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85 Comments
- 4DFX, on 01/30/2009, -4/+52Good thing there's no more ATI. AMD is doing such a better job.
Great work AMD! - LastDitchHero, on 01/30/2009, -1/+46Good now we have more choices for our Desktop Linux hardware. Never a bad thing.
- jacekpoplawski, on 01/30/2009, -1/+39Please port these features to Open Source driver.
- meekrob, on 01/30/2009, -1/+25It's about time.
- vtrac, on 01/30/2009, -1/+21I've been running Nvidia on Linux for years happily. Their linux driver just works. I decided to upgrade to the AMD Dragon platform that they've been pushing (Phenom II, 790GX, Radeon HD3300) since I've heard about how much they've improved their Linux support. Nope.. Catalyst locks up every single time Xorg starts. Thank FSM for the open source radeonhd driver that seems to work well or I'd be stuck with the old radeon driver.
While I'm bitching.. the ATI driver has no uninstall. Their stupid script puts random files throughout my system that I had to do a global find by exact creation time to clean up. Fix your *****, ATI. - Taiyoryu, on 01/30/2009, -0/+14hardware accelerated video is coming when?
- Nicoon, on 01/30/2009, -1/+14Not supported ≠ Not working.
- hattonn, on 01/30/2009, -0/+12But does it stop compiz from flickering?
- staeiou, on 01/30/2009, -2/+12Yeah, it's a shame they aren't releasing new drivers to try to improve their Linux support... oh wait.
- gyrfalcon, on 01/30/2009, -1/+11ATI is still doing the crap they always did, now they just have some guidance from AMD...
At least NVidia has a universal driver that doesn't do hardware checks when you want to use it with cards made by ASUS, or installed in a laptop. - fuzzynyanko, on 01/30/2009, -0/+9OpenGL 3.0 actually got hardware support? I wonder why this didn't end up on the front page that often.
- gyrfalcon, on 01/30/2009, -1/+10Just because it supports OpenGL 3.0 doesn't mean it's a open driver...
- cubeist, on 01/30/2009, -1/+9Really? Have you tried ATI lately? They release new drivers every single month and the growth and progress over the last year has been great, tremendous really!
Yes, years ago, Nvidia had better linux support, but times have changed! - Heywoodj, on 01/30/2009, -5/+13Great news. Glad I can put ATI back on the list when I spec my next box.
I vote with my wallet and free as in freedom drivers will always get the nod. - Lunarbunny, on 01/30/2009, -0/+7Yeah, that's why 4850s in CrossFire were considered the best for the money for a good while, and still may be (I haven't checked recently)
Trust me, I have a 4850CF setup and I did nVidia only for 6 years. - ukblacknight, on 01/30/2009, -0/+7Why didn't you just link to the Newegg site?
- NJank, on 01/30/2009, -0/+7conditioning.
this time its newegg
next time... who knows - midtown, on 01/30/2009, -20/+27Sorry ATI, I used to love you, but Nvidia is way better on Linux.
- Gauthic, on 01/30/2009, -0/+7I can't agree with this experience more. I've got a Mobility x1600 on my laptop and it feels like grinding teeth when I install the propriety driver. Totem doesn't quite play right (video acceleration), flickering, and other symptoms.
It's all stable looking (albeit slow and unaccelerated) when using the open/vesa/default drivers, just not all that fun multimedia wise. - jamesmcm, on 01/30/2009, -0/+7Or just make ATI's efforts open-source too. I honestly don't see the point in them releasing the specifications but not the source for the driver under the GPL. If it was GPL'd, no competitors could use it (without also making their drivers GPL) but it would help ATI and the consumer.
- Mukluc, on 01/30/2009, -1/+7Actually there are means to un-install the ATI drivers on linux... I'll just list two off the top of tmy head:
1) Install the driver by first building the packages... e.g. for Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex:
./ati_filename.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/intrepid
This builds ".dep" files which you can merely use dpkg to install (or remove/purge afterwards). I'm assuming there are similar alternatives for other distros (to list all buildable distros: ./ati_filename.run --listpkg)
2) If you installed the normal way, there should be an uninstall script located in: "/usr/share/ati". I forget what its called but something like: "fglrx_uninstall.sh".
I'm on a amd64 box with an integrated ATI Xpress1250 and I can definitely say that getting the drivers to work can be a chore! But, they do work and the frequent updates are quite AWESWOME! - Gauthic, on 01/30/2009, -1/+7...or a good driver (even if closed source).
- fjsferreira, on 01/30/2009, -0/+5One more step to world domination!
- rotarychainsaw, on 01/30/2009, -0/+5It's not that great. Introduced some regressions on my system. I've kind of given up on these atidrivers and am waiting patiently for the open source drivers to work with my 4850.
- mooninite, on 01/30/2009, -0/+4AMD just bought the ATI employees. It's still the same crew building the Catalyst driver releases.
- Giga, on 01/30/2009, -2/+6"At least NVidia has a universal driver that doesn't do hardware checks when you want to use it with cards made by ASUS, or installed in a laptop."
Uh... last I checked, I still couldn't install the standard Nvidia drivers on my 6600 Go based laptop. There is even a 3rd party site dedicated to modding the drivers so they can be installed on laptops.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/
Oh, and regarding "It's still the same crew building the Catalyst driver releases." It may be true that the engineers are the same, but upper management has changed with different mandates. The engineers don't make all the business decisions. - crgnetworks, on 01/30/2009, -1/+5YAAAAAY!!
- HonoredMule, on 01/30/2009, -0/+3Probably because OpenGL is a graphics library, just like DirectX, and the underlying hardware capabilities to which OpenGL provides access is no different.
