NVIDIA vs. AMD 2D Linux Drivers: Catalyst Is Getting Quite Good At 2D

[ClosureSpin]

The kernel impacts the open-source driver a lot, but the blob is not affected at all. Ie, your performance using the blob won't change a bit if you change kernels, but for the open driver, a big part of it is in the kernel.

Well, damn. I'd use 3.17 if only it didn't have a bug that made it so I couldn't wake up my monitor after it went to sleep (when the computer is locked).

[blackshard]

Well, damn. I'd use 3.17 if only it didn't have a bug that made it so I couldn't wake up my monitor after it went to sleep (when the computer is locked).

I'd go with latest 3.16 kernel and stay with default mesa found in the distro. In case there would still be problems, you may update mesa to latest version. However AFAIK your card should be using radeonsi driver, which is relative new and probably requires the latest bits of code.

Anyway, is kernel 3.17 working fast and reliably (except for the standby issue)?

[ClosureSpin]

I'd go with latest 3.16 kernel and stay with default mesa found in the distro. In case there would still be problems, you may update mesa to latest version. However AFAIK your card should be using radeonsi driver, which is relative new and probably requires the latest bits of code.

Anyway, is kernel 3.17 working fast and reliably (except for the standby issue)?

Why default Mesa? I was told to use git Mesa for better support and performance. And sticking with the default kernel works best for me.

Everything else in 3.17 is OK, yeah. Not many performance improvements, at least nothing b too noticeable... But I won't use it unless they fix it.

[dom0]

While there are plenty of performance benchmarks I am missing some quality benchmarks here, like frame time jitter, overall rendering quality (which should not be an issue anymore, I hope!), ...? Especially jitter gets annoying as hell with compositing window managers, and it's very much there with e.g. the open source radeon driver:

http://pstore.enkore.de/qtswaptest_compositing.png (KWin compositor on radeon 7850)
http://pstore.enkore.de/qtswaptest_no_compositing.png (The same thing minus compositing)

[dom0]

While there are plenty of performance benchmarks I am missing some quality benchmarks here, like frame time jitter, overall rendering quality (which should not be an issue anymore, I hope!), ...?

Especially jitter is a huge issue in my opinion. See for yourself in the data below.

KDE, Arch, running Radeon HD 7850

- http://pstore.enkore.de/qtswaptest_a...ompositing.png
- http://pstore.enkore.de/qtswaptest_a...ompositing.png
- http://pstore.enkore.de/qtswaptest_a...ompositing.png
- http://pstore.enkore.de/qtswaptest_a...ompositing.png