AMD’s open-source Radeon drivers are leveling up again.
Thanks to fresh RADV patches submitted just in time for the Mesa 25.2 code freeze, gamers using Radeon RX 7000 (RDNA 3) and RX 9000 (RDNA 4) GPUs under Linux can expect a notable boost in ray tracing performance-especially in demanding titles like Quake II RTX.
The improvements, delivered by Valve contractor Natalie Vock, specifically optimize how GPUs process Bounding Volume Hierarchies (BVHs)-a critical part of ray tracing calculations. The update introduces low-level hardware instructions like ds_bvh_stack_rtn and ds_bvh_stack_push8_pop1_rtn, which streamline memory operations and reduce overhead, ultimately boosting efficiency.
Internal testing already shows promising results. The RX 9000 series reportedly achieves up to 14% better performance in Quake II RTX, and similar gains are expected in other ray-traced games. These patches narrow the performance gap between AMD and NVIDIA GPUs on Linux-a welcome surprise for users who’ve long watched AMD lag behind in ray tracing benchmarks.
While NVIDIA cards still hold the crown with technologies like DLSS, AMD’s “fine wine” approach-where their GPUs improve over time thanks to software updates-is again proving its worth. The community is hopeful this momentum will continue, especially as more devs start optimizing for AMD’s maturing RDNA architecture.
Whether it’s legacy classics like Quake or future Vulkan-powered games, the latest RADV updates are a big win for open-source graphics and Linux gamers alike.