8.03 Catalyst Driver

[Uchikoma]

8.03, 8.3, or as the release notes say 8.471. Whatever the case, it looks like the driver is (soon) to be out, and the release notes are already up. Can't wait to give this driver a spin.

For those interested, here are the mentioned resolved issues:

* On workstation hardware 3D applications will no longer be corrupted if the screen width is not an integer multiple of 64 pixels, for example with a 1680x1050 wide screen display. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31720
* Display flicker is no longer be noticed when the gnome screen-saver starts
* Several image brightness and gamma-correction issues were resolved. Setting the gamma correction using xgamma, fglrx_xgamma, xorg.conf and in OpenGL games will all work as expected now.
* Diagonal tearing will no longer be noticed when playing a video file using a video player that utilizes the XVideo extension
* Video playback will no longer look blocky when playing a video file using a video player that utilizes the XVideo extension

...and known issues

* There is no support for video playback on the second head in dual head mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-26985
* Desktop corruption may be noticed when dragging the overlay/video when using dual-display mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29578
* A black screen may be observed on some hardware when switching to the console or leaving the X window system when a Vesa framebuffer console driver is used. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30687
* Video Playback may display wrong colors and additional shadow images when cropping or expanding a video file using a video player that utilizes the XVideo extension

Is it just me, or is the known/resolved issues listed in the release notes becoming more meaningful...?

Release note link: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206..._83_linux.html
Driver page link: http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/l...ux-radeon.html

EDIT: Driver is not up yet though it is linked (File not found). Probably caught it when they were in the middle of releasing
EDIT2: Seems like the phoronix crew also posted the thread while I was typing this one up...
it...

[IrradeoActive]

The file "ati-driver-installer-8-3-x86.x86_64.run" from http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/l...ux-radeon.html contains 15 bytes - "File not found."

Very funny guys!

[qdlaty]

Still crap...
Video Overlay in full screen is working "fine" on x1600 but if windowed still noticed diagonal disturbances.
But the worse is OpenGL apps - working in 3D software like VariCAD is impossible... Since 8.40.4 there was no driver that worked fine with Compiz and OpenGL/Xv...

Such a disappointment...

[bridgman]

qdlaty, you should be using TexturedVideo on an X1600 and turn VideoOverlay & OpenGLOverlay off.

VideoOverlay is mostly for pre-5xx cards -- I don't expect it would work well on your card.

Irradeoactive, there was a typo in the link -- see the other Cat 8.3 thread for the proper URL. Our internet team is fixing the link.

[qdlaty]

bridgman,

thanks for the tip, I did turn off overlay for OpenGL and Video and turned TexturedVideo - still the same effect - crappy windowed video and NO WAY to work with OpenGL apps.

I'm still down... and need to go back to 8.40.4 again.

[bridgman]

Something is not right there. There should be no difference between full-screen and windowed apps. Are you sure you're running with TexturedVideo, ie can you use aticonfig to check what amdpcsdb is holding ?

[qdlaty]

bridman,
in /etc/ati/amdpcsdb
I see:
VideoOverlay=Son
OpenGLOverlay=Soff

and nothing about TexturedVideo
while I've manualy edited xorg.conf to include changes...

Could you point me to some guide to check if I'm not doing something wrong on my side?

[bridgman]

I think the "VideoOverlay=Son" entry in amdpcsdb will override anything you do in xorg.conf, although I'm not 100% sure of that. There are aticonfig options to set & reset entries in amdpcsdb -- I don't remember the syntax right now (aticonfig -help, I think ) but IIRC you want to end up with VideoOverlay=Soff and TexturedVideo=Son.

I'll ask the devs tomorrow about what exactly happens if you have TexturedVideo turned on in xorg.conf and VideoOverlay turned on in amdpcsdb. I don't know who wins in that case, but as long as you get the right stuff into amdpcsdb you don't need to wait.

[Michael]

in /etc/ati/amdpcsdb

FYI, amdpcsdb is written when the X server shutdown and read on startup. For any changes to apply in real-time, you must apply the amdpcsdb changes through aticonfig.

Below is the relevant aticonfig --help output.

Persistent Configuration Store (PCS) Options:
  Following options will not change the config file. They are
  used to manipulate the PCS database.  Due to their nature, these.
  commands may only be run by the root user. Note that the prefix
  and key names are not case-sensitive.
  --get-pcs-key=PREFIX,KEY
        Prints out the specified prefix and key from the PCS
        database.  The type of data will be shown along with
        the contents.
  --set-pcs-val=PREFIX,KEY,VALUE
        Sets an integer value at the specified prefix and key in
        the PCS database.  The value may be specified in hex by
        prefixing it with 0x or in octal by prefixing it with 0,
        otherwise the value is assumed to be in decimal.
  --set-pcs-str=PREFIX,KEY,STRING
        Sets a string value at the specified prefix and key in
        the PCS database.
  --set-pcs-raw=PREFIX,KEY,HEXSTRING
        Sets a raw binary value at the specified prefix and key in
        the PCS database.  The value is specified as a series of
        hex bytes with no 0x or spaces.
        (e.g. --set-pcs-raw="TestSection,TestData,E84C0E" sets 3 bytes)
  --del-pcs-key=PREFIX,KEY
        Deletes the specified prefix and key from the PCS database.

[qdlaty]

Same story again - amdpcsdb is not recreated/updated after changing xorg.conf.
Manual changes using
aticonfig --set-pcs-str=DDX,TexturedVideo,on
and few others
changed the file but did not affected the driver behavior.