Best Linux Driver For AMD RadeonHD 7970 ?

[Normand_Nadon]

Hello there,

I am a long time Linux user but recently updated my old GTS450 Video Card to an HD7970
(I know, still old tech but I can't afford more than that for a while!)

 

Wish I knew what I was getting into before I did the switch... Driver support for this card is a nightmare on Ubuntu Linux.

fglrx works great but I need at least Ubuntu 16.04 for some stuff I do and support for this driver has been dropped after Ubuntu 14.04

Stock drivers on 16.04 are horrible, can't run anything at more than 12-15fps (runs nicely above 60 fps in Win7)

amdgpu-pro driver... can't get it to work.. whatever I do, it just won't do more than 2d and if it does 3d, it seems like the card can't ramp-up clock (stays on low power mode I think)

 

If you guys (and girls) have a winning solution for this card under linux, please tell me what you did! Google is getting tired from my queries related to this GPU on Linux!

 

BTW, I am in the process of updating my LTS 16.04 Ubuntu to the 17.04 then 17.10 for the new MESA drivers and Wayland thing... Also for the new features preview of 18.04.

 

Thanks.

[SomethingEat]

=( have the same issue, switched from my old gtx560 to R9 280, cant even get 1920x1080 from it =(, thou it run quick and nice on my windows machine

[Normand_Nadon]

8 hours ago, Name Taken said:

AMDGPU-PRO does not support the 7970 but does the R9 280.

I emailed AMD support on that matter and the answer was that the driver does support the 7970, it is just not stated in the documentation.

Since the R9-280 is basically the same GPU with some tweaks, I would have been surprised it wouldn't work.

 

Although, I am starting to think that it is not stated in the documentation because it is not fully tested or something...

 

I will continue exchanging with AMD on the subject (long response time... always the same guy answering... he is probably alone taking those linux related requests)

[SomethingEat]

12 hours ago, CK1968 said:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/AMDGPU-PRO-Driver-for-Linux-Release-Notes.aspx

 

11 hours ago, Name Taken said:

AMDGPU-PRO does not support the 7970 but does the R9 280.

Sorry, for hijacking the thread. I actually have Debian9 not an Ubuntu. On https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo its says that " Supported Devices. The amdgpu driver in Debian 9 "Stretch" supports newer AMD GPUs." But on the AMDGPU-Pro page it only list these:

• • RHEL 7 / RHEL 6 / CentOS 7 / CentOS 6
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • SLED/SLES 12 SP2  

Does it mean i have to install Ubuntu drivers since Ubuntu is Based on Debian?

[SomethingEat]

1 hour ago, Eluoci said:

 

Sorry, for hijacking the thread. I actually have Debian9 not an Ubuntu. On https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo its says that " Supported Devices. The amdgpu driver in Debian 9 "Stretch" supports newer AMD GPUs." But on the AMDGPU-Pro page it only list these:

• • RHEL 7 / RHEL 6 / CentOS 7 / CentOS 6
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • SLED/SLES 12 SP2  

Does it mean i have to install Ubuntu drivers since Ubuntu is Based on Debian?

Found this excellent article, to answer my own question. Apparently there is "driver-less" install (what ever that means), screen resolution went from 1024 x something to 1920 x1080, got to run some 3D bench marks - Unigine Heaven at 45fps. Haven't tested dual monitor set up yet. I'm a wooden league noob at linux, but maybe something like that can be done to Ubuntu.

[Normand_Nadon]

Hum... I will check your "driverless" lead tonight... Unless you mean using default open source or MESA drivers ?

[noahdvs]

If you use this PPA and use the open source drivers, you might get better performance. Mesa has improved a lot since Ubuntu 16.04 was released.

[Normand_Nadon]

On 10/28/2017 at 1:38 AM, noahdvs said:

If you use this PPA and use the open source drivers, you might get better performance. Mesa has improved a lot since Ubuntu 16.04 was released.

Tried this PPA and broke my Linux

I am trying a fresh install of 16.04 right now and will retry padoka.

 

I have weird issues though... I can't chose which monitor gets the launcher anymore and can't deactivate "sticky edges"

I am really getting mad right now... I might end-up reinstalling over but clearing my home folder... dunno..,

[gregunz]

Any news on that? I have the same card but no specific constraints about which Linux distribution I want, though a latest version would be preferable. I just want to get it work correctly as I would try to use it to mine (except one of you consider it a bad idea). In the worst case I would try it on windows. 

 

Thank you! 

 

[Guest]

53 minutes ago, gregunz said:

 

please do not use amdgpu pro, use the open source version instead, (also using amdgpu pro would require the following steps anyway since the kernel driver is the same) on a 7970 it would also require manual configuration to disable Radeon and use only amdgpu

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AMDGPU#Enable_Southern_Islands_(SI)_and_Sea_Islands_(CIK)_support

 

All explained there 

 

If something changed you would notice that by getting into a live USB of a recent Linux distro and see the driver that it is using 

Edited November 26, 2018 by Guest

[Normand_Nadon]

I haven't post on that subject but here is the status:

 

I am now on ElementaryOs (will probably switch to Manjaro soon)

I updated to latest kernel when I did the fresh install.

Then I installed the latest MESA drivers from X-Swat PPA, it performs on par with windows drivers. I had issues running Vulkan though... I have to check this out later.

Here is what I used to install the drivers (Ubuntu based distro):

sudo usermod -a -G video $LOGNAME
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install mesa-utils
sudo reboot

The first bit is important. You want to make sure you are part of the "video" group otherwise it won't boot with the GUI after install.

 

I will read through the guide you linked tonight Lukyp, thanks.

[Normand_Nadon]

BTW, the 7970 / R9 280 is a really capable little card for 1080p

It is not as power efficient as newer cards, but it will do 1080p above 60fps without a doubt... It is just loud when it does!

I realized that my card "throttling" issue was due to dual monitors... The card would sometimes not ramp-up when running a game on a monitor while the other was showing 2D graphics. I made a quick arandr script that I run with my game launchers to switch to single monitor when playing a game and resume to dual when the game finishes... works great!