lightningterror]

Yes, please! :)

Okay then SURPRISE!
17.5.1 no fix.

[avih]

Anyway, they will need 6 months to release a fix

[Nov 14th] Amd fixed this. It will be available in the newest drivers.

So.. we're just about running out of 6 months... :)

[gregory38]

@avih

[Nov 14th] Amd fixed this. It will be available in the newest drivers.

Fix what ? There are multiple bugs

[Lithium64]

Any news about the bug?

[lightningterror]

Any news about the bug?

It's not fixed. AMD don't even bother replying on the threads.
If it's not fixed with the Vega drivers then I doubt it will ever be fixed.

[mirh]

So.. 17.7.2 came out, and it seems some big deal.
Also, it's the anniversary of their first only fix.

Tests?

[lightningterror]

5-20% fps increase in Direct3D (from 69 to 80 on GT4 , from 90 to 115 on DBZ BT3)
3x native resolution.

OpenGL no changes. Bugs still present. Performance still bad.

[MrCK1]

Hate to say it, but I'm not surprised. I still need to sell my 970...

[willkuer]

5-20% performance increase? What kind of magic is that?

[lightningterror]

Well it's AMD , it shouldn't come at surprise. They improve over time.
Nvidia drivers are always running at their peak so there is little to no performance increase.

[atomic83GitHub]

Still no fix and seems to be worse. A radeon rx480 have nearly the same level of performance in OpenGL as a radeon 7600m with a i5 3230m (who use a final driver beta version for non GCN cards).
And the GPU usage is between 10 and 99% on Nemo, seems like a bad optimisation.
And BSOD issue with blending to none is still here.
AMD will realy fix it?

[hlide]

Here is what I noticed (and it is just my opinion as well):

• AMD cards have more powerful hardware in brute force (or in price comparison) but their softwares are lacking. While they offer more consistent results with DirectX (surprise, it's for Windows Gaming!), they are less consistent with OpenGL even if they tend to comply with strict rules defined by the OpenGL norms (I have numerous black screens on AMD because I was using a more relax syntax shader due to nVidia). I think their software engineers are not on par with their hardware engineers - at least it looks like this way.

• nVidia cards have less powerful hardware but they rely on their software abilities to make a lot of "dirty" tricks to achieve performances (they even kinda patch their driver on a game basis to make sure this game will reach its performance peak). On the other hand, developing shaders with nVidia is easier but also leads to less conformant shaders to OpenGL norms for instance.

As an OpenGL developper, I always found AMD a pain in the ass to program because I could have a black screen with no apparent reason while it works like a charm with nVidia.

As for nVidia, their OpenGL compiler is merely a translator to their Cuda compiler (which explains their relaxed syntax on their OpenGL shader as they pass with Cuda).

I always have priviledged nVidia because I felt AMD software was always behind but man they cost so much.

[mirh]

Mhh.. and the point of this gossip was?
We already know the situation and everything is already reported.
If you want toppest notch GL, install any modern linux distro.

[mirh]

Fall's creator update seemingly adopted a new build branch.
Any other _surprise_?

[lightningterror]

Does that mean they broke even more stuff ?

[Nucleoprotein]

@mirh
AMD released new drivers for FCU ? I don't see any.

[MrCK1]

Could just be the latest MS certified drivers...

[Nucleoprotein]

Driver installed by Windows update (using FCU):
Radeon Software Version
17.1.1
Driver Packaging Version
17.10.1731-170424a2-313676E-WU-Template-1710
OpenGL® Version
6.14.10.13474

[gregory38]

Some people really deserve a patience award price :)

[mirh]

And I'll wait till my death bed for linux to have 4.5 pre-GCN compliancy!

---

https://www.touslesdrivers.com/index.php?v_page=23&v_code=55096
In other news driver is mirrored here for the time being.

[Nucleoprotein]

@mirh
Now I found them at vendor site too:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/Radeon-Software-Crimson-ReLive-Edition-Beta-for-Windows-10-Fall-Creators-Update-Release-Notes.aspx

[MrCK1]

Are you going to test out the drivers? I'm not hopeful TBH.

[lightningterror]

Nope I won't.

[Nucleoprotein]

Tested - OpenGL crashing as before.

@mirh
This driver is different branch because it's WDDM 2.3

[MrCK1]

Better go wake up that AMD thread.

[mirh]

Tested - OpenGL crashing as before.

... wait a minute.
Last time I checked we were back at "SSO is borken" stage.
When did blending/whatever started to cause crash again?

[lightningterror]

The workaround fixes SSO which in case brings back the crash issue.

This isn't an issue on 1.4 since SSO is disabled on AMD.

[MrCK1]

Well you have a new driver to blacklist...

[Nucleoprotein]

@mirh
I'm testing on PPSSPP (Star Ocean First Departure) - it produce black window with some green pixels - sometimes out of PPSSPP window ... It's dual source blending issue which caused crashes before. I have not tested SSO but I think we are at crashing stage again ...
PS: You had test case for SSO somewhare, can you link it again ?

[mirh]

Oh sorry, I didn't know (remember?) this was causing a crash there. Thanks for the tip.

@MrCK1 #2033

[Nucleoprotein]

I found SSO test - it's yellow...
Nice AMD "fix" crashes in PPSSPP and SSO broken 👍 great work AMD.
PS: Strangely, not crashes on BSOD GSDX test (Ace Combat frame) ...

