Linux News of the Week: First RDNA 4 Benchmarks under Linux 8 comments
Image: 11 bit studios
With the release of the RX 9070 (XT) graphics cards, these are also competing in the first benchmarks under Linux. The open source driver maintenance leaves the graphics cards alive for more than 10 years. Developers optimize their titles for the steam bridge. Mono framework will be released for the first time after the wine project.
First tests for rDNA 4 under Linux
In a first test for the new graphics cards from AMD under Linux, Phoronix tested them in several games and applications. Ubuntu 24.10 was used in connection with the Linux kernel 6.14 Git and Mesa 25.1-devel. Since no official AMD volcano driver has been released for the new generation of graphics chips, the alternative free cycling driver is used.
In all tests, Michael Larabel sees the RX 9070 XT just behind the RX 7900 XT under Linux. The older RX 7900 XTX is in a clear distance and is just above the RTX 4080 Super. In view of Raytracing, not much changes in the ranking: RX 7900 XT and RX 9070 XT change the rank and are therefore still the same. During the test, there were selling points in titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, which was part of the beginning and could therefore not be examined. Overall, the RX-9070 (XT) version still suffers from immature drivers if the cards are used with the free operating system. Driver care for old AMD GCN graphics cards
The release of the Radeon R9 290 series (test at CB) has passed a decade and driver support under Windows has also been fixed for a long time. But thanks to the open source driver, driver development and compatibility continues under Linux. Thanks to a submission of the old graphics card via Leonardo Frassetto to the developers of the RADV project, continuous integration (CI) has been expanded to test the Old Hawaii GPUs. An overview of the development can be found in Mesa.
Game versions optimized for the Steam Bridge
As GamingonLinux reports, Square Enix has introduced special adjustments for the Steam game with patch 1.003 for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. The size of the game has been significantly reduced when downloading on the mobile console. Liam Dawe writes that the download size from 144.2 GB in the desktop is reduced to 88.1 GB when loaded on the Steam Bridge. This means more than 50 GB of savings, which is of great importance given the often limited storage space. Other innovations in the patch include fixing the causes of crashes in connection with AMD Radeon graphics cards.
The developers behind Frostpunk 2 announce the compatibility of their game with the Steam Bridge. In a news item, you talk about the fact that the story mode is stable and playable with solid performance. In addition, it is used to obtain a verified Steam Bridge badge, for which additional improvements and adjustments to the controller are necessary.
First version after taking over the mono project
Last year, the Mono project changed under the leadership of the wine developers. (News in September 2024). After several months, the first version has now been released under the new roof. Mono 6.14.0 of the Mono framework brings native MacOS support for ARM. There are numerous patches around X11 for Linux. To better differentiate from other projects with “mono” in the name, Mono Framework appears as the successor to the originally mentioned project. Detailed release notes can be found on the project page.
Other Linux and open source releases
The free game Godote has been released in version 4.4. Highlights include the integration of the Jolt physics engine and Ubershaders to reduce stuttering. A new tone mapping also takes with Agx.
The audio and video stream manager PipEwire receives MIDI 2.0 support with the new version 1.4 and improves RISC-V support. A new system service takes over for Pipewire pulses and many repositories and small bug fixes have found their way into the release. A detailed list can be found at Gitlab.
Mangohud 0.8.1 improves the accuracy of FPS display and, among other things, introduces support for temperature sensors to ELBRUS processors. Bug fixes include incorrect recording of GPU and storage clock in AMD GPUs.
Topics: AMD Operating Systems Graphics Cards Linux Open Source RDNA 4 RX 9070 XT
An engineer by training, Alexandre shares his knowledge on GPU performance for gaming and creation.
