Do ATI cards show their real performance after the 8.41/8.42 improvements?

[Extreme Coder]

This might sound like a silly question, but I want to know, are ATI cards now used to their fullest?

I mean, would an ATI card in Windows perform similarly in Linux?

Maybe Michael can do comparison between ET:QW or other Linux games and their Windows versions using different ATI cards?

Thanks.

[Malikith]

They're getting closer, they aren't quite there yet though. Maybe by 8.44 or 8.45 we might be able to say it. It shouldn't be too much longer though.

[Svartalf]

This might sound like a silly question, but I want to know, are ATI cards now used to their fullest?

I mean, would an ATI card in Windows perform similarly in Linux?

Maybe Michael can do comparison between ET:QW or other Linux games and their Windows versions using different ATI cards?

Thanks.

The answer would be "No", though it's not the evil roughly HALF drop in performance that they used to have. Right now, if you've got the right hardware (so the thing runs right...) you can expect to see about 3/4 to 4/5ths of the Windows peak performance, based on what we're all seeing right now.

The biggest problem with everything would be if you've got one of the right configurations that just works. Some GPUs still don't seem to work right (It looks like the IGPs are in that category) and some of them work but won't launch with Compiz correctly. Many people reporting problems are using the AGP bridged PCI-E GPU offerings that ATI made to make AGP cards possible with their GPUs.

In short, your mileage may vary- but if you're one of the lucky ones, you can be at least a little bit happier with your ATI purchase than you were before the 8.42 release.

[Extreme Coder]

Ah, I see.
So things are improving
My IGP(ATI Radeon X1200) was working fine with 8.40, and I managed to get it working with 8.41, and I noticed this:
In both, I get general graphical corruption on the desktop, for example, when making a box with the mouse. Videos sometimes worked, sometimes not :/ But my glxgears went from 800~850 to 1200~1250 between the drivers. and most games had noticeable improvement.

But still ET:QW and Savage are slower than they are on Windows, but I didn't know what to blame for that :P

[Svartalf]

Ah, I see.
So things are improving
My IGP(ATI Radeon X1200) was working fine with 8.40, and I managed to get it working with 8.41, and I noticed this:
In both, I get general graphical corruption on the desktop, for example, when making a box with the mouse. Videos sometimes worked, sometimes not :/ But my glxgears went from 800~850 to 1200~1250 between the drivers. and most games had noticeable improvement.

But still ET:QW and Savage are slower than they are on Windows, but I didn't know what to blame for that :P

The drivers, obviously. But is it because the performance isn't up to par, the fact that you're in UMA instead of using Hypermemory (which is likely- they've busted something ages ago on that type of support so we've been SOL on that score for a couple of years now...), or BOTH.

[Extreme Coder]

The drivers, obviously. But is it because the performance isn't up to par, the fact that you're in UMA instead of using Hypermemory (which is likely- they've busted something ages ago on that type of support so we've been SOL on that score for a couple of years now...), or BOTH.

Sorry for asking, but what's UMA, and what's Hypermemory?

And is there anything I can do to use one instead of the other?

[Svartalf]

Sorry for asking, but what's UMA, and what's Hypermemory?

UMA is Unified Memory Access. It's using the system's RAM for texture memory, framebuffer, etc. Most IGPs out there provide some semblance of UMA support on their chips, even NVidia. This is slow because you're having to share the bus, etc. with the GPU, CPU, and pretty much everything else. Discrete memory GPUs have their OWN bus to that RAM in addition to the bus coming from the AGP/PCI-E slot which speeds up a lot of things. Hypermemory/Turbocache (AMD/NVidia) is a scheme that they came up with to utilize a mix of discrete and UMA memory pools to enlarge the GPU's available memory in an inexpensive way that gains most of the advantages of having all discrete RAM for the GPU as a cost/power savings measure in laptops and server boards.

With AMD's stuff, it's been busted on Linux for at least two years running now and you couldn't even use the discrete memory on the GPU as it wasn't stable. The driver with 8.40 seemed to bring back the support but it wasn't stable when you used either discrete or Hypermemory mode and UMA was the only way to run with it in 3d. Slowly. Very slowly.

And is there anything I can do to use one instead of the other?

On some laptops it's a BIOS setting option (like in my previous laptop...)- others it's controlled by the drivers themselves. You get it or you don't. You may/may not be able to do anything about it and it may be the source of instability for some people as it wasn't stable in 8.40 when I'd last tried any new AMD/ATI drivers on any hardware.

[Extreme Coder]

How do I know if my IGP has HyperMemory ?(as mentioned before, it's an ATI Radeon X1200)

[Ole-Martin Broz]

Lov end cpu/memory with the 2900 XT means more power than windows, Confirmed on my system 4400+ 2mb cache 110 watts 939 2.2 ghz /w geil 64 bit memory system pc3200 ( cannot run em in 128, dunno why) and OCZ pc4000 platinium series.

Okey, lets start, even WITH my geil in 64 bit, and no overclock i beated windows in start lagg, may be linux in general about cpu etc. well, second i experienced 2 fps more in quake wars.
then overclocked the system, equal performance to windows from when on the start lagg isnt a subject in the benchmark, in windows i got up to 20 seconds of start lagg, while in linux i got 5 seconds of unplayable gaming, and 5 of small spikes, then is everything fine.

Well, since i cant push my cpu to the limit with the geil, i ran it at 2650 mhz (450 mhz oc) with alot of Hyper transport overclock,
then 3ghz with OCZ 500 mhz @600 mhz timings stock 3-3-2-8 @ 3-3-2-5 while overclocked at 600.

The cards where now diffrent, even though start lagg wasnt a subject at all, b4 i had hit the ground there where no lagg, even though i gained more FPS, windows had the advantage then at higher clocks. by 5 fps.

This isnt all to accurate, but newest drivers, and i experienced linux running ETQW better at low clocks with my ati than windows.

I cannot unleash my 2900 xt's performance since i cant overclock it in linux :'( my system runs at 4 radiators with aquacomputer waterblocks, so for me, i dont get the performance i get in windows.

But even though i will prolly rate the performance to be very good

Test's havnt been done with benchmark, demo didnt have that ?, tried to redo all the moves etc. for 1 minute, so not very accurate, but even though, my fps's where really nice.

[Svartalf]

How do I know if my IGP has HyperMemory ?(as mentioned before, it's an ATI Radeon X1200)

You're probably UMA-only with that GPU- I've not seen a Hypermemory option with anything using it.

The X1200 moniker is really deceptive. You'd think you had a hot R500 series GPU with that name- it's got more in common with the X700 than the X1xxx series parts and it's a crippled X700 at that. No Vertex Shaders- no hardware TCL which means you're only slightly better than a GMA 950 in performance at best.