Daz Studio and Linux

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  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092
    edited April 27

    3DIO said:

    @TimberWolf
    If you were me and were lumbered with my graphics card situation, which distro would you install to get it working with dForce?

    Forget about my love for CachyOS.  Forget about my love for GNOME.  Forget about any previous display of enthusiasm I've shown for any specific thing.  This is just a what would you do personally kind of question, if you were to choose the most likely route to getting it working.  The way I see it is I'm out of luck for GPU acceleration with this damn thing regardless of whether I use Linux or Windows.  I can (and so far always have) lived without CUDA, but not having dForce, that's just too much and I cannot go on like that.

    So if you think you could get dForce working an a specific distro, I'd give that a try.  And if that fails, then I suppose I could use one SSD for Windows with only Daz Studio installed, and the other SSD for Linux with everything else on it as my main OS.  My thinking is that as long as I access the Windows SSD from my Linux installation and not the other way around, there is nothing Windows can do to my Linux install.  As far as Windows is concerned, my Linux install woud not exist if I set-up the BIOS boot options in such a way.

    But man, I really have to do something, cause lack of dForce is just not doable for me and I reckon it'll be some time before I can afford an Nvidia card.

     

    May wanna watch this:

    Basically, stop distro hopping. They all do the same thing at the end of the day. You're more than fine on CachyOS.

    Post edited by bluejaunte on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    TimberWolf said:

    Sorry I couldn't help further - hopefully you'll figure it out - but your OS is coughing up very, very strange results!

    Thanks for the help! And eh, not really that strange. It's just that one tiny thing. I don't imagine that your configs are very different. We're both on fully updated CachyOS usning KDE Plasma, same NVidia drivers using NVidia cards. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

  • 3DIO3DIO Posts: 316

    @bluejaunte
    Indeed, I'm very happy with CachyOS.  Trouble is need dForce to work, and it's going to be some time until I can afford a new card.  So I have to look at alternatve solutions for the time being.  As pointed out, one solution would be to put Daz Studio back on Windows and have that on its own SSD, with everything else installed on Linux (CachyOS) as my main OS on the other SSD.  Nevertheless, if I could get completely away from Windows by using a different distro, then I would go with that (at least for the time being).

    Could be a year (or even two) before I get a new card, and I can't go a day without dForce, nevermind a year (or worse two)  :-D

    I had intended, if all else failed, to use Diffeomorphic to transfer to Blender to get around the lack of dForce.  But how the heck am I supposed to go from Daz Studio to Blender using Diffeomorphic, when Daz Studio is held within the Lutris container to make it work, but Blender is installed natively?

    I'm not sure it would even be possible since they're running in two completely different environments.  So now I've been looking into getting around the lack of dForce by using the Sculpting Tool in Daz Premier, but it's as if one of the most important tools that was ever added to Daz Studio is something that no one seems to know much about.

    Either way, Daz Studio without dForce is an absolue no-go zone for me.  And since Daz Studio and Blender are technically running in different environments, well, no chance of me getting around it with Diffeomorphic then, either.  So basically I'm screwed unless I find another solution to it, or am prepared to wait until I can afford an new card (which I'm not).

     

  • TimberWolfTimberWolf Posts: 354

    @3DIO

    Lots of points here, so I'll work through them as best I can:

    Diffeomorphic

    Create a symlink inside your Daz Studio wine prefix that points to a directory outside that prefix. That way you can save Studio scenes and the .dbz files that Diffeo creates into a directory that Blender can easily access. Or you can just save your files inside the prefix (not recommended because you'll lose them in the event you need to rebuild your wine environment) and just open them from within Blender itself - /home/yourname/Games/yourWinePrefix/drive_c/wherever

    Linux Distro

    Whilst I generally agree with bluejaunte that distro hopping can be a bit of a waste of time, I don't think it is if you're just starting out. The experience in Linux Mint is vastly different to Cachy or Bazzite but once you've found one that works for you, stick with it. With that said, for your specific purposes, have a look back at CSAAs post on the 31st of March. Linux Mint + flatpak Bottles worked with the AMD card out of the box but that AMD GPU is much newer than yours. If you have a spare drive and some spare time it might be worth a look. It might work for you and, although I think you'll hate Linux Mint, it could be a usable stopgap. Probably easier just to dual boot with Windows. 

