XP12 + AMD + Windows (11): Dear Lord!

[Bjoern 1,157]

I finally wanted to try XP12 on Windows, so I booted into Win 11, updated to 22H2, installed the current AMD Adrenalin driver (22.11.2) and installed XP12.01b1. The first XP start was fine and I set the rendering options exactly as I have on my Linux install. I then restarted XP and was greeted with a Vulkan device loss error, which I've never seen on Linux so far. It froze the entire system and I had to hard reboot and go through Windows' recovery menu. After another reboot, I started XP again, put it into windowed mode and was greeted with thick black screen lines all over the image. These were only fixed by dropping AA from 2 x MSAA to FXAA (going back up to MSAA crashes XP). After that, XP finally worked, but despite a shader cache rebuild, MSAA remains inop on my 6900XT.

It's not that XP on Linux and AMD doesn't have its quirks (plugin flickering, minor SSAO rendering artifacts), but my XP12 experience on Windows with an AMD GPU is outright horrifying. AMD's Windows drivers are an embarassment and in no way represent the quality and performance potential of the hardware.

Y'all AMD users should really consider forgetting about some third party Windows-only add-ons and switch operating systems, with the shorter loading times and less BS on Linux being  a nice bonus. Or maybe get a NVidia GPU.

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Bjoern

[bogdansrb 230]

The things is, as bad as AMD drivers are, I've only encountered issues in X-Plane. Any other game works just fine.

Sadly, XP on Linux still lacks some plugins (Navigraph, XP Realistic). 

[jcomm 5,930]

AMD, at least on Windowzeeee stinks for simming... sorry....

[mSparks 2,086]

13 minutes ago, bogdansrb said:

Any other game works just fine.

Thats because AMD fixes issues when a game developer pays them a huge fee and doesnt even try and support recent gpu features - most games are built against 3 or 4 year old drivers and hardware, it takes that long to bring them to market, and the console hardware doesnt change every year.

Thats also why the cards are cheaper. They target and make their money on the consoles, which all have their own custom drivers, PC is an afterthought.

If you stick to the big titles that mostly make their money on playstation and xbox it is rare to see an AMD issue, but then whats the point of playing them on PC? better to just get a console and have absolutely none of the hassle.

[Bjoern 1,157]

30 minutes ago, bogdansrb said:

The things is, as bad as AMD drivers are, I've only encountered issues in X-Plane. Any other game works just fine.

I've stopped gaming on Windows as nearly everything (including DCS) runs on Linux now, but yes, other games - even that other sim - likely run just fine.

The sad thing is that Laminar wants to fix any issues on a driver level (see Zink), but AMD just doesn't roll them in in any reasonable space of time.

 

30 minutes ago, bogdansrb said:

Sadly, XP on Linux still lacks some plugins (Navigraph, XP Realistic). 

Navigraphs FMS Manager runs just fine on Linux with WINE.

[bogdansrb 230]

 

Quote

Thats because AMD fixes issues when a game developer pays them a huge fee and doesnt even try and support recent gpu features

Probably, but other AMD users report XP11 working just fine. So I suspect they added something in XP12 that doesn't play well with AMD. Maybe that opengl-vulkan bridge?

I ran benchmarks on vulkan, opengl and directx with good results, so it's something more complex than that.

I also noticed that 3d vegetation halves the FPS even on Linux.

Quote

Navigraphs FMS Manager runs just fine on Linux with WINE.

No, it's the simlink plugin. But I could live without it. Not without XPRealistic though.

BTW, the FTSim sound pack is awesome!

 

[mSparks 2,086]

9 minutes ago, bogdansrb said:

Probably, but other AMD users report XP11 working just fine. So I suspect they added something in XP12 that doesn't play well with AMD. Maybe that opengl-vulkan bridge?

There are differing technologies used by various 3rd parties, kinda yes - its mostly the support LR has/needs to provide to 3rd parties to get their fancy displays into the cockpit. people also have differing definitions of "fine" - I always find it a fun game when looking at the XP12 release notes to see how many I was aware of, how many I had recreated, and also - how many actually affect me.

12.01b1 is a big one for me just for the (I havent actually got to test yet) wake turbulence [finally] coming back.

18 minutes ago, bogdansrb said:

I also noticed that 3d vegetation halves the FPS even on Linux

Its more there is a hard limit to what the gpus can do, clouds and 3d veg are both making heavy use of gpu silicon, so for example, you can probably get better veg with lower clouds, or max both with some FSR.. I really dont like the short render distance the new veg is disappearing, it was much nicer in earlier builds, and the only performance issues I have had since the very first alphas is with things like the exploding FMC when entering a flightplan. might have to see if I can hack settings.txt to get them back.

[blingthinger 649]

2 hours ago, Bjoern said:

plugin flickering

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/271923-linux-amd-plugins-still-flickering/&do=findComment&comment=2481710

Sooooooon. It's actually in testing now. I'm running towards the light even though it keeps running away from me....

[Bjoern 1,157]

49 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/271923-linux-amd-plugins-still-flickering/&do=findComment&comment=2481710

Yep, but until that build is public, flickering is the status quo. 

 

P.S: Rumors attribute a 100% cure rate for flickering to that 12.02 test build.

[brinx 276]

Came across this article today, may be relevant. 

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-graphics-cards-offer-better-performance-in-windows-11-vs-linux-6-2/

I personally would not use linux as a gaming machine. My only choice for running servers though.

[mSparks 2,086]

42 minutes ago, brinx said:

My only choice for running servers though.

