Should I sell my Ati HD4650?

[dekomote]

Hi,

Arch user here. Some of you might be familiar with the fact that Arch switched to xorg server 1.10 recently. That throws fgrlx out the window. I am very satisfied with the open source radeon drivers, kudos to the devs, but for now, they wont cut it since I want to be able to play wow/lotro from time to time (there I said it. I play wow sometimes). At this moment, R600g runs wow good, but player textures are very distorted. Lucky for me, I had a backup NVidia 8400GS so I switched to it. This crappy graphic card outperforms the ATI in simple tasks -> video playback, window movement, multi-monitor handling. But it's slower if you turn some 3d game on.

Now. I know some of you have some insights on next blobs/radeon releases so I wanted to ask you -> should I sell my ATI and get some good NV (240/430/440) or wait?

Is there a possibility that r600g will play wow in near future?

Will 11.4 support x server 1.10?

What about GLSL? 8400 runs DragonAge2, ati wont run it because of GLSL.

Thank you.

[Kano]

Ubuntu natty has a driver that works with xserver 1.10. Just use it on arch or wait for 11-5 official driver.

[evolution]

Hi,

Arch user here. Some of you might be familiar with the fact that Arch switched to xorg server 1.10 recently. That throws fgrlx out the window. I am very satisfied with the open source radeon drivers, kudos to the devs, but for now, they wont cut it since I want to be able to play wow/lotro from time to time (there I said it. I play wow sometimes). At this moment, R600g runs wow good, but player textures are very distorted. Lucky for me, I had a backup NVidia 8400GS so I switched to it. This crappy graphic card outperforms the ATI in simple tasks -> video playback, window movement, multi-monitor handling. But it's slower if you turn some 3d game on.

Now. I know some of you have some insights on next blobs/radeon releases so I wanted to ask you -> should I sell my ATI and get some good NV (240/430/440) or wait?

Is there a possibility that r600g will play wow in near future?

Will 11.4 support x server 1.10?

What about GLSL? 8400 runs DragonAge2, ati wont run it because of GLSL.

Thank you.

I'd rather sell a nVidia card first than an ATI one... but each one has its own opinion...

There's already Xorg Server 1.10 support on Arch with the "catalyst-test" package...

Quote from the Arch Wiki:

There is a repository called [catalyst] which contains newest stable catalyst driver and some additional packages like patched xorg-server. This repository should always work with stock kernel from [core] and it is updated most frequently. To use it you need as root:
1) Edit /etc/pacman.conf and add those lines above all other repositories:
[catalyst]
Server = http://catalyst.apocalypsus.net/repo/catalyst/$arch

Then do a "sudo pacman -Syy" (without the quotes, OC). That will re-update all your pacman repositories.

If you do "sudo pacman -Sl catalyst", you'll find a package called "catalyst-test" in that repo (the [catalyst] one).

Then, you just need to type "sudo pacman -Sy catalyst-test" (without the quotes), and OC, if you don't have a xorg.conf file already configured, the usual "sudo aticonfig --initial" command to generate a Xorg.conf file.

That's all you need to use Catalyst + Xorg 1.10 on Arch.

I hope this helps you,
Cheers

p.s. The link to the Catalyst wiki: click here

[glxextxexlg]

Yes thats a good deed indeed

I suggest selling that useless card and getting an nvidia GT440 or if you can afford a little more a GTS450. You'll add value to your computer and your linux installation.

Nvidia recently updated their legacy linux driver to support xserver 1.10:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTM1NA

Nvidia is a good company which delivers good value for the money you pay. You don't pay for trouble you pay for hardware and support.

[DarkFoss]

yer ever soooo helpful....yawn

[PsynoKhi0]

Nvidia is a good company which delivers good value for the money you pay. You don't pay for trouble you pay for hardware and support.

I'd say they're more like a lame company with decent products. One shouldn't pay for cheap tactics aimed at giving unfair competitive advantages

OT:
Depends on where you priorities lie, really... You've got an opportunity to help the r600g and Wine devs though. So it's "you here and now" vs "everyone in the long run"

I'd keep the HD4650.

BTW anything against changing distro?

[crazycheese]

You shouldn't view AMD as opensource king. That king is intel (or more - prince, sorta). AMD officially places blob as highend driver and opensource as lowend.
Nvidia does same, except no documentation and lowend driver.

Well, if you want 3D on x86-compatible machine - thats currently Intel and AMD processors with PCIe cards and Linux x86_32 or x86_64 kernel.

There are only two brands(maybe three, if you do not need performance and are all ok with opengl 2.1 only) that fit there.

Mentioned brands, if you want opengl4 now, the only choice provided to you is to use either amd or nvidia blob with corresponding driver. Forget *sadly* open drivers. Well at least that wasn't me who made up this situation. Its half as bad though, as you are still not limited to windows as only 3D-capable OS in intel x86 world.

Don't put too many pros in nvidia though. Their reaction to cries for optimus support says a lot, they ignore if they want. The SLI is defacto non-existing. Their complete ban to opensource drivers is huge hole in company reputation. However it is not that huge due to competitors being ignorant to different degree as well. I also doubt they provide linux drivers for normal consumers, I think there are or were b2b contracts that required that driver and being able to use it on linux at home is just a lucky byproduct.

Basically AMD and Nvidia care only about windows and throw your payed money there if you purchase it, regardless where you use it. Support to everything else is either minor or local adaptation of the previous main "effort".

[Kano]

You didn't try nvidia with dx10+ cards, did you?

[crazycheese]

You didn't try nvidia with dx10+ cards, did you?

No, I still use 4770. Did feature set get worse for fermi?

[Kano]

I have got no fermi test card but should be similar.