    If you're going to dual boot Windows, it's recommended to install Windows first as it will hijack the Linux bootloader if you're not careful. As long as you boot from the BIOS and not the bootloader it will be fine.

    Would this be of any use?

    Sitting in a box behind me is an Inno GTX 1660 Super. The reason it's in a box and not driving the monitors on my music workstation is that one of the shroud fans died in a loud and noisy fashion and replacement fans from AliExpress take about 6 weeks to arrive - I had to buy a new GPU. The fans are still available for under £10 but you'd have to put up with the wait to get them, unless you can find them closer to home. The GPU is fine, I dismantled it, cleaned it, reapplied the thermal paste on the heatsink block and put it away. Yours if you want it as it's no use to me. You could simply strap a desktop fan to it or fit one of those standalone PCI GPU coolers in an adjacent slot for a quicker solution. It's only a 6GB card so not much use for rendering these days but dForce will work.

  • 3DIO3DIO Posts: 316
    edited April 27

    You're a top bloke, TimberWolf, cheers mate ;-)

    That was exceptionally good of you but I can't accept the card.  No way I would accept the card for free, but if I were already in my new flat,  I would have been tempted and paid you at least something for it, or at the very least done you a swap so that you have an AMD to poke around with on Linux.  I wouldn't chance a make-do fan until the proper ones arrived though.  And as you said, 6GB isn't much for rendering tasks these days.  Hard to believe I'm even saying this since the card I had before the AMD was an Nvidia GTX 460 1GB (and even that managed reasonably well).  Just goes to show how much resource requirements have risen, for six times that amount to be considered a push these days.

    Regards Diffeomorphic, wow, I'll take a look at that then!  I mean, if that works then at least I can fall back on Blender for cloth and hair dynamics and wouldn't need Windows or Premier.  Can't remember off-hand, but one of the terms you used seems familiar, I'm guessing from when I was examining Lutris after first installing it.  Either way I'll see what's what and let you know how I get on with it.

    Regards distro hopping, I agree.  Whether it be CachyOS or any other distro, best to find the right one first, but then stick to it.  Like I said, I really like CachyOS, I'm constantly amazed by it and it's really something of a miracle that I've not managed to break it!  The only unexpected thing that happened is that some of my GNOME extensions were automatically switched-off by CachyOS after an update, so I suppose I need to check for newer versions of those specific GNOME extensions.

    But other than that it's been flawless.  I would't be surprised if CachyOS switched those extensions off intelligently to prevent them breaking things after the update!

     

    Post edited by 3DIO on
  • 3DIO3DIO Posts: 316
    edited April 27

    BTW, since you like to play with this stuff and don't have an AMD to test on, just say the word and I'll send you the AMD RX580 8GB.
    Though obviously, not until I have a brand new RTX 5060 TI installed, so there's a bit of a wait involved  :-D

    Post edited by 3DIO on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    3DIO said:

    @bluejaunte
    Indeed, I'm very happy with CachyOS.  Trouble is need dForce to work, and it's going to be some time until I can afford a new card.  So I have to look at alternatve solutions for the time being.  As pointed out, one solution would be to put Daz Studio back on Windows and have that on its own SSD, with everything else installed on Linux (CachyOS) as my main OS on the other SSD.  Nevertheless, if I could get completely away from Windows by using a different distro, then I would go with that (at least for the time being).

    Could be a year (or even two) before I get a new card, and I can't go a day without dForce, nevermind a year (or worse two)  :-D

    had intended, if all else failed, to use Diffeomorphic to transfer to Blender to get around the lack of dForce.  But how the heck am I supposed to go from Daz Studio to Blender using Diffeomorphic, when Daz Studio is held within the Lutris container to make it work, but Blender is installed natively?

    I'm not sure it would even be possible since they're running in two completely different environments.  So now I've been looking into getting around the lack of dForce by using the Sculpting Tool in Daz Premier, but it's as if one of the most important tools that was ever added to Daz Studio is something that no one seems to know much about.

    Either way, Daz Studio without dForce is an absolue no-go zone for me.  And since Daz Studio and Blender are technically running in different environments, well, no chance of me getting around it with Diffeomorphic then, either.  So basically I'm screwed unless I find another solution to it, or am prepared to wait until I can afford an new card (which I'm not).

