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Suggestions for Graphics card

Need help with peripherals or devices?
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johna1954
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Suggestions for Graphics card

#1 Post by johna1954 »

Hi,
I am looking to add an AMD graphics card to my rig (AMD® Phenom(tm) ii x6 1090t processor × 6, 8Gb RAM - Old I Know!! Running Debian Stretch) as my current monitor is dying and the new monitor (24" Eizo CS2420) does not have a VGA connection.

My work primarily entails image processing and printing (I am NOT interested in gaming). Can anyone suggest a suitable card in the region of £100- £150

Most information I found online referred to Gaming so wanted to see if anyone out there uses their Linux box for image processing and what they find works.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
John

milomak
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#2 Post by milomak »

install inxi

run inxi -G
Desktop: A320M-A PRO MAX, AMD Ryzen 5 3600, GALAX GeForce RTX™ 2060 Super EX (1-Click OC) - Sid, Win10, Arch Linux, Gentoo, Solus
Laptop: hp 250 G8 i3 11th Gen - Sid
Kodi: AMD Athlon 5150 APU w/Radeon HD 8400 - Sid

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bw123
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#3 Post by bw123 »

When replacing integrated graphics with an add-in board I think it's going to depend on the available motherboard slot, and your power supply? On older motherboards, I usually try to find something in the same class, or maybe a couple years newer. For instance if your integrated is HD3000 class, you could probably pick up something used in HD 4000 that might work and not need a newer power supply? Old ati/amd boards are dirt cheap right now if you look around.

I don't know how practical it is to try and add a new unit to an older system, but I guess it could be done with some research. Slot height/width could be important too I'd think.
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llivv
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#4 Post by llivv »

This post may not be to helpful at recommending a video card. no excuses.....
bw123 wrote: I don't know how practical it is to try and add a new unit to an older system, but I guess it could be done with some research. Slot height/width could be important too I'd think.
Yep
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express
check the package
xerver-xorg-video-ati
and
xerver-xorg-video-amdgpu
man ati
man amdgpu
to see what cardsthey support (if you want to use Debian free driver with the card).
If you want the ati amd plob (sorry if I'm outdated here)
The AMD blob for Linux will support almost any of the newest cards available.

To pick a card - It all depends on what version of PCI-e your board has.... 1 2 or 3
and how much $ you want to spend.
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

johna1954
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#5 Post by johna1954 »

Thanks for your comments.
The motherboard does have PCIe 2.0 support which I believe is backward compatible with the modern PCIe 3.0 cards, so from that and my very limited knowledge does that mean a modern card might work?
Looking at the AMD Pro lower end range WX3100 for example.

John

shep
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#6 Post by shep »

The WX1300 is a GCN 4 based card and will need the amdgpu driver. There is some overlap and some older cards (R6000 -> R8000) will run with the radeon (Terrascale) driver or amdgpu (GCN1, GCN2). Currently, the Debian project recommends the Terrascale based driver over the GCN driver for those cards. Terrascale stability/performance is slightly better..

The wikipedia has a good entry on GCN (Graphic Crore Next) and there are forum posts in regard to using the amdgpu driver with a newer kernel.

johna1954
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#7 Post by johna1954 »

Thanks Shep

Thanks for the info. I look forward to some fun over the holidays and make sure I have an up-to-date backup!

Thanks
John

johna1954
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#8 Post by johna1954 »

Hi everyone and may I wish you all a Good New Year.

AMD WX3100 board installed and is working in that I had no problem with blank screens etc. I note from Synaptic package manager that X server-xorg-video-amdgpu (ver 1.2.0-1+b1) and libdrm-amdgpu-1 have been installed.

Can anyone advise what I need to do to get OpenCL OpenGL working? I have downloaded the Pro drivers from AMD for Ubuntu, (amdgpu-pro-18.20-621984) and attempted to follow instructions but came up with the the error message " I have an Unsupported OS". I had presumed that the Ubuntu version would be ok for Stretch but it seems that it is probably not.

I am on kernel version 4.9.0-8-amd64.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

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GarryRicketson
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#9 Post by GarryRicketson »

I don't know why you would presume that, Ubuntu is not Debian, any way there is some information for Debian:
https://wiki.debian.org/ATIStream
and
https://wiki.debian.org/Mesa

johna1954
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#10 Post by johna1954 »

Hi Garry, Thanks for your reply.
Presumption was based on Ubuntu being based on Debian and previously have installed software ok.
The 'Mesa' link proved OpenGL ok and 'Gears' test ran.
Installed 'amd-libopencl1' from instructions at https://wiki.debian.org/ATIStream also installed 'clinfo' which showed number of platforms as '0' so looks like OpenCL not working.
From looking online found info to check if amdgpu is installed (lsmod and log files of Xorg) and there is no reference to amdgpu at all!

