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  • It is flatly not acceptable to ship drivers with the kinds of memory leaks that 8.11 shipped with, and the three previous versions shipped with. I don't care how "nice" they're being- it's NOT acceptable however you slice it. This is coming from a software engineer with over 20 years of industry experience.
    we are already pretty forgiving and patient on ati, aren't we.

    that kind of approach is clearly unthinkable in windows world - simply remember what happened when nvidia released "vista ready" cards without having proper vista drivers for them. the way customers got pissed off is something that didn't happen among linux ati users...yet.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Svartalf View Post
      To each and every one of the people commenting on that we shouldn't be complaining like we are, I will YET AGAIN observe that if this was Windows they were doing this stuff on they would be out of business- period. It doesn't matter that you think that we should be nice. Sorry, we've been that for some time now- if you're just coming in and think that this is going to get you anywhere, you're sadly mistaken. In the 12+ years I've been doing professional Linux development work, it doesn't matter if you're nice or not. Either they do it or they don't- you're viewed, rightly or wrongly, as a very, very small niche market at best.

      I know, I see it every day now. Have been for 12 years.

      It is flatly not acceptable to ship drivers with the kinds of memory leaks that 8.11 shipped with, and the three previous versions shipped with. I don't care how "nice" they're being- it's NOT acceptable however you slice it. This is coming from a software engineer with over 20 years of industry experience.

      Don't expect me to be nice (though I really am being that way, though you might not see it...) when they do things like that.
      How does being unhelpful and downright negative help? Because frankly I can't see the point. I've been watching open source development including linux for over a decade and I'm still yet to see it work.

      I mean perfectly fine for people to move onto another product , in fact if you've had enough I encourage it. Let the people at ATI know and if your going to recommend against ATI/AMD for your customers and people you know then tell them.

      Comment


      • yoshi314:

        Your sig reminded me of a comparison of fglrx and radeon drivers on slashdot:

        (Score:5, Funny)
        by BlueParrot (965239) Alter Relationship on Wednesday September 05, @06:54PM (#20481455)

        So... I don't even bother trying the fglrx drivers since the reverse engineered
        free driver is more stable, and actually works. I mean seriously ATI,
        a non-profit project which bases its code on guessing how your hardware works
        has not only better, but in some cases superior, stability than your shitty driver,
        that really says something.

        I think it is time for a bad car analogy. Imagine a driver who memorises the
        layout of the town by carefully noting down where his car crashes as he drives.
        This guy's taxi company is currently beating your top of the line staff,
        even thou you have a full map of the town, a military grade GPS receiver,
        and real-time information about traffic congestion. Oh, and btw, your competitor's
        car has opaque windows, can only use the reverse gear and he is only able to
        turn left. Even so, the customers prefer him in front of you.
        In short: You suck! Big time...

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Ze.. View Post
          How does being unhelpful and downright negative help? Because frankly I can't see the point. I've been watching open source development including linux for over a decade and I'm still yet to see it work.

          I mean perfectly fine for people to move onto another product , in fact if you've had enough I encourage it. Let the people at ATI know and if your going to recommend against ATI/AMD for your customers and people you know then tell them.
          Considering that NVidia got SUED for their "Vista Ready Drivers" that had similar issues on the Vista side, I think you might want to stop and think about what is all going on here.

          If you think I'm being negative, heh, what the heck was that from the Windows world?

          I'm just stating facts here- pointing out serious problems which should have been show stoppers but weren't. To not do so is sticking one's head in the sand. To be honest, I feel for John Bridgman and Matthew Tippett because they've got the thankless job of trying to manage getting this mess straightened out from 5+ years of neglect (yes, neglect...) from ATI's upper management and now with AMD moving a bit more softly than they probably ought to on all of it.

          And you mention moving on, etc. What do you think this is, hm? You're taking me to task for pointing out unacceptable things coming from them and telling them that I'm moving on. Professionally, I can't really do that (I have to use their stuff to test for function on the stuff I do so that I know it works under Liunx. Always having to work around the problems in their stuff that's not done per spec or not done in a good way, even if it's to the OpenGL spec... I've yet to see a driver that 100% worked like it's supposed to with AMD- I have with other brands of GPUs on Linux...) but all my normal use machines have nothing but NVidia or Intel in them right at the moment.

          I'm waiting to see what comes of the tech data release and of the proprietary driver, to see if AMD is going to pull it out- they've got the technically superior silicon, it's nobbled by their drivers.

          And that's what a good portion of this stems from...

          They COULD have better stuff coming out than they fielded at this point. They still can. Whether their upper management opts to give out adequate resources for the people working on things to do so, remains to be seen. The certainly have had the entire year to get it to this point and they haven't managed it so far- not because the people working on it are unable because of skills or competence, but because they're too few to be actually working on the stuff, especially in the stated development process they're using to produce the proprietary driver.

          What? I'm just supposed to "suck it up" and hope they get their act together? Not likely. You state that this is a problem with Linux getting ahead. Nope. Not even close. They end up encountering as bad or worse (Way worse...being rebuked online like this is nothing compared to getting sued over something...) stuff from the Windows world- and people still keep making stuff for it. Eagerly.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by mlau View Post
            yoshi314:

            Your sig reminded me of a comparison of fglrx and radeon drivers on slashdot:
            Heh... It probably should have been moderated "insightful" instead of "funny" back when he made it- because he wasn't kidding when he posted it. In many ways, the RE'd driver worked more stably and better than fglrx in many 2D situations.