     

    Yeah the point is that any distro can be made to do anything so there's really not much point in switching around. Sure if you don't wanna tinker at all and just get something that works out of the box (if that exists at all) then it might be worth it. But there's no such thing as "one distro works but the other doesn't"... only out of the box, maybe.

    As for Diffeomorphic, I'd say surely you don't wanna bother with that whole nightmare every time you want cloth simulation. That would be such a workflow killer, I cannot imagine you'd enjoy that.

    Maybe another alternative would be running Windows in a virtual machine inside of CachyOS. Not sure how well that performs these days but may be worth investigating. Probably not, so get on Windows native and cry every day like the rest of us. And hope that Linux will keep growing to a market share that makes it impossible to ignore for the big players. According to the latest Steam hardware survey it has grown to over 5% among Steam users which is astounding. We are really moving towards a number that cannot be ignored so easily anymore.

  • 3DIO3DIO Posts: 316
    edited April 27

    @bluejaunte
    Oh don't you worry mate, Linux will win in the end.  You only have to see the reaction to "Co Pilot" and how many more millions of people it drove to Linux.  As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft are doing everything right just lately, because every move they make, sends more and more millions over to Linux  :-D

    I say keep it up, Nadella, you're doing just fine!

    I did consider running Windows in a Virtual Machine on CachyOS, but unless there's support for 3D acceleration between the Virtual Machine and CachyOS, wouldn't that be a bit like wading through treacle, all laggy and stuff?

    And I have to ask, couldn't you use a Virtual Machine to fix your issue as well, or is there a specific reason not to?

     

    Post edited by 3DIO on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    I dual boot, there's no reason for a VM. It's not really solving an issue anyway, you're back in Windows after all. Just running inside of Linux but it's still Windows again laugh

  • 3DIO3DIO Posts: 316
    edited April 27

    @bluejaunte
    I know that, lol, buy why?   As far as I understood from your discussion with TimberWolf, there's some puzzling issue that's stopping your own install from working.  But since, as you said, you're basically running Daz Studio on Windows if you run it on Windows inside of a Virtual Machine that is running on Linux, wouldn't that work?

    Since it works on Windows on your system under a dual boot, I would have thought so, and if so, then surely you'd be better off running it like that than having to dual boot, providing that the acceleration works to stop it being laggy.  I actually like the idea of running Windows inside a Virtual Machine on CachyOS.  Because at least doing it that way, you get to prevent Windows from doing whatever it likes.  For example preventing it from accessing the internet by denying it access to the internet connection hardware, or denying it access to your Linux SSD by restricting access to it.

    So in that respect, surely much more control than running Windows in the normal way, and wouldn't that also ensure that Daz Studio works as normal?

    I love the idea of Virtual Machines running on Linux.  The only thing that bugs me about them is that regardless of every distro I tried them on, they were always laggy, and as far as I'm aware, it has something to do with hardware acceleration not being passed on to Windows by the host OS' Virtual Machine.

    Haven't tried a Virtual Machine on CachyOS yet, but I was rapidly heading towards doing so in recent days due to the lack of dForce driving me nuts  :-D

     

    Post edited by 3DIO on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    I'm just thinking if I have a native Windows available running at native speeds, and not to mention being fully set up with all the software and tools I need, why would I go for an experience inside a VM that could only possibly be worse? I think that approach only makes sense if you really, really don't wanna dual boot for some reason. And keep in mind this is my livelihood as well. Idealism dies quickly when you make a living from this stuff. And I'm still on Windows 10 too so I'm not running into all those Windows 11 issues.

    What I find a bit baffling is that some CG studios are already on Linux. All the Foundry industry standard software like Nuke or Mari are on Linux. Autodesk Maya is on Linux, also industry standard. Even started on Unix as far as I know. But somehow Adobe has never given two shits about Linux even though Photoshop could be considered an industry standard in the CG industry as well. I wonder how they handle that.

    Winboat looks promising for running Photoshop but it still doesn't have any 3D acceleration. And that's what makes Photoshop so irresistable to me. It's so snappy with 3D acceleration, it's addicting. None of the alternatives come close.

  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    Ok looks like I got it fixed. I hadn't tested properly, turns out DS6 is working on Wine-Staging. CUDA and OpenCL both show up.  Only DS4 has issues. After copying DzOpenCL.dll in the DS6 directory over to DS4 (which had an older version from 2018), DS4 now properly finds my RTX 4090 as an OpenCL device.