Struggling as not very tech minded.


follow-up

Installed 'Mesa' and 'clinfo' now shows:
$ clinfo
Number of platforms 1
Platform Name Clover
Platform Vendor Mesa
Platform Version OpenCL 1.1 Mesa 13.0.6
Platform Profile FULL_PROFILE
Platform Extensions cl_khr_icd
Platform Extensions function suffix MESA

Platform Name Clover
Number of devices 0

NULL platform behavior
clGetPlatformInfo(NULL, CL_PLATFORM_NAME, ...) No platform
clGetDeviceIDs(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ALL, ...) No platform
clCreateContext(NULL, ...) [default] No platform
clCreateContext(NULL, ...) [other] <error: no devices in non-default plaforms>
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_CPU) No platform
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_GPU) No platform
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ACCELERATOR) No platform
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_CUSTOM) No platform
clCreateContextFromType(NULL, CL_DEVICE_TYPE_ALL) No platform

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stevepusser
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#11 Post by stevepusser »

How new is this card in terms of when AMD released it? Since Stretch drivers date back to 2016, you may have to use a backported driver or openCL packages if it's much newer than that. Also, you can install inxi and give us a quick look at the results of "inxi -G" to see what your hardware and driver situation is at the moment.
MX Linux packager and developer

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llivv
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#12 Post by llivv »

johna1954 wrote: From looking online found info to check if amdgpu is installed (lsmod and log files of Xorg) and there is no reference to amdgpu at all!
Struggling
there are two or three other possibilities - depending
lsmod
if not showing amdgpu
should show either
radeon
or
ati

than you can reference radeon or ati in

Code: Select all

$ cat .local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log
edit: also check

Code: Select all

$ apt-cache policy frimware-linux-nonfree 

Code: Select all

$ apt-cache policy frimware-amd-graphics 
https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

johna1954
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#13 Post by johna1954 »

Hi stevepusser,
June 2017 seems to be the release date for the WX3100

Output from inxi below:

Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Device 6985
Display Server: X.org 1.19.2 drivers: ati,vesa (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,radeon)
tty size: 80x24 Advanced Data: N/A for root

Many Thanks
John

johna1954
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#14 Post by johna1954 »

Hi llivv,
Thank you for your reply.
lsmod does not show anything for ATI or Radeon

Xorg.0.log only shows the following for ATI nothing for Radeon or amdgpu:

22.261] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 22.261] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 22.261] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA ATI SB Line Out Front (/dev/input/event7)
[ 22.261] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 22.261] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 22.262] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA ATI SB Line Out Surround (/dev/input/event8)
[ 22.262] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 22.262] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 22.262] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA ATI SB Line Out CLFE (/dev/input/event9)
[ 22.262] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 22.262] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 22.262] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA ATI SB Line Out Side (/dev/input/event10)
[ 22.262] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 22.262] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 22.262] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA ATI SB Front Headphone (/dev/input/event11)
[ 22.262] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 22.262] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 22.262] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA ATI SB Front Mic (/dev/input/event4)
[ 22.262] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 22.262] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 22.263] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA ATI SB Rear Mic (/dev/input/event5)
[ 22.263] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 22.263] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 22.263] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA ATI SB Line (/dev/input/event6)
[ 22.263] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.

'apt-cache policy frimware-linux-nonfree' and 'apt-cache policy frimware-amd-graphics' both show as installed.

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MicroScreen
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#15 Post by MicroScreen »

Hallo johna1954,

I have to tell you that there is nothing wrong with your card! That's the good news!
The real reason for the "problem" is the AMD driver software, which allows the use of OpenCL 2.0 in Windows without limitation, but not in Linux. That's the bad news. Only the Radeon Pro WX 2100 and the Radeon Pro WX 3100 Graphics card are affected by this restriction, all others are not. If you need a graphics card without this limitation, then I recommend the next higher WX 4100 card. (Software API support for Windows and Linux: DirectX 12.0 (feature level 12_0), OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 2.0 and higher, Vulkan 1.0;) AMD has unfortunately hidden this information in the software download section, so it is overlooked by many customers.

Excerpt from the release notes:
Supported APIs:
Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 for Linux is designed to support the following APIs:

OpenGL 4.5 and GLX 1.4
OpenCL™ 1.2 (not supported for Radeon™ Pro WX 2100 and Radeon™ Pro WX 3100)
Vulkan® 1.1
VDPAU/VAAPI
I hope I could contribute something to the clarification of the problem. :)
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johna1954
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Re: Suggestions for Graphics card

#16 Post by johna1954 »

Hi MicroScreen,
Many thanks for your detailed reply. Looks like I will have to change the card.

Cheers
John

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