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ATi Open drivers are commmming of age... :)
- deleted redundant data 24-August-10. Added Gallium link 26-October-10. Added Fan Control 15-November-10. Power Management how-to re-added on 22-November-10. Refined the Ubuntu Stuff how-to & updated due to progress on the North Island GPU 13-3-11. Made note of the acceptance of Gallium as the default open-source AMD driver stack, & added link to benchmark & discussion on the topic - 9-June-11. Updated text, added a links which provides detailed Catalyst removal instructions; courtesy of Temüjin - 11-June-11. Over the last couple of months I've picked up about 400fps in (the not a benchmark) glxgears, on my HD2600 Pro, which is nice - 24-August-11.
For anyone interested in seeing just how the open-source support is coming along for the various ATi cores, this is the easiest way to get the picture:
http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
The following link is available on the above page but here is the Gallium stuff anyway:
http://www.x.org/wiki/GalliumStatus
[edit:] Now that the Gallium driver stack has taken over, the information on the "Classic Mesa" stack is basically redundant for the many.
Following is a link to a very worthwhile read from the Phoronix site. At the current time of writing, it brings us up to date:
May 2011: Gallium3D vs. Classic Mesa vs. Catalyst
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...d_mesa_mai2011
_________________________
I thought that I probably should put the following information out here in a dedicated thread, for those that aren't aware of what is going on with the AMD/ATi open-source drivers:
Because AMD/ATi's Catalyst drivers have been so unreliable, it has caused & is causing a great deal of work to go into the ATi open-source drivers & associated packages.
The oft neglected reality, is that AMD have been releasing technical info' on the ATi GPUs, & contributing some code. Without AMD having done this, the open-source ATi drivers would not be developing at the rapid rate that they currently are. So in this regard, gratitude to AMD is most certainly in order.
The current open-source ATi GPU drivers are giving many people the best 2D performance they have ever had on their ATi GPU's, I can verify this because I'm one of them. At this stage the 3D is working well but still too slow for games with sophisticated 3D graphics & lots of movement. Though the quake engined games play quite well with the open source packages.
Since AMD released the tech' info' for the Evergreen & now the (current) North Island series of GPUs, work has been moving fast & now at last the open-source support for the current ATi GPUs is starting to manifest.
Ubuntu 11.4. is using the Gallium driver stack, the classic Mesa is now deprecated.
For users that want to use later versions of the kernel &/or the Gallium driver stack, there is a simple how-to in the "Ubuntu Stuff:" section further down the page.
___________________________
I'll continue to put any links that I find to be useful on this topic here:
X.org:
http://www.x.org/wiki/GalliumStatus
http://wiki.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
http://wiki.x.org/wiki/RadeonProgram
Arch stuff:
Arch ATi how-to from the wiki, quite informative:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ati#
Ubuntu stuff:
========================================
For Ubuntu users, this is a how-to for upgrading your kernel & the rest of the driver stack so you can use the latest git versions, which usually offer added features & better performance than those supplied in the most current Ubuntu version.
This how-to is now followed by another for getting Power Management working courtesy of a post in this thread by Untitled_No4: :)
Do the following in the order listed:
1. System -> Hardware Drivers -> Deactivate any ATI drivers and restart. (If you need more detailed instructions on this go here.)
2. Go to http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
& pick the version of the kernel you want to use, (I am on Arch & using the current kernel .**-git & the -git versions of the other required packages with no problems. So keeping an eye on the last parts of this thread should let you know if there are any current problems).
3. Download and execute the following (in this order, switch to 64 if need be)
- linux-headers...all.deb
- linux-headers..generic..i386.deb
- linux-image....i386.deb
4. Restart
5. Add the xorg-edgers PPA (https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa)
6. update & upgrade:
Code:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
7. Reboot.
8. Profit. :)
Power Managment:
========================================
With KMS:
There are two sys-files in /sys/class/drm/card0/device:
power_method: Here you can switch between dynpm and profile method.
power_profile: If you have enabled profile method you can choose between default low, high and auto (select between low and high based on ac/dc state)
For example: echo profile > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method
Without KMS:
In your xorg.conf file, add 2 lines to "Device" Section:
Option "DynamicPM" "on"
Option "ClockGating" "on"
--------
If the two options are enabled successfully, you will see following lines in /var/log/Xorg.0.log:
(**) RADEON(0): Option "ClockGating" "on"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "DynamicPM" "on"
......