    *shrugs*

  • TimberWolfTimberWolf Posts: 354
    edited April 28

    @bluejaunte

    If there were an emoji for 'wtf face', I'd use it. I checked my 4.x directory and DzOpenCL.dll is dated November 2018. And it works. I suspect we must have some driver differences but if it's working, it's working. Try changing your wine runner to one of the Proton series and see if you find any difference in performance. I didn't but you might find something I missed.

    @3DIO

    It is worth learning what you can and can't do in Linux, in any distro really. Mostly it's 'can do'. You posted earlier that Studio was sandboxed and assumed that it couldn't write files that Blender could use. Yes, the application is sandboxed but a wine prefix is just a directory structure containing some Windows files. It's still a Linux file structure. Linux couldn't give a fig about what the applications can or can't see - there are tools that allow you to tunnel out of that virtual box and the Windows application won't be able to tell the difference between your tunnel (a symlink/symbolic link in Linux parlance) and a native directory in it's prefix.

    Syntax: ln -s /where/you/want/your/files/to/go    name_of_directory_wine_will see  (ln -s = soft link; used for mapping a virtual directory to a real one)

    e.g. ln -s /home/3DIO/Diffeo Diffeo

    This will create a symlink to a folder called Diffeo in your home directory, if your username is 3DIO, that will show up in Studio as, well, Diffeo. You create this by opening the console (right click in Dolphin which is KDE - not sure what file manager Gnome uses but it will work identically) in the directory in your prefix you want the symlink to appear. It works anywhere in any Linux file structure, not just wine. This is basic stuff. Learn it :) There are tonnes of YouTube channels that are distro agnostic which will take you from zero to hero in not too much time, but I do appreciate that a house move is pretty stressful and can consume a lot of your time. Been there, done that. I wasn't really in the mood for learning either!

    Bluejaunte is absolutely right - there's really no point in running a VM which is just Windows but worse. Winboat can be coerced into providing a rather lacklustre GPU accelarated experience, but I'll leave it to you to go down that rabbit hole. If you want to sandbox a dual boot Windows OS, disable your internet connection there. End of updates. If you don't want the 1660 and can't get a replacement for your current GPU for an extended period of time, *and* you need dForce, well..... Clippy says 'Hi'. I have to use Windows at my company due to using Adobe software and no support for much of our software on Linux, so does bluejaunte. Welcome to our worlds!

    Assume it's possible until proven otherwise in Linux. It's mostly the case.

    Take 5 minutes to read this - it will make you feel good about your decision :)

    https://www.michaelstinkerings.org/one-day-with-cachyos-an-arch-experience-without-the-arch-pain/

    The takeaway quote for me is this:

    The deeper issue is that people don't learn to use computers anymore. Everything arrives pre-packaged behind beautiful little icons, and you tap to your heart's content without ever needing to understand what's happening underneath. Linux gives you full control of your hardware, but it asks something in return: that you read, that you think, that you understand what you're doing before you do it. In an era where every other platform has optimized for thoughtlessness, that's either Linux's greatest strength or its tallest barrier — depending on who's sitting at the keyboard.

     

    Post edited by TimberWolf on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    Just tested and proton-cachyos definitely seems a bit more fluid, aka more fps. Sadly I can't confirm 100% because mangohud refuses to show up on any of the proton ones. And OpenCL doesn't yet work with any of them either. Copying the dll didn't help there.

  • Just a note to say that VMs are a poor solution because I can only think of one consumer VM that supports PCI passthrough so the guest OS can see your GPU, and even that requires one to isolate it in UEFI, which in turn makes it unavailable to the host computer. Kinda sucks because it'd otherwise be a pretty good solution.

  • Robert FreiseRobert Freise Posts: 4,658

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Just a note to say that VMs are a poor solution because I can only think of one consumer VM that supports PCI passthrough so the guest OS can see your GPU, and even that requires one to isolate it in UEFI, which in turn makes it unavailable to the host computer. Kinda sucks because it'd otherwise be a pretty good solution.

