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I've recently had to use this card and found that there are no generic Linux drivers available from AMD other than for Red Hat and Ubuntu. I'm using the Vesa driver which seems to work although at a resolution that isn't overly useful. My question is that when I log into Slackware using Xfce the control panel says my refresh rate is 0 with no other option available, while when I log into Kde it says "auto with an option to change it to 0. On Windows with the AMD driver I have the option of 59 or 60 Hz. Is it safe to run Slackware with the Vesa driver giving me a refresh rate of 0? I use a flatscreen Tv as my monitor if that makes a difference.
I have that card,you need to upgrade your kernel to 4.17, upgrade Mesa and about 7 other programs.
Or you can do as I did and upgrade to current.
There are still issues in current with this card. Libreoffice segfaults opening a spread sheet, Handbrake has kernel pointer errors, K alarm loses its calendar file occasionally.
While any reply is appreciated and I would want any information about a native open source driver solution (since the proprietary option is limited to Ubuntu and Red Hat users), my concern was whether a refresh rate of 0 was likely to cause damage to my Lcd Tv or the card itself or if that was normal for the Vesa driver.
I would be interested to know more however, orbea, please explain how one would use "the AMD gallium driver in mesa and the modesetting ddx in xorg-server", I'm hoping that would not require changing to current with the associated problems mentioned by dgrames.
I will say I'm only using this card because of circumstances beyond my control, my sons card died so I gave him my Nvidia gt730 from my comp and installed this since I had it on my shelf and must say the rx560 2Gb version is sub par even in windows with the proprietary driver. Years ago I swore by Ati but no more. I would never buy any computer with any processor other than an Amd but would never buy any video card other than Nvidea ever again.
Wow, up to 184 views and no one can tell me whether a refresh rate of 0 puts me at risk of hardware damage or reassure me that it's normal for the Vesa driver to show that value and I can run Slackware without concern. I have to admit I expected an almost instant response to this post, I did several google searches and couldn't find the answer, all results were about to high a refresh rate or low refresh damaging your eyes. I have a great respect for the people on this forum who have been a great help in the past and hope to get an answer as I know many know the answer and I assume feel my question is too simple to bother with.
I'm not sure about your vesa question, just that you will get a much better experience with the free AMD driver, but as dgrames mentioned its a new card and you will need a newer graphics stack for good support. At this point 14.2 might be too old and you should recompile a few things or upgrade to current.
I suspect this would at least be the kernel, libdrm, llvm and mesa.
To answer your question directly, the VESA driver reporting 0Hz refresh rate is completely normal.
This is because the generic VESA driver doesn't know the actual refresh rate, so it reports 0 instead.
An actual refresh rate of 0Hz is impossible.
Damage from an incorrect refresh or scan rate is mostly a thing of the past.
This is only really a concern for ancient CRT monitors. Newer CRTs and almost all LCDs have built-in protection that will refuse to display an image if the input signal is out of range.
If you aren't happy with the performance of your card with the VESA driver, you may want test things out using the latest SlackwareLive ISO.
I do not recommend attempting to compile your own Mesa and related in 14.2 to be able to use the latest AMDGPU drivers. It is a very complicated process. I have already attempted it in the past. I eventually just gave up an switched to -current and Linux kernel 4.17 for my Ryzen 2400G system.
Last edited by akimmet; 07-15-2018 at 09:24 AM.
Reason: Fixing typos and information about AMDGPU
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