AMD Dropping R300-R500 Support In Catalyst Driver

[deanjo]

These are all guesses though - the key point though is that once performance gets above a certain level most users won't notice or care, and that level is probably closer to 50% than you might think. Modern GPUs are getting faster and cheaper at an alarming rate.

Isn't one of the big idea's behind opensource drivers is NOT having to go out and buy a new card to get decent performance and not forcing hardware upgrades to make the most out of the hardware they already have? It seems the "free and open" mantra is now recommending solutions that contradict what they have been screaming at "closed and proprietary" for years now.

[bridgman]

Although this is resting on the assumption that no one from ATI had been providing commits to the open drivers, in order to bring them up-to-spec, in anticipation of this decision. I may be completely wrong.

See for yourself :

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/dri...video-ati/log/

Isn't one of the big idea's behind opensource drivers is NOT having to go out and buy a new card to get decent performance and not forcing hardware upgrades to make the most out of the hardware they already have? It seems the "free and open" mantra is now recommending solutions that contradict what they have been screaming at "closed and proprietary" for years now.

I've actually *never* heard that claimed as a benefit of open source; it's more the historical argument for proprietary drivers, ie that for some time after introduction the manufacturer can continue to provide performance improvements without having to upgrade. The benefit of open source drivers is usually argued as being independence from the whims of the hardware vendor, and the ability to prolong support for much longer than might be feasible for the vendor.

All of this misses the point though. We're not saying "move to the open source drivers cause they run faster" (although they do tend to be faster for most users in everything but 3d), we're saying "these GPUs are moving to a reduced support model, and rather than quarterly updates of the fglrx driver we believe that our users will be better served by the open source drivers in the same timeframe". Comparing fglrx to the open source drivers this month is missing the point -- on a reduced support schedule there wouldn't have been a driver update this month anyways. Comparing 3, 6, 9 or 12 months from now is what matters since that's when the quarterly update drivers would have happened.

[MostAwesomeDude]

This would be spin. Might be a valid argument if all the models recently dropped currently had a decent level of support in the open driver. To follow your lead: reading this entire thread, it's easy to see that for many people, this is a serious backwards step, which has left them with little practical alternative other than to upgrade their hardware (which isn't possible for all) or not upgrade their OS, until such time as someone does provide solid support. It takes a fair stretch for full hardware documentation to count as, "support", all by itself. Although this is resting on the assumption that no one from ATI had been providing commits to the open drivers, in order to bring them up-to-spec, in anticipation of this decision. I may be completely wrong.

All of us are either AMD employees (RichardLi, agd5f, bridgman) or receive documentation and hardware from them (glisse, airlied, myself.)

AMD is supporting the developers, and you are completely wrong.

[hunterthomson]

My Brand new HP elitebook 8530w Is to Old for AMD ! BULL

What crap.
I have not even receved my brand new HP elitebook 8530w Moble Workstation with a ATI Mobility FireGL v5700.
It will be here is two day's.

And AMD tells me they will not suport the GPU

[energyman]

it is not amd's fault when you buy unsupported hardware.

and where did they tell you they don't support you hardware?

[hunterthomson]

it is not amd's fault when you buy unsupported hardware.

and where did they tell you they don't support you hardware?

Owe, ya your right. Buying a brand new model laptop was a bad move. I should not expect AMD to suport it.

UM... The AMD web site told me they don't suport it.... Not for Linux and new Xorg anyway

This forum is not letting me post "untill my post has been reviewed"
So, I'll just keep editing this post.

edit:
Here is a link to the AMD web page that tells me they don't suport it. You can read elsewhere the old Catalyst driver dosn't work with the new Xorg

http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html

"The ATI Proprietary Linux driver currently supports Radeon 8500 and later AGP or PCI Express graphics products, as well as ATI FireGL 8700 and later products. We do not currently plan to include support for any products earlier than this. Drivers for earlier products should already be available from the DRI Project or Utah-GLX project."

edit:
Owe ok, So FireGL is the same as FirePro ?
The Mobility FireGL v5700 IS Newer then FireGL 8700 ? Sorry I guess I am an idiot.

edit:
I have never gotten a ATI card before so I got mixed up in the nameing. I should have looked into ATI before I got it. I just jumped in because the Nvidia card I could have gotten had some Linux Driver problems that I didn't feel like dealing with. Well, I also saved $530 by getting this model.

edit:
Ok, so you know your stuff bridgman ? The driver for the Mobility FireGL v5700 is still the main line Catalyst driver. Boy, I have been looking for more info on this card but am not realy finding any. I did find it strange that AMD would drop suport for graphics cards that are still being sold in new high end laptops. Though not unbelievable.

