# AMD Graphics, which drivers and OpenCL?



## Darmok N Jalad (Jun 17, 2019)

Fairly easy question, or at least I think so. I have an AMD card in my Linux machine, the RX 560. I want to use OpenCL for Darktable, and the open source AMD drivers (the default kernel ones) don't have that functionality, so I've installed the AMD proprietary option to get OpenCL support working. My question would be, is AMD's proprietary driver better or worse than the open driver, and if I want to use the open driver, how do I enable OpenCL support? I really don't expect much else from my machine, so gaming and the like isn't that important to me.


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## GoldenX (Jun 18, 2019)

The rule is like this, the open source drivers are a lot better for 3d work, but the proprietary one is better for OpenCL work. The idea of the proprietary AMDGPU-PRO driver is to keep profiles for professional applications that need them, and use the  Windows OpenCL driver too, so, for normal use, it's good enough for 3d and the best for opencl.
What distro are you using? In archlinux there's a way to only install the proprietary OpenCL driver and keep the mesa one for 3d.


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## Darmok N Jalad (Jun 18, 2019)

GoldenX said:


> The rule is like this, the open source drivers are a lot better for 3d work, but the proprietary one is better for OpenCL work. The idea of the proprietary AMDGPU-PRO driver is to keep profiles for professional applications that need them, and use the  Windows OpenCL driver too, so, for normal use, it's good enough for 3d and the best for opencl.
> What distro are you using? In archlinux there's a way to only install the proprietary OpenCL driver and keep the mesa one for 3d.


Sorry, I should have mentioned. Linux Mint 19.1. Currently have the 19.20 pro drivers installed.


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## FordGT90Concept (Jun 18, 2019)

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						GPGPU - ArchWiki
					






					wiki.archlinux.org
				




I think ROCm is the best:




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					rocm.github.io


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## GoldenX (Jun 18, 2019)

FordGT90Concept said:


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Agree, it's compatible with Polaris.




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						Redirecting to https://rocm-documentation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
					





					rocm.github.io
				



Following Debian instructions works for Linux Mint.


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## Darmok N Jalad (Jun 18, 2019)

So do I need to uninstall the old somehow first? Last time I tried to do that I lost the ability to StartX.


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## GoldenX (Jun 18, 2019)

That's the horrible thing about proprietary drivers. Uninstalling.

There is a script for uninstalling AMDGPU-PRO with the download but ROCm is only for OpenCL, I would try it on top of what you have right now.


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