Linux AMDVLK drivers say goodbye to RX 500/Vega series
Is Windows next?
Gamers using AMD RX Vega and RX 500 series graphics cards are facing uncertainty surrounding AMD’s driver support. In September, these cards were moved from the main branch to a separate package in the Windows driver release. Since then, despite two updates to the official branch, drivers for Polaris and Vega remain unchanged.
AMD has officially confirmed the discontinuation of support for Vega and Polaris architectures in their AMDVLK open source driver on Linux (AMD GPU Open team). The changelog for the Q4 release confirms that GFX8 and GFX9 architectures, which encompass Vega and Polaris, are no longer supported. Gamers can still find these architectures in AMDGPU kernels and community-maintained Mesa RADV drivers, notes Phoronix.
AMD drops support for Polaris/Vega, Source: Github
While AMD has not explicitly announced the end of Windows support, there has been no update for these graphics cards for over a month. Consequently, future drivers for these cards are likely to lack frequent game optimizations and support for new software.
One might question whether Polaris and Vega architectures still require game optimizations for new releases, given their struggle to compete even with mid-range options from newer series. It’s worth noting that AMD mentioned the Radeon RX 590 as supported and recommended for FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0, specifically for upscaling with no Frame Generation. However, despite its release in November 2018, this card is no longer receiving updates. In comparison, NVIDIA continues to support its Maxwell architecture dating back to February 2014.
Source: AMDVLK (Github)