Static power management enable success
(II) RADEON(0): Dynamic Clock Gating Enabled
(II) RADEON(0): Dynamic Power Management Enabled
--------
If you desire low power cost, you can add an extra line to "Device" Section of xorg.conf:
Option "ForceLowPowerMode" "on"
Thanks to Perry3D at the Arch forum for the above.
________________________
A Free Way to Cool OFF Your Stock ATi/AMD GPU:
http://forums.amd.com/forum/messagev...VIEWTMP=Single
(thanks to tomazzi & olof_ for bringing the above to my attention :))
____________________
About/identify your AMD/ATi GPU:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...ocessing_units
This page contains information about Radeon chipset naming, and some other, possibly outdated information:
http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIR...6ebab238532abe
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
i got a new laptop with a hd4330 and the binary drivers are horrid, really just horrid.
i'm considering going back to the open source drivers. but i hear the power management is poorer on these. What are your experiences?
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Unfortunately I still have awful performance with the FOSS drivers - OpenGL is completely unusable.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I'm certainly curious to see where this leads. I've got one NVidia box and an ATI laptop and I have intel machines at work so I want to see excellent drivers on all. At 9.04's release I'd say only NVIDIA was any good. The intel drivers were reliable and you could play Wine games on them but they were slow (and still are).
The ATI situation is interesting though. I downloaded and installed the new drivers directly from ATI and found a massive improvement in quality, reliability and performance, obviously your mileage may vary. Now if that's rocking and the open-source drivers are getting good too then that's a winner for all of us. So, all we need is better intel drivers and we'll have very high quality across all 3 platforms.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I'll jump ship when things get where they need to be for ATI drivers to provide all the power the HW is capable of...
By then it may be time to upgrade my Nvidia cards.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
xir_
i got a new laptop with a hd4330 and the binary drivers are horrid, really just horrid.
I'm considering going back to the open source drivers. but I hear the power management is poorer on these. What are your experiences?
Sorry man, I'm no expert on the open-source ATi stuff. I don't use a notebook so I can't comment from personal experience. It wouldn't surprise me if the power management wasn't up to par, it is very likely (to my mind anyway) one of the things you would deal with later rather than earlier.
To find out about what is being worked on, on the cutting edge on this subject is not an easy thing to do on the web, if you have a look at this site it may be the easiest solution, if you do I'd head for the last 5 pages or so:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57084&p=1
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barrucadu
Unfortunately I still have awful performance with the FOSS drivers - OpenGL is completely unusable.
It has very recently got great for 2D for many cards, 3D is just starting to happen for many cards, as those who are using packages from .git are finding. I think it would be a good idea to keep an eye on it Barrucadu as it is changing quickly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
stwschool
I'm certainly curious to see where this leads. I've got one NVidia box and an ATI laptop and I have intel machines at work so I want to see excellent drivers on all.
Intel see their major market being in Asia, so their graphics hardware is middle of the road at best. Though they are offering better Linux driver support lately.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
stwschool
The ATI situation is interesting though. I downloaded and installed the new drivers directly from ATI and found a massive improvement in quality, reliability and performance, obviously your mileage may vary.
The way it is with the AMD/ATi Catalyst drivers, is that you take pot luck every time a new Catalyst version is released; sometimes they are better, other times they are worse...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
stwschool
Now if that's rocking and the open-source drivers are getting good too then that's a winner for all of us. So, all we need is better intel drivers and we'll have very high quality across all 3 platforms.
The open-source drivers are getting better & really quickly lately. Intel will get better as their perceived market in Asia demands/can afford it.