In terms of which "wins" - afaict - especially for XP, but also others, it depends if you are CPU or GPU bottlenecked.

If the bottleneck is the cpu - linux comes out on top, all that effort that went into optimising for servers.

If the bottleneck is GPU, then windows comes out on top - all that effort that went into xbox games mostly makes it back to windows, playstation/openbsd not so much/at all.

There are some notable exceptions tho, e.g.

https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/comparing-gpu-performance-for-deep-learning-between-pop-os-ubuntu-and-windows-69aa3973cc1f

But they are mostly NV related aiui.

[bogdansrb 230]

Quote

people also have differing definitions of "fine"

Just read this comment on the org forum:

Quote

I'm almost certain this is an AMD driver issue. Just throwing rocks in the air and trying to figure out what is going on. I loaded a flight in X-Plane 11. Now, open GL is 80 fps sitting on the ramp. With Vulcan enabled, I get 47 fps. sitting on the same ramp. And using the latest drivers. I've never seen GL faster than Vulcan. Until now. Go figure......

 

[Yogipriester 11]

After only using XP under Linux for some time and still being annoyed with the da........ed flickering when using my favourite ToLiss A321 I reactivated my W10 partition where also P3Dv5 and MSFS are resting since ages and installed XP12.

It works fine, including the ToLiss A321 and even PetterPushback (which still does not funtion with me using XP12 under Linux). So far I only noticed that under W10 XP12 only has less than half of the fps as under Linux (with the same graphic settings). When at a busy airport and heavy traffic I was once disconnected from VATSIM because the fps was even under 20.

For several reasons I do not want to stay with Windows and certainly have no intentions to "upgrade" to Windows 11 on one hand but I enjoyed the flickerfree A321 and I am sure I can increase fps by lowering the graphic settings. On the other hand I enjoy the fantastic speed and ease of Linux as well as the freedom of not being constantly monitored by MS and others.

Instead of buying an expensive graphic card from Nvidia or switching back to Windows I decided to wait until the driver problems are sorted out by whoever is responsible and use XP12 on both platforms depending how I just feel.

 

PS

Hardware: Ryzen 5900X RX 6900 XT, 32GB RAM

 

 

[Bjoern 1,157]

14 hours ago, brinx said:

Came across this article today, may be relevant. 

https://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-graphics-cards-offer-better-performance-in-windows-11-vs-linux-6-2/

I personally would not use linux as a gaming machine. My only choice for running servers though.

We're already discussing the results here:

 

The preparation for the Steam Deck (which runs on Linux) has already yielded huge improvements for the general Linux gaming experience in terms of compatibility layers (Proton) and drivers (Mesa) by people working under contract for Valve and development doesn't seem to slow down. Considering how dumbed down Windows' UI has become, I'd frankly consider Linux as the only future option for people who prefer an adaptable usability experience on a regular desktop PC, gaming or not.

 

 

10 hours ago, bogdansrb said:

Just read this comment on the org forum:

 

Mirrors my experience in XP11. On Linux, OpenGL ran faster than Vulkan thanks to GL threading in the Mesa driver.

I think the increased OpenGL performance in Windows can be attributed to AMD having completely revamped their proprietary driver.

 

 

4 hours ago, Yogipriester said:

After only using XP under Linux for some time and still being annoyed with the da........ed flickering when using my favourite ToLiss A321 I reactivated my W10 partition where also P3Dv5 and MSFS are resting since ages and installed XP12.

It works fine, including the ToLiss A321 and even PetterPushback (which still does not funtion with me using XP12 under Linux). So far I only noticed that under W10 XP12 only has less than half of the fps as under Linux (with the same graphic settings). When at a busy airport and heavy traffic I was once disconnected from VATSIM because the fps was even under 20.

For several reasons I do not want to stay with Windows and certainly have no intentions to "upgrade" to Windows 11 on one hand but I enjoyed the flickerfree A321 and I am sure I can increase fps by lowering the graphic settings. On the other hand I enjoy the fantastic speed and ease of Linux as well as the freedom of not being constantly monitored by MS and others.

Instead of buying an expensive graphic card from Nvidia or switching back to Windows I decided to wait until the driver problems are sorted out by whoever is responsible and use XP12 on both platforms depending how I just feel.

Rumor has it that the A321 works perfectly with the upcoming Zink build of X-Plane, so just sit tight.

[blingthinger 649]

22 hours ago, brinx said:

I personally would not use linux as a gaming machine.

For now it's definitely a case-by-case basis but there's an impressive amount of money flowing into open source gfx dev. Valve's Gabe Newell doesn't particularly like windows and its parent company and is doing his utmost to provide an alternate path.

There have been quite a few reports of some games performing better in vulkan/Linux than dx/windows over the past years. In other words, sometimes it's faster to run pre-directx12 function calls with vulkan than it is to run dx natively in win.

The mesa GPU driver stack is getting a lot of attention these days. In a couple more years the decision to deal with a less than polished desktop GUI experience to get better FPS, might be easier to make. That case can obviously already be made for XP12 + NV.

Overall system bloat is already a problem. My linux box consumes all of ~100mb RAM after a clean boot w/ a simple GUI. I never have memory availability issues. Dabbling in windows over the past couple weeks had me rebooting a couple times because crappy memory management prevented XP from starting.

File systems are also faster thanks to that server market influence. And though it can be a technical pain, users can even load different thread schedulers in the linux kernel for slightly better perf and fewer low-FPS hitches.