[mirh]

That's not strange, it was fixed once they rolled back SSO.
https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/wiki/OpenGL-and-AMD-GPUs---All-you-need-to-know

[lightningterror]

On 1.4 SSO is disabled in GSdx.
On 1.5 SSO is not disabled. A workaround is added to fix the bad graphics. Reason why you get a crash. Unless I'm looking at the code wrong.

[mirh]

He's talking about crashes in PPSSPP. Or the ones in <17.2.1 here with blending accuracy 0.
There are no crashes in pcsx2 that I'm aware of now (with latest drivers)

[Nucleoprotein]

Yes, test from here: https://community.amd.com/thread/205702 works fine.
Also test from here: https://community.amd.com/thread/194895 gives yellow window background (ie. SSO is broken).

[lightningterror]

@mirh Well I just got a crash right now with 0 blending.

[mirh]

Ohhhh come fucking on

[lightningterror]

I'm in favor of completely disabling SSO for amd since it causes so many damn issues.

Drivers are like a plague.

[mirh]

If that's reproducible and every time always due to SSO, then sure thing.

[Nucleoprotein]

Somebody have Windows 10 FCU with older drivers ? I want to confirm if this:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SUruVWfFtrc/WecjCYozqRI/AAAAAAAAChk/2dhVDNHlvlQ4ZZ6bF-VD-40741Cv2rYJACHMYCw/s0/Taskmgr_2017-10-18_11-46-28.png
is because WDDM 2.3 or it was available on older drivers
Sorry for offtopic.

[Squall-Leonhart]

That panel is available for anyone on FCU, regardless of wddm version.

[lightningterror]

I'm just gonna throw this out just in case someone experiences issues.

AMD broke hardware vertex processing on the 17.12.1 driver on Direct3D.
A handful of games keep crashing on me that let me toggle hardware vertex processing.
Disabling it resolves the crash. I'm not sure if this will affect PCSX2.

[lightningterror]

Seems that they fixed the D3D recent issue with the 18.1.1 driver. It was the same issue that other people reported a bunch of games crashing on D3D.

[MrCK1]

You're saying AMD actually _did_ something? No way 😱 who would've thought in a million years... 🎉

Would be nice if they cared as much about OGL...

[mirh]

It hasn't the same psychological impact if the broken thing never worked to begin with ^^

[Lithium64]

AMD added support to OpenGL 4.6. Has something changed about the issues?

[mirh]

4.6 is available since a month, though if it's not here I'm not sure how complete it is.

Besides anyway, SSO is a 4.1 feature...
..if just somebody added a test case for it to the CTS

[Lithium64]

@mirh On OpenGL extensions viewer the only missing extension is GLSL 4.60

[gregory38]

The issue isn't about missing extension. AMD povides plenty of them. However the driver is broken period. Crash or render random colours... Drivers have been broken for 5 years (if it isn't more), but still people dream that an angel will magically fix the next driver release...

[Lithium64]

AMD fixed GL_ARB_separate_shader_objects extension
https://community.amd.com/thread/194895

[Nucleoprotein]

Great - they fixed it when I just bought new PC with GTX1060 🙄
They fixed also TDR or the investigating it still?
Also any noticeable performance change?

[willkuer]

Seems like your time estimation was on point gregory...

[Lithium64]

@Nucleoprotein
They are still investigating, from what I could understand. Luckily it looks like there have been changes on AMD dev team, they have hired more people and are giving decent support to their OpenGL and Vulkan drivers now.

[mirh]

We are all following that bug, and it means nothing until they have released a fixed driver - crash-free too.

[Lithium64]

@mirh The crash only happens if blending is disabled?

[mirh]

https://community.amd.com/thread/194895#comment-2881932
Could be a good time to prep up that proper version detection thingy

[lightningterror]

I have low expectations. They probably wouldn't include any bsod/crash fixes.

[mirh]

And instead...
Bets are taken if it'll be released before the 3 years anniversary of my first report or not

[Nucleoprotein]

Seems they fixed the issue with SSO and TDR but not yet public.

[mirh]

WTF
Didn't anyone noticed SSO got fixed already in 18.10.2??
@lightningterror time to push https://github.com/mirh/pcsx2-xp/commit/fdb3a0db99195c0503f69dfc8668c00489f9f993

AFAICT 18.10.1 was 4.5.13541 (25.20.14003.1012) . Fixed should be 4.5.13541 (25.20.14007.1000) (yet again checking for accompanying kernel driver version seems the only viable path).
..unfortunately this mean I'm not sure how to accurately do the check down to .build. position.

[lightningterror]

Seems that both SSO and Dual Source Blending crashes have been fixed.

I haven't been able to reproduce the crash yet (I'm still not fully convinced but we'll see).

[Squall-Leonhart]

@mirh @Nucleoprotein
anyone know if the issues with amd's driver mentioned here is why hyperdimension neptunia (PC) would have rainbow textures?

[MrCK1]

That's really not related to our project, nor is it our issue. You'd be better off Asking on the AMD forums or searching Google.

[Squall-Leonhart]

Issue is titled Issues and Workarounds, step off MrCK1.

[RedPanda4552]

You are asking about a PC game in a meta thread about AMD driver problems for PCSX2, a PS2 emulator. It is as CK stated, a separate issue for a different place. Please stay on topic and refrain from attempting to tell, of all people, a community moderator, to step off. Thanks.

[Squall-Leonhart]

I'm also one of the community moderators (Facebook)

My question was to the OpenGL experts, AMD is not one of them.

Also i know who MrCK1 is and if i was being anything more than sarcastic in my tone i'd have used stronger language and he knows it.

@MrCK1 I'll get mirh on irc or Nucleo on Steam.