Vulkan will be better on Windows 7. We can't fully support D3D11 on Windows 7 anymore due to certain D3D11 features we implement for emulation accuracy that Microsoft has implemented into Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, but not Windows 7.
(11-27-2017, 10:00 AM)Helios Wrote: [ -> ]Vulkan will be better on Windows 7. We can't fully support D3D11 on Windows 7 anymore due to certain D3D11 features we implement for emulation accuracy that Microsoft has implemented into Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, but not Windows 7.
Thank you very much for the information. I do remember reading something about the changes, but it never clicked in my head exactly what was going to happen going forward. Though now that I think about it, with the scheduler improvements Ryzen sees in Windows 10 anyway, it may be a moot point for me to stay on W7, but that's neither here nor there for the thread.
(11-27-2017, 09:30 AM)linkdude64 Wrote: [ -> ]Excellent (if off-topic) thread, everyone!
If the comment about malware was directed toward me, I would have to agree to the possibility, though with a familiarity of the running processes on a clean Win7 machine, as well as having network monitoring tools and firewall safeguards in place, I would be surprised if network traffic was getting in or out without me noticing.
Ditto the comments about Ryzen and memory performance - the Ryzen build I have purchased but yet to assemble is a 1600x (meaning 4.0Ghz is within factory specs, but TDP will be lower than the 1800X, leaving more room for that "boost") paired with GSkill FlareX 3200Mhz/14-14-14-34 timings, and a RX 580 8GB. I am hoping for noticably improved performance in Dolphin to my current i5 760 and Radeon 6970 1GB.
Helios, when you were recommending against D11 on Win7, did you mean to imply the Vulkan backend would be superior on that OS? I was hoping I would be able to use Vulkan on W7, but if not, I will likely "upgrade" to Win10 LTSB, or, if I'm feeling adventurous, use virtualization to get Win10 in a VM with GPU passthrough (an interesting challenge with Ryzen, currently) and then use Vulkan from there.
Thank you to all moderators and other contributors in this thread. Taking a step back, it is incredible what the developers have accomplished, and in turn, what you all have managed to make accessible to everyone.
Indeed it has been an interesting thread and want to thank everyone too!
I got dolphin and xenoblade chronicles running up nice and good on dx11 initially due to vulkan being "(experimental)" and then switched to Vulkan just before Helios suggested it and it has been running nicely!
From my understanding Vulkan is pretty similar/same to dx12 thus should be superior to dx11 AND has the added benefit of not being OS bound or restricted like how dx12 = w10 only.
In or around 2020 I will check to see if I want to switch to w10 LTSB or maybe try out linux mint or reactOS. Would be nice if linux picked up some ground once 2020 rolled around and lots of people might be looking for something other than w10.
Lots can happen in two years!
(11-27-2017, 06:15 PM)SpaceDandy Wrote: [ -> ]In or around 2020 I will check to see if I want to...maybe try out linux mint
One unfortunate thing is that, because Mint is based off of Ubuntu LTS, only 19.3 will be available at the beginning of 2020 which would use Ubuntu 18.04 LTS as its base - you'd have to wait until the middle of 2020 to get Mint 20.0 which should actually be based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
Now this won't be too crucial if you're using hardware that several years old, but it could be important if by then you were using hardware that was maybe only a year old or less.
(11-27-2017, 06:15 PM)SpaceDandy Wrote: [ -> ]Indeed it has been an interesting thread and want to thank everyone too!
In or around 2020 I will check to see if I want to switch to w10 LTSB or maybe try out linux mint or reactOS. Would be nice if linux picked up some ground once 2020 rolled around and lots of people might be looking for something other than w10.
If you were considering supporting Team Red as far as CPU is concerned, there may be earlier opportunities for you, if you should feel inclined to get your hands a little dirty.
VFIO is a virtualization technology that is currently in a late-alpha sort of stage with Ryzen - with some kernel patches and other know-how, it enables Ryzen users to run a GNU/Linux distribution of their choice as an OS and "Pass Through" a powerful GPU to a (if you choose, network-isolated) virtual Windows 10 machine (or other OS) with a
less than 1% hit to performance. The technology is
already at this stage, it is simply a matter of time before these capabilities and patches are merged with a major distribution, or become available in a more convenient and easily configurable package. I am not sure where the technology is at with Intel processors and motherboards, but I
do know that Intel has a history of blocking virtualization capability from their consumer CPUs (in addition to locking overclocking) to push consumers to spend more money. Not the case with AMD, which is why I chose to support their business practices this time around.
If you are concerned with privacy, but want the performance advantages and software compatibility of Windows 10, VFIO Win10 under Linux is the end-game.
