I could do with a bit of knowledgeable input here.
I’m considering getting a new laptop sometime, a powerful one that could replace both my (very) slow ‘travelling’ laptop and my aging desktop machine.
I’m going to stick with windows for the time being, mostly due to my lack of skills with Linux
I’m well aware that Nvidia GPUs are the preferred option for running darktable, but how much trouble would I have, or is it even possible to run darktable with an AMD Radeon card? I can’t remember if what I’ve read before is more about Linux driver issues, or something else.
Seriously wondering about this as I came across a rather good deal on a laptop with a 12GB RX 6800M… would be perfect IF dt would work on it, under windows.
P.S. Interested in Linux performance and vkdt suitablity as well - may as well be future-proof.
I run linux exclusively, use Darktable, and had a System76 Laptop with an AMD processor. never any problems running open CL. I Just built a new desktop with AMD processor, GeForce 3060 V2 Nvidia card. Absolutely no issues and very fast processing. If you have a choice I’d go Nvidia over AMD Radeon.
I had a choice between two versions of the 3060, one that was faster, the other had more memory (12GB). I chose the one with more memory.
As for Linux, for the last 4 years I’ve been running Pop_Os, and prior to that Mint. I’ve never had any serious issues with Nvidia drivers in either system. They’ve both been great with Darktable, and my entry to digital processing LightZone.
My System76 laptop (Serval with AMD processor, no longer made) was really a portable work station. Both the laptop and my new desktop could be considered mid range gaming rigs, Not too hateful as far as cost is concerned, but with plenty of guts for future Darktable (or whatever ) upgrades.
Thanks! That’s all useful info. I am thinking I might be better off just going with an Nvidia over an AMD, probably an RTX 4050 or 4060.
The thing that got me considering the Radeon was seeing the Corsair Voyager a1600 on a massive discount at a local retailer - 1850 AUD down from 3899AUD. Pretty impressive machine, if not exactly current.
I do think a gaming laptop is going to be the solution though, as I like their emphasis on performance and in some cases serviceability over sleekness.
Wanting a decent screen (I’m aiming for at least nearing 100% sRGB coverage) complicates things a bit.
I’ll have a look at the System76 range - thanks for the heads up. (edit a few min later - very nice but a little too expensive, especially with shipping to Aus factored in)
I described here: linux amdgpu and opencl with RX5800XT | reox's projects how I installed the AMD OpenCL drivers (ROCm) on Debian Bookworm.
The only two crucial parts are: 1) the firmware is not yet in Bookworm, thus I downloaded it from the kernel git and 2) add your user to the required groups.
AMD does not specify that the ROCm drivers run with these cards, but they do. I initially asked Sarunas Burdulis (Šarūnas Burdulis @ Dartmouth College) how he installed the cards, because he has some excellent tutorials on his website and I had some trouble with the ROCm driver (I was not in the groups with my user…) and he confirmed me that AMD does not specify that correctly.
12GB sounds great. i didn’t try the mobile versions of the AMD, but the desktops seem to run very well by now. can’t speak about windows. i am trying to build things on windows, but i’m not talented in this specific discipline.
in general i am impressed by the perf of the AMD cards once you embrace the fact that their ray tracing is @#$% and the pipelines will have scheduling bubbles and require async compute to fill. one thing i’m only doing on nvidia is cooperative matrices/tensor cores. amd and intel also have this ability, but i don’t think amd supports the vk extension yet at all. that said i also don’t have any production use case for these instructions yet (but there is fallback code in any case).
when it comes to driver support (again, i have only linux experience), i have the impression that more people care about vulkan and so i never had issues with this (as compared to opencl which pretty much breaks on every driver update). working with amd drivers (in kernel!) was a very pleasing experience.
Sounds like AMD is not the disaster I feared it could be where darktable is concerned. And vkdt!
And also, I imagine the driver situation will likely only get better with time…?
I also get the impression that the ‘correct’ choice of distro - Arch has been mentioned here, also seen Fedora used successfully - has something to do with it.
As I said at the start I will be running Windows for the foreseeable future, but I just don’t want to be ‘stuck’ with Windows to have dt run properly… you never know what Microsoft might think of next…
Well, that’s a different perspective - I knew it was proprietary, but so far most reports I’ve found people seem quite happy… can you elaborate a little? Not questioning you at all, just genuinely interested.
Just tested the entry-level RX 7600 8GB (Debian 12 Bookworm, ROCm 5.7) with good results. darktable 4.4.2, ROCM 5.7 OpenCL and amdgpu driver from stock kernel 6.1. All works fine.
Should perhaps add that — after all that trouble and thinking it was finally solved — after the latest NVIDIA driver update acceleration is not available in some apps. I believe the NVIDIA images for Universal Blue is probably the only thing that could make me buy NVIDIA again.
I have above laptop with AMD GPU. The only remaining main issue is the terrible power management and resulting short battery time. The display runs at 144mhz and can’t be clocked down. Enabling GPU power management leads to kernel panics. The CPU frequency never goes below 1.4ghz.
- I knew it was proprietary, but so far most reports I’ve found people seem quite happy… can you elaborate a little? Not questioning you at all, just genuinely interested.
I believe the NVIDIA images for 