Is a video card change for OpenCL worthwhile?

iroc409

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 17, 2006
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I recently changed my desktop from Windows 10 to OpenSUSE Leap, and I have a AMD XFX R9 390 video card. OpenSUSE runs fine with the radeon driver, but of course I have no OpenCL support. There seems to be a quirk with the AMDGPU-pro driver and OpenSUSE Leap, and I just haven't been able to get it to work. I could play with another distro, but to be honest I've used OpenSUSE for years and I just like it and am comfortable with it.

It seems like there are still a lot of issues with both NVidia and AMD in Linux. Looking at video cards, and being a little surprised at how they've stagnated, it looks like I'd have to spend quite a bit of money to get a NVidia card with equivalent or better performance than my existing card. It seems like taking a big chance to do that, and end up with the same (or worse) results. Does anyone have any current experience with OpenSUSE and Nvidia with OpenCL?

I am interested in OpenCL support mostly because I primarily use the machine for photography, and a lot of the tools will use it for rendering. I don't really play games any more, although I'd like to maybe set up a dual boot for the rare occasion I do play them. I really have the itch to build a new Ryzen rig, but this machine is still fairly quick (i7-4790k).
 
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Grab a vega if you need cheap compute, can't be beaten... price/perf. Got mine for upcoming ML dev.
 
Thanks Algrim. I think I found that, and didn't get it to work. It's possible I didn't understand it properly or did it wrong, so I will try it again tonight and see if I can get it to work.

There were also some workarounds to install only parts of the project and I guess that works too but the files I unpacked from the AMD package didn't match what the suggestions were.
 
One of the threads I came across said something about pilfering the noarch packages. Unfortunately, my knowledge of SuSE (open or otherwise) is over a decade old and that was simply installing it to make sure it worked after I reconfigured the installer to pull from a DVD instead of the six compact discs the distribution came on.
 
Well, I did manage to get it installed per that link you posted, but oddly I couldn't get it installed with zypper--I had to use YaST. Which, well, they're pretty much one in the same so I'm not sure what happened. It's installed I guess, with some broken dependencies but I don't know if that's a problem or not. In Hardware Information it lists both driver modules, and lspci shows "kernel modules: radeon, amdgpu", but shows radeon in use. I haven't figured out how to get it to swap over to amdgpu, and darktable still says OpenCL acceleration is not available (but the desktop compositor is using OpenGL?). I've used OpenSuSE for a long time, but not enough to know the little bits well enough. Most of the nuts-and-bolts I have dealt with are in FreeBSD, and that's a fairly basic file server.

I did try and edit the X11 configs as one of the troubleshooting guides I found, but in the devices.conf it suggested changing one of the lines--but everything is commented out in these files. So I'm not sure if they changed things for Leap 15.

The software is pretty quick without OpenCL, so I'm not sure I'm chasing diminishing returns. I might even consider just having a second desktop for the rare occasion I want to fire up a game (which is very rare these days), but dual boot even sounds like a headache. So far, everything else but this OpenCL issue has worked perfectly with little intervention on my part (the hardest part was getting Netflix to cooperate).
 
The software is pretty quick without OpenCL, so I'm not sure I'm chasing diminishing returns. I might even consider just having a second desktop for the rare occasion I want to fire up a game (which is very rare these days), but dual boot even sounds like a headache. So far, everything else but this OpenCL issue has worked perfectly with little intervention on my part (the hardest part was getting Netflix to cooperate).

I have always liked OpenSuSE, but it's felt like they have been struggling to keep up the last few years. Honestly, this is why I purchased and Xbox. I just got tired of dealing with it all just to play a game that I rarely had the time to play anyway. Of course, $500 console that after 8 months has seen maybe 100 hours of use.. Mostly in Netflix... lol
 
I have always liked OpenSuSE, but it's felt like they have been struggling to keep up the last few years. Honestly, this is why I purchased and Xbox. I just got tired of dealing with it all just to play a game that I rarely had the time to play anyway. Of course, $500 console that after 8 months has seen maybe 100 hours of use.. Mostly in Netflix... lol
I bought an xbox with my 65" tv 3 years ago. It took until last year that it finally saw some use. My tv has built in HBO and netflix and I have a linux based sat tuner that has all the porn plugins for that use lol.
 
I bought an xbox with my 65" tv 3 years ago. It took until last year that it finally saw some use. My tv has built in HBO and netflix and I have a linux based sat tuner that has all the porn plugins for that use lol.

I did the same thing with an xbox 360. I sold it almost two years after I purchased it still unopened in it's original box. You and I need better work / life balance. lol
 
I still haven't fixed the issue, but I think I've about exhausted it. However the machine is still running great.

Not having a gaming system really messes with my head. I don't even know if I'd use it, but I've always had one so not having one is giving me some strange mental fits--probably just the same with the xbox. It's a strange problem to have. I have other hobbies now I spend time on instead; nothing is really stopping me from it. When I do, I usually play the older stuff, but it'll just be a few hours for a day or two and then I move on again.
 
The only thing I use my Xbox 360 for is Netflix. the only game I ever bought for it (second hand) was Forza 4. Surprisingly it actually got an update the other day.
 
The only thing I use my Xbox 360 for is Netflix. the only game I ever bought for it (second hand) was Forza 4. Surprisingly it actually got an update the other day.
Check out the playable free demos. Quite often they give enough entertainment. If you have kids, for example lego batman demo lets you play as far as you want, only thing is you can't save your progress. Smaller kids don't really care, they're happy to start from beginning the next day :)
 
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