Ubuntu 8.10 Beta and Radeon HD 4870...

[Tares]

If you are running 8.10, and Ubuntu has not yet packaged up a driver that runs on HD48xx, you can download and build a driver yourself :

http://www.x.org/wiki/radeonhd/

I've managed to build radeonhd following this article.

The driver works, glxinfo reports direct rendering, but I can't watch anything on -vo, on -gl works, but slowly ;/

Using q3 I've tested 3d performance. Sadly the menu is so slow, that I didnt even have heart to run timedemo.

The only good thing I've noticed is that gnome is a little bit faster ;-)

[bridgman]

That sounds about right. We don't have acceleration for 6xx/7xx yet so what you would get is (a) good modesetting (high resolutions, dual head etc..), and (b) shadowfb acceleration. The newer versions of Mesa report direct rendering even if you are rendering in software, which is what you are probably seeing.

Once we get the 6xx/7xx 3D engine supported in the public repo you'll need to pick up new builds for drm and mesa as well.

The issue with acceleration is that beginning with 6xx the 2D acceleration hardware is gone (so we need to use the 3D engine) and the 3D engine is totally different from previous chips. We're working on getting accel code for 6xx/7xx into the drivers now. The 6xx family had an emulation mechanism which used the 3D engine to emulate 2D drawing commands, but since the 7xx is out now (and does not have the emulation mechanism) we are planning to use only the 3D engine so we can pick up 6xx and 7xx support at the same time.

6xx = HD2xxx, HD3xxx / 7xx = HD4xxx

[Tares]

That sounds about right. We don't have acceleration for 6xx/7xx yet so what you would get is (a) good modesetting (high resolutions, dual head etc..), and (b) shadowfb acceleration. The newer versions of Mesa report direct rendering even if you are rendering in software, which is what you are probably seeing.

Once we get the 6xx/7xx 3D engine supported in the public repo you'll need to pick up new builds for drm and mesa as well.

The issue with acceleration is that beginning with 6xx the 2D acceleration hardware is gone (so we need to use the 3D engine) and the 3D engine is totally different from previous chips. We're working on getting accel code for 6xx/7xx into the drivers now. The 6xx family had an emulation mechanism which used the 3D engine to emulate 2D drawing commands, but since the 7xx is out now (and does not have the emulation mechanism) we are planning to use only the 3D engine so we can pick up 6xx and 7xx support at the same time.

6xx = HD2xxx, HD3xxx / 7xx = HD4xxx

Cool ;-)

I would stick to radeonhd longer if only I could watch 720p ;x

[tormod]

... or download and build a driver yourself... or ask Ubuntu to upgrade the driver in 8.10...

I hope you were able to find the subpage http://www.x.org/wiki/radeonhdackages where there's a link to unofficial, up-to-date packages for Hardy and Intrepid.

[Ex-Cyber]

Right now acceleration is the farthest thing from my mind. On my HD3450 with the 8.10 Beta livecd:

- radeon sets video modes incompatible with my monitor
- radeonhd crashes xorg
- vesa has a stable signal/mode but the colors are ridiculously wrong (vesa on the 8.04.1 livecd works)

Not all is lost; at least I can emulate a VT220.