Radeon HD 2900XT Linux Game-Play

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Radeon HD 2900XT Linux Game-Play

All week we have talked about the performance of the 8.41 display driver and the performance on various ATI graphics cards from the R300 series to the latest R600 graphics card. In some of these articles, we have briefly commented on the image quality, but in this article we will be looking exclusively at the image quality while gaming with the ATI Radeon HD 2900XT 512MB under Linux.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10990

[d2kx]

I've already heard rumours that the image quality has improved and looks stunning with the new fglrx 8.41 driver. This really is an amazing time for AMD, because on monday they're presenting AMDs Barcelona as well.

Oh, and a nice system you have there, Michael! Could you be so kind and give me some of your 8 CPU cores? :) I am sure you're having a lot of fun playing ET: QW.

Unreal Tournament 3 will look even better and the U3 Engine is one of the most optimized engines that I have seen (have a look at Bioshock - stunning technology and great performance).

[Kano]

A highend gfx card without AA/AF is very curious. That leads to higher framerates but does not allow correct benchmarking. Some ingame settings are ignored for Linux games, especially AA/AF needs to be checked (or better forced) when you compare Win+Linux. Please check ingame settings for the benchmarks you did and if these are really enabled. Such a card would be usually used for Ultra settings, not only High.

[Michael]

A highend gfx card without AA/AF is very curious. That leads to higher framerates but does not allow correct benchmarking. Some ingame settings are ignored for Linux games, especially AA/AF needs to be checked (or better forced) when you compare Win+Linux. Please check ingame settings for the benchmarks you did and if these are really enabled. Such a card would be usually used for Ultra settings, not only High.

AA/AF is disabled in the driver for the 8.41 series on R600 components. The support will probably be in 8.42. As id Software does not permit benchmarking beta software, we haven't published any 2900XT ET:QW benchmarks yet.

[d2kx]

Kano, ET: QW offers "High" settings only, but you set the shaders to "Ultra". I guess Michael did that. That can be seen in the Windows client and it should be the same with the Retail of ET: QW.

[Michael]

Kano, ET: QW offers "High" settings only, but you set the shaders to "Ultra". I guess Michael did that.

Correct, that's how it was setup.

[Regenwald]

again, great article. i haven't played any game for nearly 2 years now (no time and i prefered "playing" linux ;) ). but when i see several games, i just get fun to play such a game.
btw i was at the torrent/tracker-server from id. michael, you said that only several persons are allowed to play the etqw-demo. but what's this? http://zerowing.idsoftware.com:6969/

looks like a ("official")demo?? http://zerowing.idsoftware.com:6969/stats.html?info_hash=2de21e897e6798a356852242db187 12b493e8b0a
(800mb)
am i right? is this the demo?

bye joni

[Michael]

again, great article. i haven't played any game for nearly 2 years now (no time and i prefered "playing" linux ;) ). but when i see several games, i just get fun to play such a game.
btw i was at the torrent/tracker-server from id. michael, you said that only several persons are allowed to play the etqw-demo. but what's this? http://zerowing.idsoftware.com:6969/

looks like a ("official")demo?? http://zerowing.idsoftware.com:6969/stats.html?info_hash=2de21e897e6798a356852242db187 12b493e8b0a
(800mb)
am i right? is this the demo?

bye joni

The file uses GPG so only users with a key embedded in there can actually use the file. It's a Linux beta, but will do other people no good.

[Regenwald]

too bad ;)

[Thetargos]

Interesting article... I hope once the game is released, you could perform an IQ comparison between G80 and HD2000 hardware, even though beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. IQ appreciation is much subjective, and screenshots may not do due justice...

Speaking of AA/AF, and since I'be been off the hook of ATI hardware and particularly under Linux, does the fglrx driver/panel now features a tool for setting up and controlling AA/AF under Linux? Or do you still have to hack up xorg.conf to force enable it?

[d2kx]

does the fglrx driver/panel now features a tool for setting up and controlling AA/AF under Linux?

You can set up AA/AF options in the AMD Catalyst Control Center for some months now, but I've heard it is disabled in 8.41 because there's no AA in this driver (that can be seen in this article). But basicly, it is there.

[Thetargos]

You can set up AA/AF options in the AMD Catalyst Control Center for some months now, but I've heard it is disabled in 8.41 because there's no AA in this driver (that can be seen in this article). But basicly, it is there.

Now that's what I call progress!! Even though it may be broken in the 8.41 drivers for R600 hardware, it does mean that there has been much progress about how does ATI/AMD address this particular issue. I remember back in the early 8.x driver days when you had to setup AA (and only AA, there was no option for AF, that I knew of, anyway) by means of aticonfig or manually hacking up xorg.conf, which also meant universally enabled AA (maybe not what you'd like, etc). Indeed AMD is giving me a good number of rather nice surprises.

[deanjo]

I thought this article was supposed to have a comparison with the Nvidia...

FYI. Working on an image quality comparison between NVIDIA and ATI in ET: Quake Wars.