Reddit's VFIO subreddit as well as the Level1Techs group on Youtube and reddit seem to be the centers of information sharing and research regarding this topic, for those so inclined to investigate.
(11-28-2017, 10:51 AM)linkdude64 Wrote: [ -> ]If you were considering supporting Team Red as far as CPU is concerned, there may be earlier opportunities for you, if you should feel inclined to get your hands a little dirty.
VFIO is a virtualization technology that is currently in a late-alpha sort of stage with Ryzen - with some kernel patches and other know-how, it enables Ryzen users to run a GNU/Linux distribution of their choice as an OS and "Pass Through" a powerful GPU to a (if you choose, network-isolated) virtual Windows 10 machine (or other OS) with a less than 1% hit to performance. The technology is already at this stage, it is simply a matter of time before these capabilities and patches are merged with a major distribution, or become available in a more convenient and easily configurable package. I am not sure where the technology is at with Intel processors and motherboards, but I do know that Intel has a history of blocking virtualization capability from their consumer CPUs (in addition to locking overclocking) to push consumers to spend more money. Not the case with AMD, which is why I chose to support their business practices this time around.
If you are concerned with privacy, but want the performance advantages and software compatibility of Windows 10, VFIO Win10 under Linux is the end-game.
Reddit's VFIO subreddit as well as the Level1Techs group on Youtube and reddit seem to be the centers of information sharing and research regarding this topic, for those so inclined to investigate.
Very interesting, thanks for the heads up as indeed I was thinking of going ryzen in my next builds rather than intel like I have in the past.
(11-28-2017, 01:53 PM)SpaceDandy Wrote: [ -> ]Very interesting, thanks for the heads up as indeed I was thinking of going ryzen in my next builds rather than intel like I have in the past.
It shouldn't be any issue with any Intel processor that supports VT-d, which has been supported since at least the 4th Gen i5's and the 5th Gen i3's and it isn't even experimental (we have been using it at work for a long time
)
But to passthrough your Videocard it must not be initialized by the host-OS so the virtual-OS can initialize and use it, so you either need to use your iGPU for Linux and your Videocard for Windows or you need 2 Videocards and pass through 1 of them, this is the way it also works on Ryzen though.
The biggest issue that we found is that not all Videocards support the not-being initialized by host-os and it all depends on what BIOS the GPU is using (vBIOS not UEFI or mainboard BIOS) so it differs per manufacturer (just an example here don't know if these are compatible or not: but a Gigabyte GTX1080 might support it where an EVGA GTX1080 might not). Also look at the video Linus made about this type of thing (he hosts 8 videocards on 1 machine and shares the machine with 7 "gamers" to play together, they still have awesome framerates of course this is with a 24 core Hyperthreaded XEON machine, but still
)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opX-AsJ5Uy8
(11-28-2017, 08:43 PM)mstreurman Wrote: [ -> ]It shouldn't be any issue with any Intel processor that supports VT-d, which has been supported since at least the 4th Gen i5's and the 5th Gen i3's and it isn't even experimental (we have been using it at work for a long time )
But to passthrough your Videocard it must not be initialized by the host-OS so the virtual-OS can initialize and use it, so you either need to use your iGPU for Linux and your Videocard for Windows or you need 2 Videocards and pass through 1 of them, this is the way it also works on Ryzen though.
The biggest issue that we found is that not all Videocards support the not-being initialized by host-os and it all depends on what BIOS the GPU is using (vBIOS not UEFI or mainboard BIOS) so it differs per manufacturer (just an example here don't know if these are compatible or not: but a Gigabyte GTX1080 might support it where an EVGA GTX1080 might not). Also look at the video Linus made about this type of thing (he hosts 8 videocards on 1 machine and shares the machine with 7 "gamers" to play together, they still have awesome framerates of course this is with a 24 core Hyperthreaded XEON machine, but still ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opX-AsJ5Uy8
Indeed, both the latest intel and ryzen chips support an iommu, which is what is required for this (There's been support for ages for both in server-side products, but only relatively recently has it made it to consumer level). This is required to do the "simple" passthrough mode, where a whole pci-e device is assigned to a VM. The host (and other VMs) will not be able to access that device, so if you want graphics output from both you'll need two graphics cards.
I believe the latest Intel graphics and AMD graphics consumer boards have support for the graphics device itself to support multiple virtual devices being exposed to different VMs, allowing more than 1 vm (or a vm and the host) to use the game graphics device, sharing it. But I believe the software to work with this is /very/ experimental, and not sure if it even works with non-linux clients.
Again, I believe the professional side (firepro & quadro) have better support for that.