New Radeon drivers - 21.10.1 - performance still seems bad

[muziqaz]

Same problem here:
Every driver after 21.3.2 has a very poor OpenCL performance (6900XT here).
BOINC Projects are also slowed down.
As soon as I go back to 21.3.2 everything is fine.

I recommend to also report this via the feedback button in the driver menu to AMD.

is there any offical person from F@H who can reach out to AMD about this?
We are litteraly wasting performance and energy if someone is just always using the latest driver due to the reduced OpenCL performance.

Unfortunately, we went as deep as we possibly can, bar Lisa Su, herself in person
I just wrote the last request to couple of AMD people within the project, and if that won't get things rolling, I'm afraid nothing will.

The only way AMD would listen is if they were losing money by not selling their GPUs to FAH folders. Or if overwhelming amount of AMD users flooded AMD social feeds to get their attention. But who are we kidding, even before the broken drivers, performance on AMD cards was laughable, so FAH is mostly nVidia.

[XanderF]

The only way AMD would listen is if they were losing money by not selling their GPUs to FAH folders.

Unfortunately, the reality of the current supply situation plays in AMD's hand, here.

They HAD lost my money by poor Folding performance. Was 100% going nVidia this generation, as I had every previous generation. Until I wasn't, because I've been on EVGA's wait queue for over 9 months, now, watching it move exactly (checks list)...8 minutes forward in those 9 months.

Walked into the local Microcenter...AMD cards on the shelves. The whole 6xxx lineup. nVidia? Nothing. So I ended up with a 6600xt to keep up with gaming with my coworkers. "Hilariously" the last few days recent projects have absolutely trashed performance on it. I'm now actually generating LESS PPD than I was on my GeForce 1650 - but that was junk for games, so...??? What to do? If I want to do literally anything but Folding - AMD has competitive products in the market that you can actually buy. If you want to do Folding and need to buy a card right now...? What? You're out of luck, I guess? No decent performing nVidia cards to be had, and what you CAN buy from AMD performs worse than whatever half-decade-old nVidia card you've already got.

[muziqaz]

The only viable AMD GPUs for folding are 6800xt and 6900xt, since those are supported by 21.3.2 driver

[Starman157]

FYI, the same effect happens in the Linux drivers. AMD GPU Pro 21.10 is the equivalent to the Windows 21.3.1 WHQL (or 21.3.2 non WHQL). Performance is fast.

And just like Windows, every other Linux driver after 21.10 is junk for F@H. Yes, 21.20, 21.30, and the newly released 21.40.1 so expect major performance regressions!

Note, the 21.10 Linux drivers will only install into a 5.8 kernel at best. Forget about a 5.11 and 5.13 kernel.

[JimF]

I guess it helps to have an older card. On Ubuntu 20.04.3, my RX 570 performs the same on the 21.30 drivers as the previous ones. It is about 350-400k PPD or so, which is not as good as my Nvidia cards. That is why I normally use it on Einstein or sometimes MilkyWay, where the OpenCl drivers are an advantage.

[muziqaz]

FYI, the same effect happens in the Linux drivers. AMD GPU Pro 21.10 is the equivalent to the Windows 21.3.1 WHQL (or 21.3.2 non WHQL). Performance is fast.

And just like Windows, every other Linux driver after 21.10 is junk for F@H. Yes, 21.20, 21.30, and the newly released 21.40.1 so expect major performance regressions!

Note, the 21.10 Linux drivers will only install into a 5.8 kernel at best. Forget about a 5.11 and 5.13 kernel.

Please, if you can, report this to AMD through their driver issue report utility (if that exists in Linux) or their driver website

[Asghan]

I do report this with every new WHQL driver after 21.3.2 (after testing with FAH Bench ofc).
I'd love to upload a screenshot of my benchmarks, but as I cannot attach anything, I will just link it:
https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threa ... t-26249321
OpenCL performance is horrible with the current drivers But only in FAH as you can see. Blender in OpenCL is also slower, but by far not that much.

[muziqaz]

Blender is now concentrating on different API, which shows amazing performance speed up. It needs blender 3, and latest beta driver from AMD for this.
So I guess OpenCL is dieing slow and painful death

[Asghan]

@muziqaz: I know, it is also in my benchmarks
Just wondering if FAH will now use the converter AMD is providing (gonna try it out myself in a few days when I have time) to convert their CUDA code to AMD HIP code?
Might be easy and should give a nice speedup.
But let's see if they go that way :/

[Neil-B]

As I understand it it will be openmm that will need to develop to use hip at which point fah may be able to benefit from it

[muziqaz]

Yes, OpenMM needs to get the ball rolling with HIP. Unfortunately, AMD does not provide any GPUs for devs, if I remember correctly.

[gunnarre]

OpenMM appears to be making progress on HIP support via a plugin, especially by Adel Johar. I've asked them if this HIP support is being brought into the FAH GPU core as well.

[muziqaz]

OpenMM appears to be making progress on HIP support via a plugin, especially by Adel Johar. I've asked them if this HIP support is being brought into the FAH GPU core as well.

John, fahcore developer is seriously considering bringing it to fahcore
And yes, serious movement is happening right now

[psaam0001]

Follow up: It got bad enough where I removed the updated WHQL drivers for both AMD and NVidia, and allowed Win10 to locate optimized drivers for the installed devices.

So.... Looks like I'm going to wait for the finances to improve, and plan for upgrades.

Paul

Well, here is an update on the post I quoted above: I have an RX 6500 XT on its way, as an upgrade to the system with the Ryzen 3 3200G.

There is also an RTX 3070 coming, as an upgrade to my Ryzen 9 3950X system.... The GTX 1050 TI from the Ryzen 3 system is going to be kept as a spare, for a low-power folder (a system with a 600-750w PSU) I'll build as additional funds are acquired.

Paul

[muziqaz]

Just an update, if you haven't seen it on Discord, AMD have now noticed the issues put forward regarding the poor performance in F@H, and are working on it. So couple more driver versions and we should have our performance back