     QEMU/KVM allows gpu and memory passthrough

  • 3DIO3DIO Posts: 316
    edited April 28

    @TimberWolf and @bluejaunte
    It's not that I don't want to learn Linux, I'd love to.  But I'm quite dyslexic at times, and it's more a case of finding the mental bandwidth to even attempt it these days.

    There was a time when I used to develop super high-end, bespoke DSP systems, spatial effects, fancy reverb etc.  In fact I still have the 'booth-dry' vocal stems of Vitas' Lucia Di Lammermoor (among others) encrypted on optical disk somewhere, files that his producer sent me during testing to help bring those DSP systems to higher levels of audio bliss (something I was truly humbled to be trusted with).

    So I'm techniclally minded, very, and you'd think that typing prompts into a Linux terminal would be a piece of cake for me, but really it isn't, because I'm also logically minded.  DSP feels very disciplined.  It's largely about delay lines, their interation wiith each other, and filtering at its core.  Everything just feels so logical in DSP.  But for me,  compared to learning Linux, that stuff feels like a piece of cake, in so far as, what you need to learn never changes with DSP (unless and until you specifically want it too through manner of invention or whatever else).

    That's not the case with Linux, and I reckon that's why I have such a bloody hard time with it.  Really "A Linux Terminal Prompt" is the result of every base distibution having its own commmand prompts, and every forked distribution having its own individual set of quirks on top of that.  So the very thought of learnng Linux in the way you two have managed to do, is not something high on my list.  It's quite a scary thought to be honest, which is why I prefer to stick to the GUI-based stuff when it comes to Linux (oh, and a really cool Linux assistant thingummy I found known as a "TimberWolf")  :-D

    So I hope I don't come across as lazy.  I'm really not.  At the moment, my mental bandwidth is too occupied with trying to absorb how Open Source AI works (using ComfyUI locally), to even consider learning Linux.  To make matters worse, for now at least, I'm having to do that without even being able to practice what I learn.  And you might very well ask, what the heck are you showing an interest in AI for?  Well fact is, as long as an AI tool is Open Source (and ethically acceptable to me) then I have no problem with AI (as an ethical tool) at all.

    We cannot uninvent AI, so it stands to reason that unless we learn to use these tools, we very likely will be left behind.

    Thanks for the step-by-step.  I would have needed to ask you that for sure.  I've not tried it yet (other than thinking I needed a quick butchers at Lutris at the time), but of course will be doing very shortly (I hope).  I'm currently having a render speed issue, because I bought some content the other day and can't figure out why everything has come to a crawl with a specific set.  No reason it should do that (it's a very minimalistic set), so it has me wondering what the heck I must have messed up in the render settings, and even how I managed to do that if I have!

    And just to clarify about Virtual Machines:  I'm majorly aware of the issues there regards acceleration (or rather the lack of it).  It's a shame that since CachyOS is so damn fast, they don't design a CachyOS-specific Virtual Machine and include it as a selectable option in that awesome installer that CachyOS has.  I think it would solve a heck of a lot of problems if such thing existed, at least to be going on with.

    Cool to hear bluiejaunte has his system working, lol, but again my suggestion about Virtual Machines for bluejaunte was strictly based on the assumption of an accelerated VM even existing.  I keep seeing that name "Winboat" but I've been avoiding looking into it since it's yet another rabbit hole to fry the brain!

    Regards the card, it's a physical issue.  If you were to send that card to my current flat it would likely get stolen.  Thankfully my new flat has its own front door and is in a completely different part of town, much more civilised, and thankfully situated mainly among the elderly as opposed to the brain-dead bunch of yobbos I currenly have to live among,  Man, I really cannot wait to move into that place.  It has to be the only positive thing that's happend to me in decades  :-D

     

    Post edited by 3DIO on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    I'm no Linux expert at all. I'm mostly just stumbling around, looking up commands as I need them. There's no need to memorize anything, just look it up. Or in your case it seems there is a very low hanging fruit. Ask the AI to do it. Don't know much about local AI but I would think it needs fairly capable hardware with lots of VRAM though.

  • Robert Freise said:

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Just a note to say that VMs are a poor solution because I can only think of one consumer VM that supports PCI passthrough so the guest OS can see your GPU, and even that requires one to isolate it in UEFI, which in turn makes it unavailable to the host computer. Kinda sucks because it'd otherwise be a pretty good solution.

