# StrongDMM and AMD

There is currently an [issue](https://github.com/SpaiR/StrongDMM/issues/161) with StrongDMM and AMD GPUs on Windows. Details and workarounds are listed below.

## What's the problem?

AMD's Radeon Windows drivers contained a huge update to OpenGL in 22.7.1, released in 2022. This update provided a massive performance boost to OpenGL games and rendering, but it had an add on effect of breaking OpenGL rendering in certain software programs using open source backends including [Blender](https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/100096) and others. StrongDMM is impacted by this.

Since OpenGL implementations and code make SpaceStation 13 code look like the pristine work of NASA engineers sending people to the moon, this is very hard to fix. The authors of StrongDMM don't have AMD hardware to replicate and track the bug, this is very hard to fix.

This bug does not appear to be with the AMD drivers themselves, but somewhere in the labyrinthine stack of Go and C/C++ dependencies that allow StrongDMM to speak OpenGL to Windows.

In StrongDMM this bug presents with crashes, and failure to render the map viewport:


Some users are also reporting immediate crashes.

## What are the solutions?

This issue is **exclusive** to StrongDMM and Windows Radeon drivers > 22.5.1

Windows with Drivers <=22.5.1, Linux and MacOS are not impacted.

### Roll back Windows Drivers

1. Download the [Windows 10/11 Radeon Drivers](https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-22-5-1)
2. Download [Display Driver Uninstalled (DDU)](https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4387)
3. Reboot into Safe Mode (Start -> Power -> Hold Shift + Restart)
4. Once booted into Safe Mode, run DDU and remove your current GPU drivers.
5. Run the 22.5.1 Radeon installer
6. Reboot. StrongDMM should now work normally

This has some disadavantages. You're losing the significant performance gains and improvement in AMD's latest drivers, but hey. You're mapping for SS13. You probably don't throw anything that demanding at your GPU anyway.

### Run StrongDMM on Linux

StrongDMM natively supports Linux as a program written in Go. It actually runs, much, **much** faster and better on Linux than it does on Windows.

1. Boot Linux (with a working graphical session)
2. Grab the latest [StrongDMM](https://github.com/SpaiR/StrongDMM/releases) release
3. Run it with ./StrongDMM

The disadvantages of this approach is that the BYOND client does not run natively on Linux, and very likely never will.

However, DreamDaemon and the DreamMaker compiler do work on Linux, so you can compile your codebase and host the server on Linux, and connect to it from a BYOND client running in a VM or on another computer.

Or you can just dual boot into Windows.

### Run StrongDMM in WSL

Modern Windows has "Windows Subsystem for Linux" or WSL. This lets you run Linux programs on top of Windows. Since StrongDMM supports Windows, MacOS and Linux. So you can set up WSL

1. Start Powershell as Administrator
2. Run the command `wsl --install` and reboot to enable WSL
3. Start Powershell as Administrator
4. ~~Run the command `wsl --install -d Ubuntu`~~

**On hold because I can't get this to work at all due to Linux packaging hell and segfaults**

### Use FastDMM2

[FastDMM2](https://fastdmm2.ss13.io/) is a web based map editor for TGM and DMM maps.

Since this is web based it also provides ample opportunity to shoot yourself in the foot. Be prepared to spend time fixing your PRs.

**Do NOT** edit off the main tgstation/tgstation master branch. Fork the main repo to **your github** repository, make a branch and edit that.

### Use DreamMaker

It technically works.