FirePro 2270 2460 V4900 V3900 support

husarz · 07-30-2022, 04:54 PM

I wish to get some low power 'workstation' graphics card. Then FirePro series looks like the right one for this purpose on Linux. I use now nvs295 but nouveau, at least for the card I have, is far from perfect.

I found that 2270, 2460 or Vx900 series would be best for me. The problem is that I can't find any reliable information if those are supported at all for both radeon driver and vaapi for hw video acceleration.

Any of you use those cards today, especially with Wayland on Fedora Workstation?

computersavvy · 07-30-2022, 09:04 PM

I do not use amd GPUs on fedora, as I personally prefer the nvidia GPU cards.

However I do know that amd supports linux and fedora has the amdgpu driver installed by default. I read the ask fedora forum regularly and very seldom see complaints about amd cards or drivers. I also know that the amdgpu driver in fedora supports hardware acceleration. The radeon driver you ask about does not seem to be the best driver for most amd GPUs since it is only for older cards.

My thoughts are that you should get the best card your budget will support and go for it. Also, since you are asking about using an amd GPU on fedora, it seems likely that you will get the best assistance if needed on the ask fedora forum.

mrmazda · 07-31-2022, 01:29 AM

This heart of this slightly newer Radeon 6450 is the same Evergreen 40nm Terascale 2 spec as the FirePro 2460:

Code:

# inxi -GSaz --av
inxi 3.3.20 (2022-07-27)
System:
  Kernel: 5.14.21-150400.24.11-default arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 7.5.0 parameters: root=<filter> noresume mitigations=auto
    consoleblank=0 net.ifnames=0 ipv6.disable=1
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.24.4 tk: Qt v: 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7
    dm: LightDM v: 1.30.0 Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.4
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Caicos [Radeon HD 6450/7450/8450 / R5 230 OEM] vendor: Dell
    driver: radeon v: kernel arch: TeraScale-2 code: Evergreen
    process: TSMC 32-40nm built: 2009-15 pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 16
    ports: active: DP-1,DVI-I-1 empty: none bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 1002:6779 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X:
    loaded: modesetting gpu: radeon display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2560x2640 s-dpi: 120 s-size: 540x557mm (21.26x21.93")
    s-diag: 776mm (30.54")
  Monitor-1: DP-1 pos: primary,bottom model: Acer K272HUL serial: <filter>
    built: 2018 res: 2560x1440 hz: 60 dpi: 109 gamma: 1.2
    size: 598x336mm (23.54x13.23") diag: 686mm (27") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 2560x1440 min: 720x400
  Monitor-2: DVI-I-1 pos: top model: NEC EA243WM serial: <filter>
    built: 2011 res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94 gamma: 1.2
    size: 519x324mm (20.43x12.76") diag: 612mm (24.1") ratio: 16:10 modes:
    max: 1920x1200 min: 640x480
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD CAICOS (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.14.21-150400.24.11-default
    LLVM 11.0.1) v: 3.3 Mesa 21.2.4 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes

Note this is running on the radeon device driver, but the default modesetting display driver. It's from one of few PCs here on which Fedora is not. I've seen no issues with Plasma in Leap or TDE in Tumbleweed. I wouldn't expect it to do any better or worse on Fedora 36 and Plasma 5.25.3.

husarz · 08-27-2022, 08:14 AM

I got FirePro V4900. It works out of the box with Fedora 36 and Phenom II system. The only issue is that at the time of writing this post there is bug in radeon kernel driver that breaks video hardware acceleration for all TeraScale 2 family, i.e. for vaapi in Firefox. Finally problematic commit has been identified but unfortunately no progress so far with fixing it:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1560

If you are considering FirePro V4900 please be aware that this is quite powerful 70W GPU with weak and loud cooling system and you may have to replace it with some bigger and more quiet one.