Even though in times past DirectX has influenced what hardware features the manufacturers develop, those features are really targeting use cases higher up in the software stack (what various games and applications want to be able to do efficiently). OpenGL serves the same purpose and therefore wants the same capabilities that DirectX wants. In hardware terms, the synergy with DirectX is almost incidental. Hardware manufacturers provide specific processing capabilities and rendering libraries simply passes higher-level rendering operations in to your video driver as a series of low-level operations. It's up to the driver to either emulate the low-level operations with the CPU or process them through some hardware implementation in the GPU. - gyrfalcon, on 01/30/2009, -1/+4It's about time they release a driver that actually is GPL'ed and supports xrandr... Their driver is severely busted when it comes to laptops that hot dock and are attached to external displays.
- andrewpmk, on 01/31/2009, -0/+3Still not free software.
- Giga, on 01/30/2009, -0/+3Mostly assuming. But it is a fair assumption as the open source drivers are quickly fixed to support new releases of Xorg, but we have to wait a while for the proprietary ones to be released on their own schedule.
- HonoredMule, on 01/30/2009, -1/+4Being open source is essentially a guarantee that bug fixes, feature development, optimization, and overall software support are not tied to the hands of a small (or even empty) group, and stalled or even blocked by the business rules of their employer and its affiliates. At the same time, open source means that security, stability, and 'completeness' will likely be improved by the volume of scrutiny that it receives, and for very popular or important projects, that's pretty well a guarantee also.
So it really doesn't matter whether I look at the code. Open source still offers profound advantage stemming from its ideology but also manifest in real software improvement and 'tangible' benefits. - inactive, on 01/30/2009, -1/+4Thanks Nvidia for leading the way.
- andycr512, on 01/31/2009, -0/+2Giga: That's true of the Windows drivers, but not of the Linux ones.
- Solkre, on 01/30/2009, -5/+7How many people who bitch about drivers not being open source actually look at the code? Or do you all assume someone else is doing that for you.
- ABEL3616, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2@salomejones
ATI offers really good chipsets at a better price. Get 2 in Crossfire, and it beats out single cards worth twice the money from NVIDIA.
My 8800Ultra and my 6800GT just died, and I couldn't afford to get the 'best of the best' for both, so I looked around and realized that the $500-800 cards would not be the top dog for long. 3 months down the road, another card will come out, making the previous best look like ***** and it wont even be that line's flagship card. The 4850 will do me just right for now (the 8800Ultra is comparable to this card), and I purchased it at a very reasonable price.
Also, the best of the best is only worth it for 1 or 2 games out of each generation. Those games, however, are usually only worth playing for the aesthetics. 4850 could run everything I make, or play...and the 4870 is overkill for most of everything else (not everything). ATI is still a very viable option. - excambion, on 02/01/2009, -0/+2The open source radeon driver works a lot better than the ATI driver on my MacbookPro. The ATI driver (v9.1) results in a lot of flicker and random screen corruption on an external monitor. Furthermore, I have experienced random hangs while using the ATI driver. The open source driver chugs along without any problems on the same hardware. My vote goes to the open source driver and a plea to ATI to support the open source driver.
- inactive, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
- shykilla, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2I think both(Nvidia and Ati) of them does not support Xen
- hark659, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2More like, settle to be ignorant.
- errfunction, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2Its never too late to do the right thing ATI......well done AMD.
- jamesmcm, on 01/30/2009, -1/+3Well there are many benefits to it being open source/Free Software. Take WINE for example, where I don't code C, but I could compile it from source which let me apply some community patches to get Swat 4 mouse working etc.
If ATI's efforts were GPL'd it'd help ATI and the consumers. Just saves everyone from repeating work and allows people to share their findings. - jasonkostempski, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2I don't have my Linux box setup at the moment. Can anyone confirm hattonn's question? maphilli14, are you saying it doesn't? I've been waiting for that fix for a while.
- inactive, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2tried this in my kubuntu install, its dirty nice. Now if only ntrig would design better linux drivers id be rolling on my tablet.
- Vektuz, on 01/30/2009, -2/+4Hooray, opengl 3.0. Now if you do industrial CAD work, you're all set with this card. For games though, directx 10 is still years ahead....
- ruiacp, on 01/31/2009, -0/+2I'm a KDE user and in 2 machines, one with an ATI other with a Nvidia.
Sorry but I can't disagree more with you, the Nvidia card is a more recent model, but performs worst in KDE 4.1.
GLad the time of ATI as a Linux enemy as ended for good. - maphilli14, on 01/30/2009, -1/+3Yeah, fix the basics would ya ATI!
- nightman, on 01/31/2009, -0/+2Still, after Installing it on Kubuntu 9.10, it doesn't work - KDM doesn't load, only console appears. And all I did was install it ATI way - ./ati-driver-installer-9-1-x86.x86_64.run and follow instructions. That's bad...
- pedepy, on 01/30/2009, -0/+2its compiz that's "flickering" ........
when you have flicker with video playback & opengl material under composite it's because those two 'by pass' the compiz window manager to write directly to the screen. It's where they get their performance boost.
To not have that flicker, youd have to redirect the rendering off screen for compiz to 'catch' and render back. However how you want to see it, it will result in more CPU cycles (and lower performance). - gyrfalcon, on 01/30/2009, -1/+3ATI is still one the top 3 chipset makers for graphics cards... Try saying something that makes sense like (Looks at Toshiba) "Why is anyone still using Trident Cyber XP chipsets? They're garbage."
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