            It's why we're dead keen on seeing what they release in tech data to help us help them. They're just taking longer than they probably ought to considering the sad state of things in the proprietary driver. Now, if they can fix tens if not hundreds (yes...) of serious flaws in the new codebase driver (things like that bad memory leak on certain chipsets, things like glaring omissions of OpenGL 2.X support that everybody else that can support 2.X HAS- including the OLD codebase driver...), that would also be a good thing.

            Comment


            • The majority of what ATI owners are moaning about is pretty basic stuff, it's not much to ask for working drivers. Rialto based cards work but badly, poor scrolling in Firefox, major memory leak in any 3D app etc. Frankly ATI/AMD should be ashamed of their drivers atm.

              If you release a driver that isn't marked as unstable/alpha/beta it should work! Major show stoppers simply should not get through the QA department. Phoronix have reported how drivers are released with a rolling system, a driver spends at least a month in QA.

              We are also not moaning about something provided for free. We all spent a good amount of money on the hardware, we expect decent drivers under supported OS's.

              Having said all that AMD have released the new code base, CCC is finally getting ported to Linux and Michael hinted that Rialto based cards are being properly supported next release. I can't wait, I'm hoping it will fix most of the major problems and they can go from there adding new features and better performance.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Svartalf View Post
                Heh... It probably should have been moderated "insightful" instead of "funny" back when he made it- because he wasn't kidding when he posted it. In many ways, the RE'd driver worked more stably and better than fglrx in many 2D situations.

                It's why we're dead keen on seeing what they release in tech data to help us help them. They're just taking longer than they probably ought to considering the sad state of things in the proprietary driver. Now, if they can fix tens if not hundreds (yes...) of serious flaws in the new codebase driver (things like that bad memory leak on certain chipsets, things like glaring omissions of OpenGL 2.X support that everybody else that can support 2.X HAS- including the OLD codebase driver...), that would also be a good thing.
                My suggestion to ATI would be to drop fglrx completely
                and instead integrate the GL blob with the RHD driver, and assign the people working on the 2D part
                to it. So at least 2D would be well supported, and
                the adventurous folks can have a bleeding edge 3D blob that doesn't depend on a particular kernel and
                xorg version (I bet the freebsd people would like that too).

                Comment


                • As long as they continue with the improvements in each release and keep up to the promise of more gpu documetation for the open source world i see great future for Amd/Ati.

                  The situation is not as bad as people want it to be. After Amd take over Ati things seems inded to be improving. Thats atleast my opinion.

                  I now got 2 different ati architecture(2600pro x600xt) working under linux, and have no need to change them even thought i got a 6600GT ready if i need it.
                  The driver have inded improved , and each new release brings some fixes with it. Im looking forward to catalyst 7.12


                  and btw:Nvidia cards are not totally bug free either

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by mlau View Post
                    My suggestion to ATI would be to drop fglrx completely
                    and instead integrate the GL blob with the RHD driver, and assign the people working on the 2D part
                    to it. So at least 2D would be well supported, and
                    the adventurous folks can have a bleeding edge 3D blob that doesn't depend on a particular kernel and
                    xorg version (I bet the freebsd people would like that too).
                    I agree with you, but as far as I know, I don't think it is possible until they don't release the specs (read most of the specs).
                    And what about older graphic card ? Maybe they simply cannot release anything for older models they inheritate from ATI.
                    But for sure the best solution would be a common open source base with some bits of closed sources.

                    I won't buy new hardware for a while but by the end of next year, AMD gpu are well supported by an open source driver then I will buy AMD.
                    As an owner of a firegl v3200 (notbook t43p) I don't use fglrx for about 6 months.
                    It's insane that we always have to choose between an old kernel or an old driver. When you compare to ath ati driver. Speaking of QA, when you see that the ati driver enters in ditributions after quite immediately, without much trouble... For instance gutsy release by the end of october had to provide 8.37.6.
                    Last edited by lucky_; 18 December 2007, 01:49 PM.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by teroedni View Post
                      As long as they continue with the improvements in each release and keep up to the promise of more gpu documetation for the open source world i see great future for Amd/Ati.

                      The situation is not as bad as people want it to be. After Amd take over Ati things seems inded to be improving. Thats atleast my opinion.

                      I now got 2 different ati architecture(2600pro x600xt) working under linux, and have no need to change them even thought i got a 6600GT ready if i need it.
                      The driver have inded improved , and each new release brings some fixes with it. Im looking forward to catalyst 7.12


                      and btw:Nvidia cards are not totally bug free either
                      Well, nothing is bug free really...but Nvidia cards have far less (fatal) problems then the ATI binary equivalent.

                      But yes, the situation is at least seemingly getting better. Only time will tell now though.

                      Regarding the suggestion to drop fglrx, it won't happen. Not all documentation can be released...specifically anything containing content protection mechanisms as well as other items that has not crossed my mind yet. For the users who want the 'full functionality' they will still need to use fglrx.

                      Comment

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