I cannot get amdgpu to load as driver. Instead it always loads radeon.

Setup:

• Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS




• i7-5830k




• 2x R9 390X

This is a guide and a testing summary for enabling amdgpu (instead of radeon) on Ubuntu 18.04.1 having a R9 390X installed and trying out various kernels.

After reading this and reading/watching Level1Techs guide and many others I finally managed to get amdgpu loaded instead of radeon. The following steps show how to accomplish that.

Problem

I want to play games on Linux via DXVK using an open source driver (not amdgpu-pro). Since DXVK only works with the amdgpu driver I had to get rid of Ubuntu loading radeon all the time.

My setup

• Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS




• i7-5830k




• R9 390X (actually 2, but should not matter)

How to

I. Newest drivers

@NOT-TESTED: It should also work with the official drivers delivered with the Ubuntu 18.04.1 installation. If you do not want to run unofficial drivers skip this step.

@NOTE: Download newer unofficial drivers from PPA to get better performance in DXVK. May be unstable.

Install the latest driver from https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/ubuntu/graphics-drivers:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers

sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386

@ERROR unmet dependencies: install original drivers first:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers

sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386

@ATTENTION: Ensure you do not have another graphics driver PPA like ppa:paulo-miguel-dias/mesa added. You may check his Mesa drivers out: STABLE or UNSTABLE

@ERROR general error due to PPA: Purge graphic driver PPA(s) to fall back to original drivers and clean up:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && aptitude

sudo ppa-purge ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers

sudo apt autoremove && sudo apt autoclean

You may start over.

II. Xorg configuration

Create a xorg configuration file that will be loaded automatically on boot:

/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/<nr-name>.conf for example 42-amdgpu.conf

#/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/42-amdgpu.conf

Section "Device"

    Identifier "AMDGPU"

    Driver "amdgpu"

    Option "AccelMethod" "glamor"

    Option "DRI" "3"

EndSection

@NOT-TESTED: Add this to the already existing 10-amdgpu.conf file. May gets overwritten by driver installation.

@OPTION: You can also add this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf or /etc/xorg.conf.

III. Blacklist radeon

Create a blacklist file with the module that shall be blacklisted:

/etc/modprobe.d/<name>.conf for example blacklist-radeon.conf

#/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-radeon.conf

blacklist radeon

@OPTION: It is possible to use already existing blacklist.conf files by just appending blacklist radeon somewhere.

IV. GRUB configuration

Add or change these parameters in the grub configuration /etc/default/grub:

#/etc/default/grub

...

GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080x32

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="radeon.si_support=0 radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 amdgpu.cik_support=1 amdgpu.dc=1 amdgpu.dpm=1 amdgpu.modeset=1"

...

@DID-NOT-WORK: I made a copy of the 40_custom file in /etc/grub.d/. It did not work when I placed it in 40_amdgpu instead of /etc/default/grub. (see the /etc/grub.d/README for more info)

V. Update GRUB and the initial ramdisk

Let the changes above take affect:

sudo update-grub2 && sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

and

reboot

VI. Verify

To verify that the amdgpu driver has loaded and is in use, execute one or more of the following commands:

lsmod | egrep 'Used|amdgpu'



sudo lspci -v | grep amdgpu -B 19



sudo lshw -c video | grep amdgpu -B 10 -A 1

Run a Vulkan test application:

sudo apt install vulkan-utils

and

vulkan-smoketest

VII.I Testing with newer kernels (as of 2018-11-19)

I tried to boot various kernels after the steps above.

To install other kernels I used the Ubuntu Kernel Update Utility:

sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:teejee2008/ppa

sudo apt update

sudo apt install ukuu

Here is the summary of my testing:

4.15.0 WORKING! Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS default kernel

4.17.5 WORKING! kernel used in this video

4.18.0 WORKAROUND! current default kernel of Ubuntu 19.10 Disco (2018-11-19)

4.18.15 WORKAROUND! latest 4.18.x kernel with changes to amdgpu

4.18.19 WORKAROUND! latest 4.18.x kernel

4.19 FAILURE! blackscreen or dmesg:

[drm:dm_pp_get_static_clocks [amdgpu]] *ERROR* DM_PPLIB: invalid powerlevel state: 0!

4.19.1 FAILURE! blackscreen or dmesg:

drm:dm_pp_get_static_clocks [amdgpu]] *ERROR* DM_PPLIB: invalid powerlevel state: 0!

drm:amdgpu_vce_ring_test_ring [amdgpu]] *ERROR* amdgpu: ring 12 test failed

drm:amdgpu_device_init.cold.28 [amdgpu]] *ERROR* hw_init of IP block <vce_v2_0> failed -110

amdgpu 0000:05:00.0: amdgpu_device_ip_init failed

amdgpu 0000:05:00.0: Fatal error during GPU init

4.19.2 FAILURE! dmesg:

Direct firmware load for amdgpu/hawaii_mc.bin failed with error -2

@NOTE: I did not investigate more on the errors of the 4.19.x kernels yet.

VII.II Workaround

4.18-4.18.19

To get 4.18 kernels working:

1. 
   

   Backup your current firmware files:

   
   
   

   sudo cp -r /lib/firmware /lib/firmware-$(uname -r)
   
   

   
   


2. 
   

   Download the linux-firmware of Ubuntu 19.10 Disco (current Disco version uses kernel 4.18.0 as default) from https://packages.ubuntu.com/en/disco/linux-firmware or:

   
   
   

   wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux-firmware/linux-firmware_1.176.tar.gz
   
   

   
   


3. 
   

   Extract files:

   
   
   

   tar -xvzf linux-firmware_1.76.tar.gz
   
   

   
   


4. 
   

   Go into the new firmware direcotry:

   
   
   

   cd linux-firmware
   
   

   
   


5. 
   

   Install the firmware:

   
   
   

   sudo make install
   
   

   
   


6. 
   

   Reboot

   
   
   

   reboot