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AMD Open Source Driver for Vulkan project is discontinued

(github.com)
109 points haunter | 2 comments | 17 Sep 25 00:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.612s | source
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shmerl ◴[17 Sep 25 03:10 UTC] No.45271178[source]▶
What will AMD do with Windows Vulkan driver, didn't they use amdvlk there? There was some radv on Windows experiment, it would be cool if AMD would use that.
replies(1): >>45271289 #
trynumber9 ◴[17 Sep 25 03:28 UTC] No.45271289[source]▶
No, it was a third driver.

Per AMD

>Notably, AMD's closed-source Vulkan driver currently uses a different pipeline compiler, which is the major difference between AMD's open-source and closed-source Vulkan drivers.

replies(2): >>45271475 #>>45272999 #
1. kimixa ◴[17 Sep 25 07:42 UTC] No.45272999[source]▶
The windows driver has 2 paths, the internal compiler, and the same LLVM as in the open source amdvlk release (though there might be things like not-yet-upstreamed changes, experimental new hardware support etc. that differ from the public version, it was fundamentally the same codebase). The same for DX12 (and any other driver that might use their PAL layer). If you want to confirm you can see all the llvm symbols in the driver's amdvlk{32,64}.dll and amdxc{32,64}.dll files. From what I remember, the internal compiler path is just stripped out for the open source amdvlk releases.

I believe the intent was to slowly deprecate the internal closed compiler, and leave it more as a fallback for older hardware, with most new development happening on LLVM. Though my info is a few months out of date now, I'd be surprised if the trajectory changed that quickly.

replies(1): >>45273342 #
2. account42 ◴[17 Sep 25 08:37 UTC] No.45273342[source]▶
AFAIK the closed source shader compiler was/is also available for Linux in the amdgpu-pro package, just not in the open source releases.