I mite go to Austin, TX anyway I here good things :P

Last Edit here too:

OK, Thankyou bridgman for all the help. I probaly never would have found all this out if it was not for you. I am now vary happy with my buy and am glad I didn't go with the Nvidia card. Now I'll know for sure if I have a problem with the catalyst driver it is realy a problem with something ells like configuration or a combo problem.

Ya, I heard the same things about Austin. I was even thing of moving there befor.

[bridgman]

The Mobility 5700 is an RV6xx GPU. Nothing to do with the GPUs discussed in this thread.

I went to amd.com, clicked on driver downloads, then Linux, FirePro, FirePr0 5700 and was taken here :

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...ire_linux.aspx

This is the download page for the latest Linux graphics driver. hunterthompson, can you pls point me to the link you were looking at ?

BTW the CEO lives in Austin, TX.

EDIT :

Here is a link to the AMD web page that tells me they don't suport it. You can read elsewhere the old Catalyst driver dosn't work with the new Xorg

http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html

"The ATI Proprietary Linux driver currently supports Radeon 8500 and later AGP or PCI Express graphics products, as well as ATI FireGL 8700 and later products. We do not currently plan to include support for any products earlier than this. Drivers for earlier products should already be available from the DRI Project or Utah-GLX project."

That FAQ seems really old; I thought it was taken off the site a few years ago. Maybe it came back somehow during the ATI/AMD site merge, will check. The current Catalyst driver includes early-look support for X server 1.6, ie pre-release xorg 7.5.

Anyways, I guess I still don't understand your original question. This thread is for GPUs we sold between 2002 and early 2007, along with the corresponding IGP parts (Xpress 200, X12xx), which we have moved out of the main Catalyst drivers and are supporting via the open source drivers. Nothing to do with your GPU whatsoever.

EDIT:

Owe ok, So FireGL is the same as FirePro ?
The Mobility FireGL v5700 IS Newer then FireGL 8700 ?

OK, now I see. Don't worry, I have trouble with our workstation numbering too

We changed the numbering scheme a bit going from FireGL to FirePRO, or somewhere around there. The very first ATI-based FireGL cards (based on R200, back in 2001-ish) had numbers in the 8xxx range, probably for continuity with older FireGL cards which used IBM GPUs.

The current numbering uses the first digit (3,5,7,8) to indicate the general class of card; 3 is entry level, 5 is midrange, 7 is high end, and 8 is ultra-high end. The second digit indicates generation, so a 5700 is newer than a 5600, for example. Not sure what the last 2 digits mean.

FINAL EDIT, SUN'S COMING UP

The driver for the Mobility FireGL v5700 is still the main line Catalyst driver. Boy, I have been looking for more info on this card but am not realy finding any. I did find it strange that AMD would drop suport for graphics cards that are still being sold in new high end laptops. Though not unbelievable.

We don't publish much about the mobile parts. Laptops all tend to have heavily customized BIOSes and need correspondingly customized drivers for that specific product, so normally you would deal directly with the laptop vendor to get the best info. This is even more true for workstation laptops.

I mite go to Austin, TX anyway I here good things :P

Austin is a very cool town; food, music, people and countryside. I've only been there a couple of times but always enjoy it.

[hunterthomson]

The Mobility 5700 is an RV6xx GPU. Nothing to do with the GPUs discussed in this thread.

hunterthompson, can you pls point me to the link you were looking at ?

http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html

[hunterthomson]

http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html

"The ATI Proprietary Linux driver currently supports Radeon 8500 and later AGP or PCI Express graphics products, as well as ATI FireGL 8700 and later products. We do not currently plan to include support for any products earlier than this. Drivers for earlier products should already be available from the DRI "

[energyman]

5700 is a hd3650 (with slower ram) if wikipedia has to believed so the driver should work just fine even without listing the chip.