The bottom line is that people with ATi GPU's should keep an ear to the ground as the FOSS people have got some momentum on for you at the moment.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Barrucadu
OpenGL is completely unusable.
Same here. The driver isn't very good if it's treating your card as an expensive 2D overlay. You might as well stick a s3 Trio 64v in there, it's just as good.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
It seems to be getting better and better but by the time some decent 3D appears it'll probably be a good 6-12 months before a distro has it, as we have to wait until the next Mesa build and then hope it comes in the Ubuntu right after that.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Thanks for the update handy, from what I've been reading on Phoronix, for a next build I'd gamble on a full AMD platform. I could live without 3d for a bit :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
It has very recently got great for 2D for many cards, 3D is just starting to happen for many cards, as those who are using packages from .git are finding. I think it would be a good idea to keep an eye on it Barrucadu as it is changing quickly.
As soon as another kernel (or whatever) upgrade breaks Catalyst again I'll check out the git version :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
tormod volden ppa is excellent google it
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I'm not sure why but my ATI 1950Pro 512mb from DaimondMM runs perfectly on Kubuntu 9.04 (performance, KWin effects, etc). Haven't tried any actual games yet because i haven't been able to get sound to work so i didn't wanna do too much to it before I did anything.
(also i have added no extra drivers..did a vanilla install of Kubuntu 9.04 and it works OoTB)
Glad to hear the ATI drivers are improving though as I am a huge ATI fan. With them releasing the specs on so many of their chipsets/GPU's it should help tremendously with the development of ATI drivers.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I wish I could agree with this, but I find the total opposite to be true. I have been using bleeding edge Radeon OPSO drivers for about 3 months now and they have been pretty bad. They serve 2D ok, but for 3D they are useless. I know this will hopefully improve in the future, but at the minute they may as well just be called Compiz enablers.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
For a long time I used ATI open drivers and passed on 3D.
When I needed 3D I had no choice but to go with NVidia despite hating binary blobs.
Unfortunately, I would have had to use ATI's blob to get 3D and NVidia's was the lesser of two evils.
This time, I'll wait until ATI's open drivers are ready before going with them again.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Methuselah
For a long time I used ATI open drivers and passed on 3D.
When I needed 3D I had no choice but to go with NVidia despite hating binary blobs.
Unfortunately, I would have had to use ATI's blob to get 3D and NVidia's was the lesser of two evils.
This time, I'll wait until ATI's open drivers are ready before going with them again.
I can only hope that they improve to a level beyond the horrible Intel linux drivers.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I just read over on the Arch forums, that there was an update yesterday to the development drivers & people were commenting on the speed increase in 3D.
They are really happy with just how fast the dev's are working on this stuff.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I've been using the open source driver for the last few months because 1) There's no proprietary ATI driver for FreeBSD and 2) ATI dropped support for my card anyways, but overall I've been quite impressed. I've been getting better video performance with my Fbsd gnome + compiz setup than before with the closed source drivers. Although other than compiz I don't really need 3D as I don't play games or anything else of that nature.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
I just read over on the Arch forums, that there was an update yesterday to the development drivers & people were commenting on the speed increase in 3D.
They are really happy with just how fast the dev's are working on this stuff.
how can we try this on ubuntu?
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
madjr
how can we try this on ubuntu?
Someone else will have to give you that run down.
Personally, if you can, I'd wait a while, as, as far as 3D support is concerned you will most likely be disappointed; 2D is great, though it is possible that some ATi GPU's aren't supported, on this I can't say for sure.
The best I can do is tell you that I've not heard any complaints in the Arch thread in regard to 2D.
3D seems to be moving along quickly, but that "quickly" is a relative term, as it is closely bound with the perceptions of quality. :)
Some people are far more impatient than others...
The later posts in the link below will give you info' regarding what the Arch guys are using, how you deal with that in Ubuntu is your business, though I do ask, if anyone does apply those packages in Ubuntu, could you please post how you did it, & your experience here in this thread?
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57084&p=1
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
madjr
how can we try this on ubuntu?
