Driver Update: AMD Radeon Software GPU-PRO Linux 16.15.1013 Beta

AMD has at the beginning of this year indicated to do more work on drivers for Linux and has now released a beta of this so-called amdgpu open source driver, which includes support for the Vulkan api. However, there are quite a few limitations. For example, only Radeon R9 series video cards are supported and the driver can only be used on the 64bit version of Ubuntu 14.04.4. For now, only the basic display and power management functions are supported, so the driver is certainly not suitable for daily use yet. The release notes for this release can be found below.

AMD Product Family Compatibility

• AMD Radeon R9 Fury X Graphics
• AMD Radeon R9 Fury Graphics
• AMD Radeon R9 Nano Graphics
• AMD Radeon R9 M395X Graphics
• AMD Radeon R9 380X Graphics
• AMD Radeon R9 380 Graphics
• AMD Radeon R9 285 Graphics

Compatible Operating Systems

• Ubuntu 14.04.4 (64-bit version)

Highlights

• Supported APIs:
  • OpenGL 4.5 and GLX 1.4
  • OpenCL 1.2
  • Vulcan 1.0
  • VDPAU
• Basic display features
• Basic power management features
• KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) and ADF (Atomic Display Framework) support
• GPL compliant kernel module
• Install script and Debian packages for Ubuntu 14.04.4

Important Notes

• This product is based on a published Khronos Vulkan specification and this beta driver is expected to pass the Khronos Conformance Test Process. Current conformance status can be found here.
• This driver is intended as beta level support for use solely with Vulkan applications and as such some driver functionality has been removed. This is including, but not limited to, support for other Graphics APIs, Radeon Settings and other Radeon Software driver features.

What is Vulkan
As a complement to OpenGL, descended from AMD’s Mantle, and forged by the industry, Vulkan is a powerful low-overhead graphics API that gives software developers deep control over the performance, efficiency, and capabilities of Radeon GPUs and multi-core CPUs. More information on Vulkan can be found here. More information on the latest Vulkan-related news for AMD products can be found here.

Known Limitations

• Current driver is only validated for the products listed on the AMD Product Compatibility table.
• Multi-GPU features are not supported
• Only basic display and power features are enabled and validated
• RandR 1.4 features are not validated
• OpenCL features are not fully validated
• Workstation features are not supported
• Suspend to disk (S4) is not supported
• Certain driver functionality has been removed

Known Issues

• Piglit test causes xinit to crash
• Multi-display support is not working properly with more than three displays
• 4K displays may go blank after changing display modes