why are ATi so crap?

[nolliecrooked]

I decided to resurrect my laptop recently (dead hdd), but forgot that it had an ATi chip.
now after reading several posts about how the drivers had improved, I was pretty hopeful. but its the same old s***. glitches, segmentation faults, useless with WINE, tearing, cant hold Vsync, etc...

[BslBryan]

You're testing an OS that is currently in beta testing. In my opinion, ATI makes a good chip. I know you're frustrated with it, but if you want perfectly functional, you can't go with the bleeding edge. If you want a stable version, go back to Hardy.

[nolliecrooked]

You're testing an OS that is currently in beta testing. In my opinion, ATI makes a good chip. I know you're frustrated with it, but if you want perfectly functional, you can't go with the bleeding edge. If you want a stable version, go back to Hardy.

I was actually trying to use Intrepid on my laptop, Im using Karmic on my desktop.

[CJ Master]

The horrible grammar in the topic title... it burns...

If you don't want the problems, then don't use the propriety drivers! If you're using free drivers, then you might be out of luck. Try a distro that has good hardware support. (Mint is one I can think of off the top of my head.)

[nolliecrooked]

The horrible grammar in the topic title... it burns...

If you don't want the problems, then don't use the propriety drivers! If you're using free drivers, then you might be out of luck. Try a distro that has good hardware support. (Mint is one I can think of off the top of my head.)

lol@grammar...

the free drivers are worse than the propriety ones, Mint is based on Ububtu(duh), and it dosent make any difference if I choose another distro, if the GPU driver is universal...

[LookTJ]

the free drivers are worse than the propriety ones, Mint is based on Ububtu(duh), and it dosent make any difference if I choose another distro, if the GPU driver is universal...
I would disagree.

I have a ATI Mobility Radeon 9000M and tried both kinds of drivers, the free driver won the race. :)

[gymophett]

My ATI Radeon 3100 works fine. :-k

[CJ Master]

lol@grammar...

the free drivers are worse than the propriety ones, Mint is based on Ububtu(duh), and it dosent make any difference if I choose another distro, if the GPU driver is universal...

I'm not one to complain about grammar, but the title just struck a nerve for some reason...

Mint is widely known to have better hardware suport. Maybe not for yours, but...

The free drivers are much better then the propriety ones when you're not planing to 3D game.

[nolliecrooked]

I'm not one to complain about grammar, but the title just struck a nerve for some reason...

Mint is widely known to have better hardware suport. Maybe not for yours, but...

The free drivers are much better then the propriety ones when you're not planing to 3D game.

Mint is based on Ubuntu core, so???????? and any problem Ive had with Ubuntu, I have with the Mint version based on the same Ubuntu core (Mint 5 - Hardy, Mint 6 - Intrepid, Mint 7 - Jaunty..)

the opendrivers seem the same 2D wise, but 3D is totally crap.

[WatchingThePain]

Well I had all those problems when I used ATI.
Tried loads of fixes which didn't help.
In some cases broken xserver was the result.
It was ok for 2D but 3D was very bad indeed.
All through that ppl kept saying ATI drivers are the best, one guy I think actually worked for ATI!.
Tried buying Nvidia geforce, wow that solved it.
Maybe some ATI cards are ok but I don't know which because I don't plan to buy them anymore no matter what anybody says.
I can't risk building a pc for someone and putting ATI cards in either in case it gets returned.

[ssam]

try the newer opensource drivers from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1138689

my 3650 works great for everything 2D with the opensource drivers. now that ATI have released the docs for 3D on the r600 chips, 3d should be along soon.

[Polygon]

mint is ubuntu only with a few extra packages installed by default. thats it. uses the same kernel, repos, everything. mint does NOT have better hardware support because it has the same kernel.

and with my old ati card, never had a problem with the restricted drivers.

[kk0sse54]

My ATI x600 works great including 3D in FreeBSD using the open source drivers. In Arch I used to use the proprietary drivers but since they dropped support for my card a few months ago been using the open source ones without any problems either.

[Xbehave]

Using opensource drivers here with an ati xpress 1100, no bugs, very stable, don't know about 3d performance though, but ATI have opened up alot of spec and so it is hopefully just a matter of time (there are only a handful of radeon developers)

[iTrickU]

Well i have an nforce motherboard and i've used its video out for a long time with compiz. Then i purchased the ATI Radeon HD 4670 for a performance boost since i couldn't use XGL anymore (it was only £4 at the market, works fine :D). It worked well after the drivers were installed and the performance was excellent. However updating the driver was a headache every time, either the kernel module failed to compile, failed to load or xorg caused hard lockups when starting after installing the new driver and other quirky things like X starting fine the first time but completely lockup up after restarting it. It also frequently left me at the terminal with a black screen, the commands i typed were reaching the tty terminals and logging in then running sudo reboot would work but the screen was black. I never had issues after a successful X start, it worked fine once i was at my desktop but reaching it was always a challenge.

In the end I got sick of troubleshooting after every driver update and I traded the card with someone for a slower nvidia 8600GT and it worked fine.

ATI seems to make fine hardware, the games played perfectly in windows but without good drivers it doesn't stand a chance. I'd rather have a slower card with good drivers. :)

[tom66]

I like my ATI chip, works well, though there are some glitches in Jaunty.