You can check the latest of the latest from obtaining the source from git and compiling yourself
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...video-ati+slow
Tormod Voldon's packages tries to keep up with the latest developments:
https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive/ppa
For more stable upstream releases try:
https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x...hive/x-updates
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Personally, I'm sick of the catalyst driver. 1 month everything works fine and the next nothing works. Why the hell can't they support the newest kernel like nvidia does? Bought an ati card, because amd never let me down earlier and I always support the underdog + you get most bang for your buck with ati cards. Can't afford nvidia's prices.
But it's nice to hear the good news about the open driver these days.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Unfortunately my Mobility Radeon HD 3400 in 3D is only supported for proprietary drivers. Accelerated 2D support is available. But at the rate that development is happening, a working FOSS driver should be available within 1 year.
Edit: Just read some info, it says that they've got 3D support for my hardware but it's very buggy right now... looks like it might be sooner than I thought. :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Catalyst 9.8, has been quite recently released.
It is working with the .30 kernel, without patches & is behaving much better than it has been lately.
It still has problems of course.
Many think it has been produced for the upcoming Ubuntu release?
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
What about us obsolete folk? :(
I'm sitting on an x1400, and they've ditched me, rejected me for the younger model. I feel like an old worn out hoo... Won't go there. Anyways, I want proprietary support! Or atleast open the source code of the drivers so we can get some decent ones.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
As previously stated in this thread; the open-source ATi driver development is moving fast.
There are links at the bottom of the first post which should hopefully verify that your card has an open-source future dawning soonish...
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
As previously stated in this thread; the open-source ATi driver development is moving fast.
There are links at the bottom of the first post which should hopefully verify that your card has an open-source future dawning soonish...
If soonish means by next summer, then you are correct. As for TVOut though, it is still unworkable in R500s. That means I have to reboot to winxp in order to make my presentations or watch video from my laptop on my TV.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ssri
If soonish means by next summer, then you are correct. As for TVOut though, it is still unworkable in R500s. That means I have to reboot to winxp in order to make my presentations or watch video from my laptop on my TV.
I don't personally know when, soonish means what, & for which GPU?
All I know is that it is all in the works, not on the backboard.
I, as does most every other user of a Linux/BSD system endowed with an ATi GPU, live in perpetual hope, that the open-source solutions to our many GPU problems will appear today. :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
I, as does most every other user of a Linux/BSD system endowed with an ATi GPU, live in perpetual hope, that the open-source solutions to our many GPU problems will appear today. :)
I completely agree with you 100%. Although, my hope is tempered by a dash of realism ;). Still, the drivers are undoubtedly improving and have come a long way. Hopefully we ATI users will reach the promise land someday.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ssri
I completely agree with you 100%. Although, my hope is tempered by a dash of realism ;). Still, the drivers are undoubtedly improving and have come a long way. Hopefully we ATI users will reach the promise land someday.
As previously stated, I no longer rely on the Catalyst drivers, as I don't need 3D on my Arch install, & the open-source drivers now provide me with the snappiest 2D the machine has ever experienced.
That change just happened one day.
I only use the public release packages not the pre-release versions.
The same thing is going to happen with 3D & the open-source drivers, it is already happening for some GPU's using the pre-release packages.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Any chance that Karmic will have newer ATi 3D support? (I have a 3200HD.)
I refrained from installing the proprietary blob in Jaunty in hope that open source support would be ready for Karmic. Not sure if I can wait for the L release ...
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
yodermk
Any chance that Karmic will have newer ATi 3D support? (I have a 3200HD.)
I refrained from installing the proprietary blob in Jaunty in hope that open source support would be ready for Karmic. Not sure if I can wait for the L release ...
I don't know, check out the links at the end of the first post in this thread, you should learn something useful with regard to the open-source drivers & your GPU, there.
Most people find the current Catalyst version 9.8 is reasonably good from what I read.
Quite a few people think that the reason the current Catalyst version is working better, is due the upcoming Ubuntu release.
Use Catalyst if you have to, to meet your 3D needs. Though the day is fast approaching when you won't need Catalyst.