     QEMU/KVM allows gpu and memory passthrough

    Hi Robert, yes, that was the one consumer VM subsystem that I could think of :) I don't think VirtualBox does, and VMWare Workstation definitely does not.

    But you do still have to, and I don't remember the correct term, set the GPU aside for the guest OS in UEFI, which means the host OS can't even see the device. I assume that's a deal breaker for most people, as it is for me.

     

  • Robert FreiseRobert Freise Posts: 4,658

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Robert Freise said:

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Just a note to say that VMs are a poor solution because I can only think of one consumer VM that supports PCI passthrough so the guest OS can see your GPU, and even that requires one to isolate it in UEFI, which in turn makes it unavailable to the host computer. Kinda sucks because it'd otherwise be a pretty good solution.

     QEMU/KVM allows gpu and memory passthrough

    Hi Robert, yes, that was the one consumer VM subsystem that I could think of :) I don't think VirtualBox does, and VMWare Workstation definitely does not.

    But you do still have to, and I don't remember the correct term, set the GPU aside for the guest OS in UEFI, which means the host OS can't even see the device. I assume that's a deal breaker for most people, as it is for me.

     

    I can see that as a problem if you only have a single gpu.

    Here is a link with the workaround for using a single GPU

     https://github.com/bryansteiner/gpu-passthrough-tutorial

  • 3DIO3DIO Posts: 316
    edited April 30

    @TheMysteryIsThePoint
    Totally agree.  I think if a fully accelerated Virtual Machine was part of the distro then more people would be content to stick with Linux while they eventually get used to it.  Having a fully accelerated VM would mean that any Windows software precious to someone is no more than two mouse clicks away.  First to start the VM, then the software they need to run.

    @RobertFreise
    I've never heard of that second one, but I've heard the first name somewhere.  If by "passing through" you mean the GPU accelleration, that sounds just the job cause that's the problem with them in general, they never appear to do that.  Every VM I ever tried has been laggy in some way or for some reason, so I'll look into those two.

    @bluejaunte
    You misunderstood my interest in AI.  In general I can't stand it.  I've never asked AI a question and would never use an online AI service for anything.  But if instead of searching for AI tutorials on YouTube, you were instead to search for ComfyUI tutorials, you will soon come to realise what I'm getting at.  Basically, ComfyUI is an Open Source environment, sort of like a container for nodes, where each node is a dedicated AI function that you connect (graphically) with virtual cables in order to create a custom AI tool that does whatever you want.

    ComfyUI could derail any conversation, so best I shut-up in this Linux thread, but it's amazing, open source, endlessly powerful, offers complete control and runs locally.

     

    Post edited by 3DIO on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,856
    edited May 1

    I am, in July or August, installing "Windows Server 2025" which is supposed to allow video card passthrough to the Hyper-V Windows 11 Enterprise, Linux, and other VMs I'm creating. I won't actually know it that's true until I try it though. It said that Windows 11 Home, Windows 11 Pro, and Windows 11 Enterprise as the Hyper-V host doesn't allow video card passthrough. It's via DDA (direct device assignment). If I do DDA then the host no longer has access but for me, that's actually what I want. The Windows Server host will use that Radeon Vega GPU integrated into the Ryzen 7 5700G and the Hyper-V VMs, which will only run one at a time, get the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 12GB exclusively.

    That is according to chatGPT. What it said is in the black box. (oops, I deleted the black box of chatgpt output, but you can ask  or search for instructions easilly enough).

     

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092
    edited April 30

    Got OpenCL to work under the GE-Proton in Lutris. Bit convoluted to explain, and probably not relevant since it mysteriously works for you out of the box (TimberWolf that is). But I guess maybe for posterity. Also quite interesting.

    On DS4/DS6 entry in Lutris under Runner options set to GE-Proton and under System options, scroll down to Environment variables and add:

    GAMEID umu-2767030
    OCL_ICD_FILENAMES /usr/lib/pressure-vessel/overrides/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnvidia-opencl.so.1

     

    WTF is this? GE-Proton by default does this

     

    opencl = "n,d"

     

    It's a Wine DLL override. Override letters:

    n = native Windows DLL first
    b = builtin Wine DLL first
    d = disabled

    So n,d says: try native opencl.dll; if that is not usable, do not fall back to Wine built-in. Disable it.

