eGPU stuff

Not about OpenMW? Just about Morrowind in general? Have some random babble? Kindly direct it here.
User avatar
AnyOldName3
Posts: 2668
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by AnyOldName3 »

I think that stat's comparing sixteen lanes of PCIe 3.0 against four lanes, so you might see a smaller difference than that against Nvidia cards.
User avatar
lysol
Posts: 1513
Joined: 26 Mar 2013, 01:48
Location: Sweden

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by lysol »

I've just ordered this 4x pcie adapter and a power unit for it. Tomorrow night ends an auction of an almost brand new Radeon RX 560 4 GB, which I might bid on.

Any last warnings or recommendations regarding the graphics card?
User avatar
lysol
Posts: 1513
Joined: 26 Mar 2013, 01:48
Location: Sweden

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by lysol »

So after a few weeks, I got a package from china with the last needed part of my experiment: The PCI express to m.2 adapter. After some messing with the BIOS, I finally got it to work. There's one slight problem though, which maybe some of you could help me with. Google gave some suggestions, but it has not helped so far.

I can't change resolution from 1280x1024 (native is 2560x1440), and when doing the lshw -c video command, it says:

Code: Select all

  *-display UNCLAIMED     
       beskrivning: VGA compatible controller
       produkt: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       tillverkare: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: cf
       bredd: 64 bits
       klocka: 33MHz
       förmågor: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       konfiguration: latency=0
       resurser: memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d01fffff ioport:e000(storlek=256) memory:dfe00000-dfe3ffff memory:dfe40000-dfe5ffff
I guess the UNCLAIMED-part is the thing to focus on. Any ideas?

EDIT:
inxi -Gx gives me:

Code: Select all

Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Device 67ff bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: fbdev,ati (unloaded: vesa,radeon)
           Resolution: [email protected]
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 4.0, 256 bits)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.0.7 Direct Rendering: Yes
EDIT again:

Seems like one of the current ADMD graphics cards aren't supported by the open source AMDGPU driver yet... Guess which one? Rx550, which is the card I bought. Haha. Dammit. Downloading the AMDGPU-pro driver now...

EDIT: Or maybe not... I'll continue to update my progress.

And another EDIT: Might be as simple as doing a dist upgrade since I'm still on 16.04 LTS (running ubuntu studio). Doing an upgrade to 18.04 now, we'll see how it turns out.
User avatar
psi29a
Posts: 5356
Joined: 29 Sep 2011, 10:13
Location: Belgium
Gitlab profile: https://gitlab.com/psi29a/
Contact:

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by psi29a »

Give PRIME a spin. DRI PRIME, that might help. It allows me to use one GPU for everyday use and one dedicated for games or apps that need more horsepower.
User avatar
lysol
Posts: 1513
Joined: 26 Mar 2013, 01:48
Location: Sweden

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by lysol »

psi29a wrote: 30 Apr 2018, 11:59 Give PRIME a spin. DRI PRIME, that might help. It allows me to use one GPU for everyday use and one dedicated for games or apps that need more horsepower.
Thanks! I'll check it out later when I've gotten everything to work.
User avatar
AnyOldName3
Posts: 2668
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by AnyOldName3 »

I know my Vega card doesn't work properly with any drivers available for 16.04, so upgrading is probably the solution.
User avatar
lysol
Posts: 1513
Joined: 26 Mar 2013, 01:48
Location: Sweden

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by lysol »

Also upgrading broke the OS. Haha, can't even log in now, but maybe this is a good time to do a fresh reinstall of the system.
User avatar
Ace (SWE)
Posts: 887
Joined: 15 Aug 2011, 14:56

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by Ace (SWE) »

Image
User avatar
lysol
Posts: 1513
Joined: 26 Mar 2013, 01:48
Location: Sweden

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by lysol »

Haha, spot on. I've done an Ubuntu upgrade twice before, and each time it fucked up xorg or something else. This time I thought "well, it's been ten years since I tried upgrading the last time, it's probably ok to upgrade nowadays". Yeah right...

So anyway, update:

When Ubuntu Studio had upgraded to 17.10, the graphics card was apparently working as it should since I had 1440p resolution, but, again, I couldn't even log in.

Now, I have a fresh install of Ubuntu Budgie 18.04 (really sweet desktop environment so far!) with the Ubuntu Studio audio production meta package installed instead. What now? The graphics card doesn't even start up anymore. Haha. This is strange really, I haven't done anything with the BIOS when reinstalling the OS, so it shouldn't theoretically be any difference. Right..?

Next step is probably to ask at the egpu forums or the /r/egpu subreddit. Unless anyone of you guys have any idea what might be the problem.
User avatar
AnyOldName3
Posts: 2668
Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: eGPU stuff

Post by AnyOldName3 »

I managed to upgrade a laptop starting from 14.04 to 14.10 then 15.10 then 16.04 then 16.10 then 17.04 and it remained nearly useable throughout. Loads of stuff kept mysteriously not working and it was almost always an issue that Google was convinced no one had ever had before or a common issue with a simple fix, but the fix wouldn't work. In the end, I just cloned the partition and started from scratch. People say the upgrade from Windows 7 to 10 was a nightmare and broke stuff, but at least you could calm the computer down by reinstalling whichever programs and drivers had died and they wouldn't somehow remember that they were broken and break themselves again.
Post Reply