It is wise to temper the above statement with an understanding for the range of various values that people will place on the pertinent variable "fast". :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
yodermk
Any chance that Karmic will have newer ATi 3D support? (I have a 3200HD.)
I refrained from installing the proprietary blob in Jaunty in hope that open source support would be ready for Karmic. Not sure if I can wait for the L release ...
they better
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I'm on Ubuntu 9.04 with a Radeon 4770.
My Nvidia Gforce 7950 GX2 which cost a gazillion burned out, exactly one month after my wifes identical card burned out.
That's two Gazzilions out the windows after only 2½ years of use!
I Didn't want to reward Nvidia by buying more of their defective designs.
So we both went ATI, she use Ubuntu 8.10 because she need realtime Kernel.
With the Nvidia Realtime didn't work unless she used Ubuntu 8.04, Ati was one step up in that regard.
For me I'm very happy, My computer is now almost completely silent, because the Radeon 4770 use very little power the fan doesn't have a lot of work to do. The card was cheap too, and works fine for games in Windows.
I installed latest ATI drivers at the time, and it works fine with Compiz.
I don't do a lot of 3D stuff, but I haven't noticed any problems.
We both wanted to try ATI, especially because we hope the opened specs will help accelerate the development of good open source drivers.
I'm very happy to see this positive thread about it. :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
yodermk
... (I have a 3200HD.)
Same here... I have 9.8 on my laptop and Compiz support isn't quite right yet. I have not tried any games on it though since I don't have a need to game on my laptop.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Here is a quote from a post by Mazur in the Arch forums that may interest some of you:
I have installed mesa-git with xf86-video-ati-git and other packages and I need to say that I am looking forward to get full 3d support. It works awesome on simple games like supertux etc. but Quake Live still got bugs. I didn't tried Compiz. ANybody know if radeonhd-git works better? I got HD3200.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Over the years, I think ATi has proven itself time and time again to have better hardware than NVidia, but crappier drivers. This is true not only in linux space, but windows as well. ATi card owners can enjoy much longer performance lifespans with their cards because as the drivers mature, the cards perform better. At least, in windows, this has always been the case. NVidia's cards have more drastic decline over time in the performance market, and you will be replacing hardware more frequently for the next noticeable performance boost. Better ATI drivers, open or closed, is wonderful news, but even better because the progress is being seen in the open drivers.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
AMD/ATi have released Catalyst 9.10 for Ubuntu 9.10.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ka...er/008022.html
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
Using it with my Karmic 64bit. I have the ATI Radeon HD3200 and seems to be running smooth. Played around with compiz some and all was good.
'Hardware Drivers' installed fglrx, rebooted with out any drama.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
On my 4850 the drivers from ATI/AMD website are super fast and rock solid.
The drivers Ubuntu says are proprietary and wants to install after installing ubuntu are complete garbage. IF those drivers are from ATI then they must be old. Very old..
Catalyst drivers from ATI tho, running 9.8 on 2.6.30.5 kernel. Super Fast and Rock Solid!
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Of late, the versions of kernel & Catalyst have been critical. If you don't have a matching pair you are in trouble, if you do have a matching pair you are in a lot less, just how much less all comes down to the particular pair.
We have been finding that regression is unfortunately far too often a part of the Catalyst progression. :(
Meaning, empirically people are experiencing the situation where a not perfect, but still a happy working situation, can be shot to pieces by the next Catalyst (or kernel, or X.server) upgrade!?
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I have as of today done a fresh install of Jaunty with the latest drivers from amd's ati site and so far it seems to be a lot better (before my pc would totaly freeze up half the time, been about 3 hours now and not a single lockup, things are looking up :D). I hope i don't jinx this heh.
I think as someone said before through the hardware drivers manager it must have a quite old version of the ati drivers, i think that is actually what caused my freezing issues before!
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Catalyst 9.10 leaked, is being installed & tested by some Arch users.
At this early stage it has been found to be better in some areas, worse than 9.8 in others.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I wonder if the new Catalyst will work with my 200m.