    For Daz/Proton this is bad because Wine/Proton’s built-in opencl.dll is the bridge that talks to Linux OpenCL. GE-Proton adds opencl=n,d for most game IDs, so Daz cannot reach Linux NVIDIA OpenCL and reports "No OpenCL 1.2 device".

    GAMEID=umu-2767030 works because GE-Proton skips that override for this specific Steam Game ID. Anything loading through Proton gets a Steam ID and only seemingly 2 games in the UMU database get a special treatment. 

    2767030 = Marvel Rivals
    2274200 = Arken Age

    There is an OpenCL allowlist inside GE-Proton’s proton script:
     

    if SteamGameId not in ["2767030", "2274200"]:    self.dlloverrides["opencl"] = "n,d"

     

    Hence we pretend to be Marvel Rivals to get around that opencl = "n,d" behavior. And then we provide it with the specific OpenCL vendor driver library file we want in OCL_ICD_FILENAMES.

     

    @3DIO

    Here's a shot in the dark you can try. Do as described above but point to the AMD specific library. From what I gathered it could be

    usr/lib/pressure-vessel/overrides/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libamdocl64.so

    or something? If GE-Proton is missing probably install the Gaming packages in the CachyOS Hello app under Apps/Tweaks.

    Edit: no ,GE-Proton is not installed with the game packages. This should do it:
     

    yay -S proton-ge-custom-bin


    Might have to install yay first. It's for downloading/building stuff from the AUR (Arch User Repository) that has lots of stuff that isn't in the official repositories. You can find yay in the CachyOS Package Installer, or do 
     

    sudo pacman -S yay

     

    Post edited by bluejaunte on
  • Robert Freise said:

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Robert Freise said:

    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

    Just a note to say that VMs are a poor solution because I can only think of one consumer VM that supports PCI passthrough so the guest OS can see your GPU, and even that requires one to isolate it in UEFI, which in turn makes it unavailable to the host computer. Kinda sucks because it'd otherwise be a pretty good solution.

     QEMU/KVM allows gpu and memory passthrough

    Hi Robert, yes, that was the one consumer VM subsystem that I could think of :) I don't think VirtualBox does, and VMWare Workstation definitely does not.

    But you do still have to, and I don't remember the correct term, set the GPU aside for the guest OS in UEFI, which means the host OS can't even see the device. I assume that's a deal breaker for most people, as it is for me.

     

    I can see that as a problem if you only have a single gpu.

    Here is a link with the workaround for using a single GPU

     https://github.com/bryansteiner/gpu-passthrough-tutorial

    Wow, I might just have to give that a try this weekend :) Thanks so much, Robert.

  • TimberWolfTimberWolf Posts: 354

    @bluejaunte

    Awesome piece of detective work but I do think the majority of this is unique to your particular environment setup (the /pressure-vessel directory, which isn't present in my directory structure despite me having Steam installed, suggests something steam related) rather than me being the outlier. I tested  the following distros on a USB drive which was reformatted between each installation using the same methodology: The distro was installed using the Nvidia drivers if included (if not, they were installed as the first step), the latest stable wine was then installed, then Lutris, then the Daz Software. The Lutris runner was always set to system wine.

    In all of these, dForce worked in Lutris with Nvidia GPUs without any other intervention: Linux Mint, PopOS, Fedora, Nobara, Manjaro, CachyOS, Zorin, Ubuntu and Kubuntu. 

    Have a look through the last few pages of the thread - nobody else has reported dForce issues with their installation either. AMD hardware is a whole different kettle of fish. It's unsupported hardware on an unsupported OS and was always going to be tricky, particularly with hardware that has been declared obsolete by its own manufacturer.

    It's an inspired work-around to get dForce working on your PC but I think the vast majority of folks would not need to get this deep into the weeds if they do a standard install of their distro of choice and use Lutris from the get-go to install it all, rather than trying to get Studio running via a Windows installation through Steam. That's a bit left-field, as is the solution to the problem I suspect it created, but I can't help but be impressed by your fix :)

     

  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092
    edited April 30

    Yeah not sure what's going on there. With these findings I would've expected OpenCL to not work for you on any of the Proton runners either. But they do, right? All of the Proton options & Staging give you CUDA to render and find your card as an OpenCL device at the same time?

