Category Archives: Gaming

AMD, Gaming, Linux, Nerdy Mind

AMD GPU Linux (Arch)

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Driver: Xorg, Wayland

Vulkan: Gamers

OPENCL: Blender, GIMP, Davinci Resolve

VDPAU: OBS , FFMPEG , Simple Screen Recorders

We can install all three AMD Vulkan drivers and use vulkan-prefixes to run programs using a specific Vulkan driver

We will start with the gamers setup of just AMDVLK and vulkan-radeon (RADV)

RX5000 Series GPU and newer.

sudo pacman -S xf86-video-amdgpu amdvlk lib32-amdvlk vulkan-radeon lib32-vulkan-radeon opencl-mesa libva-mesa-driver lib32-libva-mesa-driver mesa-vdpau lib32-mesa-vdpau

Vulkan Prefixes (selector)

yay -S amd-vulkan-prefixes

PRO (Blender, Davinci Resolve etc)

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/amdgpu-pro-installer.git
cd amdgpu-pro-installer
makepkg -si

OpenCL for PRO

yay -S opencl-amd

Usage

To run an application using PRO drivers for OpenGL and Vulkan progl vk_pro steam

Davinci Resolve progl resolve

OBS vk_pro obs

Enable hardware encoders, raytracing, system default Vulkan etc

Hardware encoder/decodersudo nano /etc/environment

addLIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=radeonsi
VDPAU_DRIVER=radeonsi

Remove shader cache stutters
addDXVK_ASYNC=1

Enable raytracing for PRO
addVKD3D_CONFIG=dxr11,dxr

Change system default vulkan driver from AMDVLK to vulkan-radeon (RADV)
addAMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV

Enable ICD Loader method to choose system default vulkan driver
addDISABLE_LAYER_AMD_SWITCHABLE_GRAPHICS_1=1

When using ICD Loader method, add and uncomment one off VK_ICD_FILENAMES lines## Radeon (RADV)
#VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.i686.json:/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json
## AMDVLK
#VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/amd_icd32.json:/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/amd_icd64.json
## AMDVLK PRO
#VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/amd_pro_icd32.json:/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/amd_pro_icd64.json

Woohoo,

If any of that don’t make sense try these links. Props to those guys, awesome and well maintained documentation.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU_PRO

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Vulkan

Please ping me a comment if any of my ‘guide’ here needs updating. THX.

BaDboD

Gaming, Linux

Creativerse Release on Linux Wine

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As Creativerse is now out of early access and in full release a quick update.

To install Creativerse on Linux using Wine I am using Linux Mint 18 (Sarah) but any recent Ubuntu distro should work fine.

1) Install Wine. Preferably Wine Staging
2) Install corefonts using winetricks winetricks corefonts
3) Download and install windows Steam
4) Totally ignore steam not showing the store and go to your library
5) Install Creativerse
6) Play Creativerse.

The release shows much better performance then previous R versions. Using AMD R7-360 I can set all graphics options to max with silky smooth frame rates.

For fixing steam Store and best performance settings see my previous post HERE should you want a fully functional Steam in Linux using Wine.

Please do post any questions, success or fails in the comments.

BaDboD

Gaming, Linux, Nerdy Mind

Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial, AMD, Black or Blank Screen, Steam Will Not Launch

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If your getting black screens on boot with your Ubuntu upgrade to 16.04 (Xenial) then probably ‘upgrade’ is the problem.

From Ubuntu Xenial 16.04 onwards, there is no FGLRX or proprietry driver support for AMD RADEON HD cards.

AMD are now focusing on the open source drivers. If your getting blank or black screen on boot, or other video problems, do a clean install. Do not try to install the proprietry drivers. Everything should be working fine without any messing about.

Steam wont launch? Damn this is still hanging around from 15.01!!

This is a Steam problem. Steam really needs to try keep up with the open source drivers. We simply remove the old libs from Steam so it is forced to use the newer libs.

cd $HOME/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/i386/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.bak
cd $HOME/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime/amd64/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.bak

Steam will work now 🙂

Gaming, Linux

Wine 1.7, WoW, Warcraft, Battlenet, white screen, performance, Linux

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The current 5.x release of Battlenet launcher has given many linux wine users a headache with some suffering a white or blank/black screen.

FIX:
winecfg

  1. Under the Applications tab click ‘Add application’
  2. Browse to ‘program files (x86)\Battle.net’, or wherever you have battlenet launcher installed, select ‘Battle.net.exe’ and click ‘Open’.
  3. Back in the main window ‘applications’ tab, select the new entry ‘Battle.net.exe’.
  4. Below, in the ‘Windows version’ dropdown menu select ‘Windows XP’
  5. Click ‘Apply’.

Blank screen problem should now be fixed.

PERFORMANCE:
For better performance of WoW, there are 2 methods, one is to use opengl and the other is to use D3D9 but using a small trick to provide much better performance. Opengl works fine and provides much improved frame rate without any further messing about, but you might not like the visuals. Regardless, the first step to either method is to first switch WoW to using opengl mode.

Using gedit or notepad open the ‘WTF\configure.wft’ file in the World of Warcraft folder and change the line
SET gxApi "D3D9"
to
SET gxApi "opengl"
and save.

Try WoW now. You might need to set your resolution and full screen mode again. Your frame rate should be much improved, as good, if not better than if you were using windows.

if you don’t like the changed visuals you get in opengl mode and want the nice shiny D3D9 look without sacrificing too much performance.

After first making the change above,

  1. Set your in game video options as you like.
  2. Restart the game.
  3. Use the in game system menu -> Advanced and set the Graphics API to ‘DirectX 9’.
  4. Restart WoW.

Now you will have slightly lower frame rate than opengl mode, but much better frame rate and the improved visuals of D3D9 mode than you did before the switch to opengl.

!!Important!!

Apart from setting your resolution and window/fullscreen mode DO NOT change any other video settings. If you do your frame rate will drop substantially and you will have to repeat the switch to opengl and back again.

To get the best visuals V performance you may have to change video settings then switch to opengl and back to directx 9 untill you find the best settings for you.

Also worth a try is replacing Wine 1.7 with Wine-staging. This offers better performance out of the box and the above works for even better frame rates. However; this version of wine is aimed at gaming so may well break any other applications you are using wine for. If you are going to try it out, once installed use winecfg and go to the staging tab. Tick everything.

Before doing your first winecfg it might be worth making sure you already have:

sudo apt-get install winbind libp11-kit-gnome-keyring:i386 p11-kit-modules:i386