I don't suppose they'd re-add support for older hardware after they've already removed it.
If they did re-add support, maybe it would fix this odd problem http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1251849
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I'd certainly be extremely surprised if they add support for something that they have previously stopped supporting.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Reportedly Flash is still as bad or worse than it was with Catalyst 9.8.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BuffaloX
I Didn't want to reward Nvidia by buying more of their defective designs.
I don't blame you for being upset with your HW going bad. I would be too.
But unless you have some scientific data to support a known design flaw in a specific product, I wouldn't go rambling around about it.
I think you were a victim of rotten luck for sure. But would question if this is a common trait of the 7950 Gx2 product line or perhaps the outcome of improper cooling or power supply, rather than chucking it up as Nvidia's product somehow being flawed.
I have an Nvidia 4200 (from 2002), a 7600, 9500 & 9600 that are working just fine.
I did have an Nvidia Quadro m135 take a crap on a laptop, but I know for a fact that met its death due to over heating, and I consider that my fault because I noticed too late that the fan for the card was clogged with dust. I've managed to kill a few procs that way as well...
Just a heads up... if you are taking care of all that then, yeah it sucks to have rotten luck... but if you have some concrete proof that Nvidia designs nothing but flawed products... lets have the test data. I genuinely want to see it.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
Reportedly Flash is still as bad or worse than it was with Catalyst 9.8.
I wasn't aware that flash used 3d acceleration.
That said, flash is bad on anything and worse on everything :P
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
The proprietary ones for ubuntu were giving me trouble in 9.04 but the newest opensource one is quite good... Seen huge improvments in it and its doing great... Cant even really tell difference any more... I give it another 6 months or so and ATI opensource drivers will be amazing. Opensource ATI drivers are coming along very nicely!
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
racerraul
I don't blame you for being upset with your HW going bad. I would be too.
But unless you have some scientific data to support a known design flaw in a specific product, I wouldn't go rambling around about it.
I think you were a victim of rotten luck for sure. But would question if this is a common trait of the 7950 Gx2 product line or perhaps the outcome of improper cooling or power supply, rather than chucking it up as Nvidia's product somehow being flawed.
I have an Nvidia 4200 (from 2002), a 7600, 9500 & 9600 that are working just fine.
I did have an Nvidia Quadro m135 take a crap on a laptop, but I know for a fact that met its death due to over heating, and I consider that my fault because I noticed too late that the fan for the card was clogged with dust. I've managed to kill a few procs that way as well...
Just a heads up... if you are taking care of all that then, yeah it sucks to have rotten luck... but if you have some concrete proof that Nvidia designs nothing but flawed products... lets have the test data. I genuinely want to see it.
You gotta be kidding me, Nvidias defective GPUs are a well known fact, a problem that spanned entire lines and generations of GPUs.
Unfortunately many just made it through the warranty period, like mine did, almost 2000$ out the window, my two cards burned out like they were on a clock, and the problem is officially acknowledged.
Just google Nvidia defective, and you get results already on first page about official reports on entire lines of Dell, Sony and HP computers affected by the defective Nvivia GPUs.
On top of that, I actually knew about this problem early on, and I took extra care to keep both coolers clean on each card, monitored temperatures regularly, and both cases are big towers with very good air flow. There is absolutely no good reason these cards should die so soon.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Good info' on this page regarding changes to the .31 kernel (& beyond). Of particular interest to the topic of this thread due to changes that relate to the AMD/ATi GPU:
http://www.h-online.com/open/Kernel-...--/news/113958
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Does anyone know if it is possible to have one monitor in portrait mode and another in landscape for a dual monitor setup.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
The .31 kernel came out of testing for Arch yesterday.
After installing it, I experienced a regression (slow down in graphic drawing speed) due to the newly incorporated kernel mode-setting (KMS) capacity.