    Does make me wonder what's different. I doubt that merely starting an existing exe through Steam screwed up anything. The logical conclusion if it works for you is that the native opencl.dll is working on your system whereas mine isn't as described above. Through that bit of code in GE-Proton I get to point it to the file manually. Maybe I'll try to find out more about that default opencl.dll that seems not to be working for some reason.

    Post edited by bluejaunte on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    Did we solve the Smart Content Postgre database thing by the way?

  • 3DIO3DIO Posts: 316
    edited April 30

    @bluejaunte
    Thanks for the info and tech stuff.  As with TimberWolf's suggestion, I've not tried it yet but will pretty soon.  Looking at some of this stuff, I get the feeling I'm going to screw-up this current installation any time soon (through error on my part, not others), so basically I'm considering which option is less likely to break the system and try that one first.

    If it works that's great, but as TImberWolf points out, it's an unsupported OS running an unsupported GPU that even the GPU manufacturer now sees as obsolete.  It won't stop my giving it a try, but I think the conclusion is already forgone as far as me getting this card to run dForce is concerned.  Super pleased you have yours working though, and that's what I mean about knowing Linux.

    I'm intentionally leaving these latest suggestions until last minute since I'd now like to make sure that I can install and run DaVinci Resolve Studio (the native Linux version) before I risk breaking the current install.  Breaking the install isn't a problem (since I can simply reinstall), but I might as well practice all my required installs during this first install before breaking it.

     

    Post edited by 3DIO on
  • TimberWolfTimberWolf Posts: 354
    edited May 1

    @bluejaunte

    Yup, absolutely. The only Proton runner that didn't work for me was an ancient GE-Proton version and Studio just refused to start. All of the more recent ones are fine, including the experimental and the cachy-os specific tune. For both DS4 and 6, GPU rendering and dForce worked with the Proton runners and I have a suspicion that dForce is actually a little quicker than under Windows.

    As for Smart Content - not sure what to tell you here! It just works with no tinkering required. I don't use Smart Content as a rule but I have installed a few products with it, mostly script-based, that call other scripts using an absolute path rather than a relative one. The Ultrascenery series are in my Smart Content so I used it for them as well and they all appear as you would expect and work perfectly. What I don't have is a massive database of content but what is there works. Do you get a pop-up box with a warning about Postgre not being available on startup?

    @3DIO

    Backing up any Linux installation can be quite different to backing up a Windows one. There are two ways of doing it really:

    1 - Disk image, as bluejaunte does. This makes restoring your OS easy, although the backup itself may be quite lengthy and can require a large amount of storage. Because you don't have a Windows dual-boot installation to fall back to, you'd need to create a bootable USB disk imager as the drive needs to be dismounted before it's copied. This needs to be done regularly or you could face lengthy system updates once it's all back up and running. By far the simplest but slowest option.

    2 - Copy certain directories to a storage device. This is what I do. This requires more work on a reinstall and may potentially not work if the OS version you reinstall is significantly different from the one at the time you made the backup. This is not likely to happen with Cachy, as long as you do the rolling updates regularly. It requires very little space and is quick to do, but you will need to reinstall the whole OS again before copying the directories back. I am quietly confident I will not irreversibly wreck my OS and when the day comes that I am proved wrong, I will no doubt fiercely regret not doing an image backup! Anyway,  I backup these and this should work for any Linux distro:

    Starting from root:

    /etc, /home, /srv (you may not need this one, depending on what you install), /usr/local and /var.

    Davinci Resolve may prove to be tricky on your hardware as well. There are open bugs for it filed with the Cachy team - https://discuss.cachyos.org/t/davinci-resolve-amd-gpu/28038 - but I'm pretty sure it needs ROCm installed to work from the limited research I've done. I might be completely wrong about this so please investigate yourself. 

    I hate to say this, but it might be worthwhile for you to temporarily switch back to Windows, or at least dual-boot, until you can get a newer GPU. It seems to be the logical option to me.

     

    Post edited by TimberWolf on
  • bluejauntebluejaunte Posts: 2,092

    TimberWolf said:

    @bluejaunte

    Do you get a pop-up box with a warning about Postgre not being available on startup?

    I used to, not now though. I installed PostGre thingy through DIM at some point. I think I don't have any content installed, or no meta data, or not linked to the Windows folders. Haven't really looked into it. Small fix probably then.

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