Vulkan + AMD HD 8670M

[Aetanes]

Hi,

First of all, I don't know if this section is de correct section for my problem.

I'm using steam on my ubuntu 20.04 system. The GPU is AMD HD 8670M, (old GPU, I know it).
The problem appears when I'm launching proton (dxvk) on Windows games or any Vulkan game, for example, Dota2, the game try to start, but anything happens.

At first I thought that the problem could be an issue with vulkan, but if I launch vkcube from terminal works fine.

I'm using mesa drivers. If any additional informations is need, please let me know.

Anyone has the same problem?

Kind Regards,

Sorry for my bad english ;)

[Omega]

By default your GPU will run using the Radeon driver, this driver does not support Vulkan.

You can switch to the AMDGPU driver which does, however this driver is experimental. But from my experience AMDGPU on this older hardware is stable and runs without issues.


To enable AMDGPU on your hardware you have to set a kernel parameter.

Edit /etc/default/grub and add radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.cik_support=1 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. Like so;

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.cik_support=1"

Save and exit the file.

Then run the following command and restart your system.

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

After rebooting run the following command to check if it is indeed using AMDGPU.

lspci -k | grep -EA3 VGA

It should say that the "Kernel driver in use" is "amdgpu".


vkcube is likely working because you have an Intel CPU with a intergrated GPU. You likely have a 4000 series Intel CPU more specifically, which have very basic and incompletely Vulkan support.

After switching to AMDGPU ensure that the machine is actually trying to run games on your GPU and not in the Intel HD graphics.

I used this tool https://github.com/aejsmith/vkdevicechooser to force Vulkan applications to run on my M230 (Rebranded HD 8550). I managed to run DOOM 2016 through DXVK on my old M230.

For OpenGL applications you can simply add DRI_PRIME=1 %command% to the game launch options in Steam to force it on the dedicated GPU.

[Aetanes]

Hi Omega,

Thank so much for the detailed explanation, I'm going to do the steps that you have mentioned to use amdgpu driver.

But I can say one thing, I don't have a Intel CPU, the laptop CPU is a A10 from AMD, but I suppose that this iGPU can launch vulkan in the same way that Intel HD does.

Thank you again,

Kind Regards,

[Omega]

Originally posted by Aetanes:

Hi Omega,

Thank so much for the detailed explanation, I'm going to do the steps that you have mentioned to use amdgpu driver.

But I can say one thing, I don't have a Intel CPU, the laptop CPU is a A10 from AMD, but I suppose that this iGPU can launch vulkan in the same way that Intel HD does.

Thank you again,

Kind Regards,

If you only have the AMD GPU it should be as simple as switching over to the amdgpu driver.

[Aetanes]

Hi again Omega,

As you said, I changed the driver for my HD8670M to amgpu using the grub commands, but after this, I cannot login in my X session, the probem was the iGPU (it needs the radeon driver). But searching, using your comment as a base explanation, I found this:

https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-drivers/open-source-amd-linux/1016835-terascale-and-southern-islands-enable-amdgpu-without-blacklisting-radeon

I copied the link in order to help other people with my same problem.

I hope this post helps other people ;)

Thanks a lot again Omega

Kind Regards,