It was easily fixed as follows:
The solution is to disable experimental KMS and fall back to the old behavior. Add the radeon.modeset=0 into the kernel append line in /boot/grub/menu.lst
[Edit:] I probably should mention (again) that I'm using the open-source ATi drivers. There is more detailed info' on this subject for both open & the catalyst drivers to be found here. /edit
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
It looks like Catalyst 9.10 is trying to get out into the wild:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...6&lang=English
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
BuffaloX
You gotta be kidding me, Nvidias defective GPUs are a well known fact, a problem that spanned entire lines and generations of GPUs.
Unfortunately many just made it through the warranty period, like mine did, almost 2000$ out the window, my two cards burned out like they were on a clock, and the problem is officially acknowledged.
Just google Nvidia defective, and you get results already on first page about official reports on entire lines of Dell, Sony and HP computers affected by the defective Nvivia GPUs.
On top of that, I actually knew about this problem early on, and I took extra care to keep both coolers clean on each card, monitored temperatures regularly, and both cases are big towers with very good air flow. There is absolutely no good reason these cards should die so soon.
That's true. As much as I dislike ATi, they're stuff lives longer than nVIDIA's.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
The .31 kernel came out of testing for Arch yesterday.
After installing it, I experienced a regression (slow down in graphic drawing speed) due to the newly incorporated kernel mode-setting (KMS) capacity.
It was easily fixed as follows:
The solution is to disable experimental KMS and fall back to the old behavior. Add the radeon.modeset=0 into the kernel append line in /boot/grub/menu.lst
[Edit:] I probably should mention (again) that I'm using the open-source ATi drivers. There is more detailed info' on this subject for both open & the catalyst drivers to be found here. /edit
I too experienced a regression in glxgears with KMS+xf86-video-ati vs. without KMS. (~300fps vs ~1200fps.)
However, I have not disabled it, as it is still functional and I quite like the efficient use of my entire monitor's real estate via the framebuffer. X also starts up very quickly. 2d acceleration still works great.
Still waiting.....................
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MisfitI38
I too experienced a regression in glxgears with KMS+xf86-video-ati vs. without KMS. (~300fps vs ~1200fps.)
However, I have not disabled it, as it is still functional and I quite like the efficient use of my entire monitor's real estate via the framebuffer. X also starts up very quickly. 2d acceleration still works great.
Still waiting.....................
glxgears is not reliable. It gives my laptop on the opensource Radeon drivers 6000+, but on my 8800 SLi it gives 300.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
edin9
glxgears is not reliable. It gives my laptop on the opensource Radeon drivers 6000+, but on my 8800 SLi it gives 300.
Heh. The old "glxgears is not a benchmark" spiel. ;)
It is quite possible to use glxgears scientifically, especially on the same machine with the only difference being the enabling/disabling of KMS.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MisfitI38
I too experienced a regression in glxgears with KMS+xf86-video-ati vs. without KMS. (~300fps vs ~1200fps.)
However, I have not disabled it, as it is still functional and I quite like the efficient use of my entire monitor's real estate via the framebuffer. X also starts up very quickly. 2d acceleration still works great.
Still waiting.....................
For me, the scrolling of web pages in Firefox was quite jerky, which was the primary problem for me, the moving around of any windows & scrolling in them was also jerky.
So, I'm still waiting too...... :)
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
For me, the scrolling of web pages in Firefox was quite jerky, which was the primary problem for me, the moving around of any windows & scrolling in them was also jerky.
So, I'm still waiting too...... :)
Install Chromium... I never looked back again!
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pasdar
Install Chromium... I never looked back again!
I like Firefox, & am dependent on one of its add-ons too.
The problem had nothing to do with Firefox anyway; it is to do with the ongoing development of the open-source support for ATi GPUs.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Really positive feedback on the Arch forum regarding the ATi R600 & R700 with the latest open-source drivers, kernel & associated packages.
The best 2D/3D performance ever experienced on this category of ATi GPU!
This is what all of us with ATi GPUs are now patiently standing in line waiting for.
