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  • ATI driver features

    Hi all !

    My laptop is dead and I will have to buy a new one. But almost all laptops are using ati graphics. I have been using nvidia drivers for a long now and was really happy with what had been done with vdpau and ease of installation. So Ihave a few questions to determine if I can switch on ATI.

    - I have read that XvBA what finally doing something. But is it already as efficient and easy to use as vdpau? Ismplayer supported. I mostly watch x264 1080p. Is this codec supported ?

    - What about video sync and tearing. I had a desktop with ati and experienced a lot of problems of that kind. Is it fixed ?

    - I am planning to keep my kubuntu with KDE4. Are 3Deffects well supported by the driver ? I remember the time where these effects where hard to get working with the ATI driver.

    - And last question : what about the open-source driver ? Where is the developpement heading to and what can be achieved as of now with this driver ?


    Thanks a lot for all your answers, I am anxious at the idea of leaving nvidia.

  • #2
    R700 has h264 decode capability via XvBA on the closed driver. I have no idea about the state of 3d on that driver.
    The open driver supports 3D up to R700, but no video decode *yet*, though it *will* support video decode acceleration via shaders.

    Originally posted by Guilo View Post
    Hi all !

    My laptop is dead and I will have to buy a new one. But almost all laptops are using ati graphics. I have been using nvidia drivers for a long now and was really happy with what had been done with vdpau and ease of installation. So Ihave a few questions to determine if I can switch on ATI.

    - I have read that XvBA what finally doing something. But is it already as efficient and easy to use as vdpau? Ismplayer supported. I mostly watch x264 1080p. Is this codec supported ?

    - What about video sync and tearing. I had a desktop with ati and experienced a lot of problems of that kind. Is it fixed ?

    - I am planning to keep my kubuntu with KDE4. Are 3Deffects well supported by the driver ? I remember the time where these effects where hard to get working with the ATI driver.

    - And last question : what about the open-source driver ? Where is the developpement heading to and what can be achieved as of now with this driver ?


    Thanks a lot for all your answers, I am anxious at the idea of leaving nvidia.

    Comment


    • #3
      As far as end users are concerned, the open source drivers provide 2D/3D acceleretion for everything up to r500. Latter chips have working 2D and you will have to build things on your own to get 3D (and it's not really "stable" either).
      As far as fglrx:
      - XvBA "works" but it's still having problems. I expect them to be fixed eventually. It works on mplayer but you will have to compile a vaapi enabled mplayer first.

      - There is still tearing with Xv/OpenGL playback as far as I can tell. Composition running or no, I can still notice videos tearing every now and then. It has gotten better recently though.

      - I'm on Kubuntu Karmic at the moment and the effects work. Sometimes it crashes (usually when login into a session), but I can always enable them again. Window transformation (resizing, maximizing, etc.) is painfully slow; you can apply some fixes like using a patched xserver or changing some window specific KDE options, but it's far from ideal. Also, while the effects are on my card runs in 3D mode; while this is not a big problem for me, I would imagine that on a laptop it would be a concern (additional heat, lower battery life). Have not gotten an answer on this last issue yet from either the AMD guys or the KDE folks, so it might just be something odd with my particular setup .

      Comment


      • #4
        Latter chips have working 2D and you will have to build things on your own to get 3D (and it's not really "stable" either).
        I guess experiences vary. I haven't had a 3D-related crash on HD 4550 in over a month.

        The open drivers do require a recent kernel and the mesa stack built from source (I believe there are packages for Ubuntu). They provide good OpenGL 1.5 acceleration, and GLSL is coming soon. Not as fast as fglrx yet. Tear-free XVideo. KDE4 effects work great.

        There is only very basic powersaving now (and none if you use KMS). There is no decode acceleration, and likely won't be any for at least half a year, as it will be built on top of the Gallium driver, which is nowhere near ready yet.

        This is the state of the open-source stack. I've never used fglrx, so I'll let other people answer that.

        Comment


        • #5
          @Qaridarium

          VERY bad idea to buy AMD based systems with ATI card, those use to have got onboard + dedicated GPU with the result that no card works with fglrx. Not with every system, but with many...

          @pingufunkybeat

          HD 4550 with DVI connector does NOT work with radeon(hd) currently, a stupid hack is to execute

          avivotool regset 0x7ec4 0x00824002

          on X startup as root. I really hate this...
          Last edited by Kano; 21 November 2009, 04:19 PM.

          Comment


          • #6
            Not with AMD CPU, the chipset is usually always with IGP. And mobile systems use hybrid power technology - fglrx does not like that.

            Comment


            • #7
              Sure, but it is used.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Melcar View Post
                - I'm on Kubuntu Karmic at the moment and the effects work. Sometimes it crashes (usually when login into a session), but I can always enable them again. Window transformation (resizing, maximizing, etc.) is painfully slow; you can apply some fixes like using a patched xserver or changing some window specific KDE options, but it's far from ideal. Also, while the effects are on my card runs in 3D mode; while this is not a big problem for me, I would imagine that on a laptop it would be a concern (additional heat, lower battery life). Have not gotten an answer on this last issue yet from either the AMD guys or the KDE folks, so it might just be something odd with my particular setup .
                The KDE power management profiles have the option to disable compositing. If I unplug my laptop (old x300) it flickers and I get a notification that compositing is being turned off, and how to turn it back on. The opposite happens if I plug it back in. I think that's the default. Presumably, this lets the card switch off the 3D hardware.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by transwarp View Post
                  The KDE power management profiles have the option to disable compositing. If I unplug my laptop (old x300) it flickers and I get a notification that compositing is being turned off, and how to turn it back on. The opposite happens if I plug it back in. I think that's the default. Presumably, this lets the card switch off the 3D hardware.

                  It's a desktop, so those power options really don't work. Besides, I want composition on, but it's odd that it's forcing my card into high power mode like that. When I had KDE on my laptop battery life was worse than crappy I suspect due to this; that same laptop can go on for 45min. on GNOME with Compiz on. I will try another distro and see if it's not a Kubuntu quirk.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I just bought another laptop with Amd/Ati. Would I do that if it sucked? The answer is no.

                    Fglrx is running just fine with my two laptops. I have to download a patched xserver (no backfill version) though, but thats not that hard.
                    After that, compositing is working great in both kde4 and gnome.

                    I also tried the oss drivers with kms. Impressive piece of work. Tried them for ~1 month ago, so they weren't quite stable that time and powersavings didn't work. But as far as I know powersaving features is on the way.

                    Comment

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