AMD Catalyst 9.4 Finally Brings X Server 1.6 Support

[bridgman]

I didn't see a bugzilla ticket open for vdrift, so it's possible our devs don't know about the problem.

Given that, it's probably too soon to estimate how long it will take to fix.

[kensai]

Hi Kensai; I think we're talking about two different things. You said that 9.4 would be the exact same driver that Ubuntu shipped, I said wait for the 9.4 final. I read back through the thread some more and it looks like you were mostly thinking about 2.6.29 support.

I might have misunderstood your point since you said "it would be exactly the same although we might add 2.6.29 support"; we didn't add 2.6.29 support but among other things, we completed Redirected Direct Rendering support between the Ubuntu early driver and the final 9.4.

Yeah, I really though we were thinking the same at that time, but we weren't.

Well, I think you guys for this drivers, since it works better than the beta shipped to ubuntu, I got a 15 FPS boost in fgl_glxgears, which is a welcome improvement.

But it lets me down how the newest kernel is not supported, and the newest xorg, even when they hae been out for a long time before the driver comes out. This is what I admire of nvidia, newest kernel and xorg support is there even before the kernel is released.

I hoped I could move this driver back officially to the Arch Linux repository, but it will hold back progress if I do.

[bridgman]

Yeah, I really though we were thinking the same at that time, but we weren't.

That was my mistake; I thought I understood so I gave a "broad" answer rather than being specific; sorry about that.

Well, I think you guys for this drivers, since it works better than the beta shipped to ubuntu, I got a 15 FPS boost in fgl_glxgears, which is a welcome improvement.

But it lets me down how the newest kernel is not supported, and the newest xorg, even when they hae been out for a long time before the driver comes out. This is what I admire of nvidia, newest kernel and xorg support is there even before the kernel is released.

I hoped I could move this driver back officially to the Arch Linux repository, but it will hold back progress if I do.

Understood; we don't want to hold you back either. Thanks for packaging up the driver anyways.

I think we are gradually reducing the time delay between the introduction of a new kernel or X server and our support in fglrx, but the open source drivers will always get there first (probably ahead of any proprietary driver).

[d2kx]

[...] but the open source drivers will always get there first (probably ahead of any proprietary driver).

Well it's kind of the opposite for the opensource drivers. The newer your Linux kernel is, the better

[MostAwesomeDude]

Whoo, more incentive to switch.

BTW, anybody not able to use the open drivers for r300-r500 should let us know; most of the bugs are in 3D nowadays and osiris, airlied, and I are all working in that code.

[bulletxt]

Am I the only one that when sees "AMD Releases new Catalyst Driver" smiles and thinks: "oh damn, they couldn't have done worse than last month... let's check...." ???

[Pulfer]

If you are having problems when resizing to full screen, check and see if the "unredirect fullscreen windows" option is set in Compiz. There were some reports of problems with on-the-fly redirecting; if that's your issue then turning off the unredirect option should help.

It doesn't help me with 9.4 driver. I get system freeze when going to fullscreen with Compiz 7.6 & Totem & Gstreamer & XV. In 9.3 it was much more stable - only video freeze (and even in ~1/2 cases, not always), not full system freeze.

[Saist]

More of our customers report using Ubuntu than Debian (at least 2x as many); if we believed that making the driver work with Debian would magically make it work on all the Debian derivatives as well then I think we would be considering that, but so far that hasn't been the case. The changes between Debian and the downstream distros can be pretty significant.

We also see more OEM interest in pre-loading Ubuntu than in pre-loading Debian.

Situation isn't exactly helped by Debian's management. E.G. the 2.6.26 kernel versus the 2.6.27 kernel in Lenny.

Although, at the same time that Debian is making boneheaded moves, there also is the question of whether or not Ubuntu's break from Debian is a hostile code fork.

[kensai]

Hi Kensai, do you have time time/knowledge to patch the driver in order to activate the older cards? that would be great. like i said, fiddling with unsupported drivers is better then no drivers to play with. And anyway, at least for me, the fglrx never where production quality anyway

best regards

PS: no offense to your work bridgeman.

I don't have that much of a knowledge on that area, but I think it can be possible, reading some documentation, still I don't have the time, but if I find anything I let you know. I prefer not to go into those deep waters. AMD/ATI are too secretive and obsessed with NDAs this days.

[bridgman]

I prefer not to go into those deep waters. AMD/ATI are too secretive and obsessed with NDAs this days.

But we're less secretive and obsessed with NDAs than we used to be