Linux AGP support in Catalyst 8.11?

[BlackPak]

I've seen some postings on various discussion boards about the leaked release candidate of the Catalyst 8.11 driver. Of couse, these are very same drivers that made news on this website due to their inclusion in the immenent Ubuntu 8.10 release.

On other sites, I've seen it noted that these drivers support Radeon cards that operate via the AGP interface. For newer Radeon cards (2xxx and beyond), AGP support has hitherto been offered in hotfixes from AMD/ATI for Windows, and has been very limitted on Linux (only a few 2600 cards have been given AGP support).

I'm considering upggrading my AGP graphics card to a Radeon 3650. I actually bought this card a few months ago, but returned it when it turned out that there was no driver support under Linux.

Does anybody know if the forthcoming Catalyst 8.11 drivers will support these newer Radeon cards using AGP on Linux?

Thanks for any help!

[Kano]

Please don't buy AGP, thats too legacy you can not reuse that card later. Jump in the cold water and buy a new board. Then you have got much more cards to choose from - I even would perfer NV.

[Linuxhippy]

Kano: I guess he has its reasons for buying an AGP card, otherwise he would not go through this troubles, won't he?

[legume]

On other sites, I've seen it noted that these drivers support Radeon cards that operate via the AGP interface. For newer Radeon cards (2xxx and beyond), AGP support has hitherto been offered in hotfixes from AMD/ATI for Windows, and has been very limitted on Linux (only a few 2600 cards have been given AGP support).

My HD3850 AGP has worked OK in Linux since 8.7 which is when I got it.

In windows recent hotfix drivers are unstable for me with HL source, but 8-6 are OK.

The trouble with AGP support is that the mobo can make a difference as to whether it works or not. Some people had problems with X1xxx cards, but that has been improved in 8.10.

[BlackPak]

My HD3850 AGP has worked OK in Linux since 8.7 which is when I got it.

Well that's really encouraging.

Maybe I didn't know what I was doing when I tried to get that 3650 card working a few months ago (turns out it was right at the beginning of August).

The trouble with AGP support is that the mobo can make a difference as to whether it works or not. Some people had problems with X1xxx cards, but that has been improved in 8.10.

I'm using an ASUS A7N8X-VM, which has an NVIDIA nForce2 chipset (nForce2 IGP North bridge and nForce2 MCP South bridge).

Do you happen to know where I could look up whether this motherboard will be a problem?

[legume]

Do you happen to know where I could look up whether this motherboard will be a problem?

No but I haven't read on here of a nforce2 being a problem, in fact I have one (it's an abit NF7s-v2 though). With my X1600 and fglrx < 8.10 it would only work with the AGP aperture bios setting at 512. With the Sapphire HD3850 it works whatever the setting.

[Kano]

nf2 means Athlon XP as cpu, therefore only single core. Even the cheapest dual core is better than this...

[xeros]

I'll hook to this thread as my question is somekind simmilar.
I have an old Asus P4V800D-X motherboard based on Via PT880 Ultra chipset with P4 3GHz socket 478 processor and 2 graphic slots: AGP and PCI Express.
I use Sapphire Radeon 9600 256MB AGP with this mobo and it works good, but I'd like to switch to new PCI Express card and want to know if newer AMD/ATI cards (like Radeon HD4670 or HD4850) would work on this motherboard without problems and can I use two graphic cards in both AGP and PCI Express slots for MultiSeat (with two X servers)?

[Kano]

Usually those mixed boards are pretty bad, don't expect that 2 cards will run the same time. Not even all new PCI-E 2.0 cards will work (some would after flashing a different firmware to the card).

[mdmadph]

Do you happen to know where I could look up whether this motherboard will be a problem?

Everything that I've ever heard points to old VIA AGP chipsets as being problematic with the new ATI AGP cards. It's the reason why I've put things off (got an old VIA K8T800 Socket 754 board).

You should be fine with an old nvidia chipset.