Most excellent news indeed. :guitar:
Here is some how-to info' from the Arch forum, for anyone interested:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=79509
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Here is a good link from Phoronix, it is well worth reading:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag..._r600_3d&num=1
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
I've personally just installed the catalyst 9.10 packages, for no other reason (& it is fortunately a good one :)) than I have started going through the games presented by DJL (which is available for Ubuntu in the repo's too I believe).
I now, have a strong desire for 3D, which can not be met (easily, if at all) by any other means at the moment (for my ATi GPU) than by using the catalyst clump.
This is not like a defeat or anything... lol!
What it is, is just exactly what you do whilst waiting for the inevitable, desired solution to manifest. :)
& manifesting it is, it just takes a while to do it for all those that desire it... :D
I certainly take my hat off (that means respect for you young dude's) to ALL of the people that have been involved over the years in creating the wonderful change that we ATi GPU users (& others in the end) are starting to be treated to!!!
Thank you.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
For anyone who upgrades beyond the standard Ubuntu systems, or uses Arch or similar; it has been found that catalyst 9.10, is not compatible with the newly released xorg 1.7.
So don't upgrade if you want to see anything via X.
There are no patches or anything available, & no catalyst upgrade is expected for some time unfortunately.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
thanks for keeping this topic up-to date.
i think that the fglxr driver will start to become redundant from lucid (seeing as there should be a good couple of kernel version between now and then.
Makes sense from the POV of amd, far less work for them if the community is willing to drive development.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
How do you enable KMS in Ubuntu?
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kasm
How do you enable KMS in Ubuntu?
It is on by default in the .31 kernel. Which I believe Ubuntu 9.10 is using.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Further on the xorg 1.7, catalyst 9.10 incompatibility;- the following site is carrying a working list of the files that need to NOT be allowed to upgrade if you want to maintain compatibility with catalyst 9.10:
http://hpaste.org/fastcgi/hpaste.fcg...d=11386#a11386
From experience, this list is a fully functional workaround, though it is all in all a very clumsy situation.
Bring on the open-source solution so we can be rid of ridiculous situations like this one. :(
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
Further on the xorg 1.7, catalyst 9.10 incompatibility;- the following site is carrying a working list of the files that need to NOT be allowed to upgrade if you want to maintain compatibility with catalyst 9.10:
http://hpaste.org/fastcgi/hpaste.fcg...d=11386#a11386
From experience, this list is a fully functional workaround, though it is all in all a very clumsy situation.
Bring on the open-source solution so we can be rid of ridiculous situations like this one. :(
i'm currently playing around with the zen .32 kernel from git and am going to try to see if my full-screen video performance is improved by DRII.
To be fair you have to give credit to amd for giving us the specifications, nvidia have stated that they have no intention of doing the same.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
xir_
i'm currently playing around with the zen .32 kernel from git and am going to try to see if my full-screen video performance is improved by DRII.
To be fair you have to give credit to amd for giving us the specifications, nvidia have stated that they have no intention of doing the same.
In this thread I have given AMD credit for that multiple times. Many are very grateful for AMDs help in that regard.
Let us know what happens with your test?
Is it possible in Zen to add an "ignorepkg =" list to your upgrades as in Arch, or does Zen use an individual install type system?
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
simple as it didn't work. I even compiled messa so that it would support it.
as far as ignorepkg = goes i'm not sure to what you are referring.
I'm using the Zen kernel only inside ubuntu and I'm compiling from source, i felt like trying out their claimed Linux kernel for the desktop, so far its exactly the same.
My hope was that there would be improved drivers in the 32 kernel branch but every time i try to enable compiz it fails.
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Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handy
For anyone who upgrades beyond the standard Ubuntu systems, or uses Arch or similar; it has been found that catalyst 9.10, is not compatible with the newly released xorg 1.7.
So don't upgrade if you want to see anything via X.
There are no patches or anything available, & no catalyst upgrade is expected for some time unfortunately.
Could you clarify what you mean by "beyond the standard Ubuntu"?
(I was just about to install AMD/ATI Catalyst 9:10 (version 8.661) in order to get decent 2D support for my Radeon HD 3400.)