5870 future prospects

[Exopaladin]

Got it. Just to avoid misunderstandings, the code has been in *development* for months but that's not the same as "undergoing months of testing". We know it still needs work but feedback so far suggests that most users were happy with the new code (and the improved 2D performance under a compositor), and that only a minority (albeit a non-trivial minority) were using apps/toolkits which resulted in artifacts.

re: the OpenGL problems that you mentioned having been "broken for ages", my understanding was that the problems appeared in 10.6, possibly as a side-effect of the OpenGL 4.0 changes. Did you find the problems also existed with Cat 10.5 ?

Cat 10.5 was showing as having OpenGL 4 for me, problem also existed in the OGL 4 beta driver released back in March or whenever it was.

[bridgman]

Understood. I wasn't asking whether OpenGL 4.0 was exposed in Cat 10.5 though, I was asking if the problems you mentioned occurred in Cat 10.5.

Comments from other users suggest that the problems appeared between Catalyst 10.5 and 10.6.

[bridgman]

For clarity, when I say "between 10.5 and 10.6" I'm talking about "in the main stream of Catalyst driver releases" (ie 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6), not the GL 4 beta driver.

[Exopaladin]

For clarity, when I say "between 10.5 and 10.6" I'm talking about "in the main stream of Catalyst driver releases" (ie 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6), not the GL 4 beta driver.

Ah. Yeah, I had the problem (Heroes of Newerth and a couple of other things I can't think of right now segfaulting on launch) in 10.5 and 10.6. Problem (and one that I assume may be related) got reported on the bug tracker here:

http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1827

http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1824

[bridgman]

Whoops, maybe the other users said the problem was introduced between 10.4 and 10.5, not between 10.5 and 10.6

[Exopaladin]

Whoops, maybe the other users said the problem was introduced between 10.4 and 10.5, not between 10.5 and 10.6

The odd thing is that I think you're right and that some people were reporting issues with 10.5 -> 10.6, just that I and some other unlucky people had issues with >10.4

[Blacksmith]

Firstly many thanks for the disucussion its been mostly helpfull but it does
raise a number of points.
I have been using Linux since kernel 0.96d that is since 1993. In the past
it usually has taken at least 2 to 3 years to get a decent OS 2D plus 3D driver
for a graphics card. As I under stand it the current OS support for the R600
GPU's has been around for around about that length of time and is just now
starting to hit its straps. As far as I am concerned there is no problem with
the development delay.

Some posters seem to have missed a bit here, what I am talking about is
future open source support. If you wait until OS support for the 5870 to
become stable then the card will be well and truely gone from the shops.
There of course will be newer cheaper cards availble but still with poor or
no open source support. So I am willing for the wait.

I am currently working on a terrain rendering application that has
demomstrated it will use as much triangle and texture drawing rates as one
can throw at it and still get a below average result (Note 1). So there is a
requirement for a better GPU. On the development machine I currently have a
Gigabyte NVidia GTX260 superoverclock card in it. It is slightly faster then
my Sapphire 4870 once you screw up the Antialiasing and such settings.
Interestingly the 4870 does not slow down the frame rate at all when you
screw up the settings the result on the screen just gets better.

While $650 Australian is a fair bit of cash I do not have a TV or mobile
phone, I do not go out much living in VERY rural Australia. So the
computers are very much a central part of the entertainment outside of my
Workshop and Railway work. I do final have a fast internet connection
although it is still basicly dialup. Decent broadband is unlikely ever to be
out here.

Note 1: In Linux of course. This is on the whole a research exersize to see
how realistic you can render a landscape. This eats Vertex's (and textures)
like there is no tomorrow, essentially if you double the viewing distance
the number of Vertex's goes up by a factor of between 4 and 8 a landscape
of course being in 3 dimensions.

Blacksmith

[Blacksmith]

Oops I missed a a bit I on the whole have never had much trouble with FGLRX this is the driver I currently use on my test machine (not the development machine).

Blacksmith

[Kano]

I just got a i3-680 won H55 to try vaapi via open source driver, enough for you? You can not test that with ATI.

[Kano]

Look into a mirror to see a fake.