AMD Releases Catalyst 14.1 Beta Linux Graphics Driver

[flim]

I thought I should warn everyone that suspend is broken with Catalyst 14.1, so you better disable it completely if you plan on using Catalyst. Steam Overlay is also still bugged with Catalyst -- drasticaly reduces FPS. If you play a game for a couple of minutes you will get framerate stuter.

Suspend works as supposed (hd7970). Steam Overlay always reduced fps; windows, linux, amd or nvidia doesn't matter. Surprisingly the overlay itself runs smooth, even while playing a YouTube video.

[AnonymousCoward]

Heh heh. Could have went with 5800, but I'm not sure if 5800 nets me a bit better performance considering both are using Radeon HD 7660D. And I'm unsure if Linux 3.14 and the latest version of Mesa will have any FPS improvements for games like Portal.

Ah, if only Valve could port Portal 2. I did some research in system requirements and I shouldn't have any problems playing Portal 2. I'm unsure if Intel HD Graphics 3000 can outperform my 7660D, though. I mean, when it comes to maxing out high settings except for anti-aliasing (I don't need it) at 1920x1080.

Man, pardon me for bragging, but I'm so happy with open source radeon driver. I just found it impressive that I can play Portal at that frame rate. Maybe it'll get better or maybe it'll get worse (oh, please no regressions...).

If you are impatient you could run Portal 2 with Wine. It should run at close to (potential) Linux native performance, provided you use the CSMT patchset. I've only played it on my nvidia system but it should work great with the open source AMD drivers.

[charlie]

On debian testing with the a10-8750k it refuses to install with the message "your graphics adapter is not supported"

I sent a bug report to AMD at http://www.amd.com/betareport. When trying to make a package on Slackware the log info gives more info on what could be the issue. I only copy and pasted some of the log which is pretty big.

In function 'drm_name_info_wrap':
error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type

...

     len = func(m->buf+m->count, m->size-m->count, m->private); \
error: implicit declaration of function 'single_open' [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
         return single_open(file, firegl_major_proc_read, PDE_DATA(inode));
         ^
'seq_read' undeclared here (not in a function)
         .read = seq_read,
                 ^
 'seq_lseek' undeclared here (not in a function)
         .llseek = seq_lseek,
                   ^
cc1: some warnings being treated as errors

Maybe it's a compiler error. I used gcc-4.8.2_multilib-x86_64-1alien.

[asdfblah]

I thought I should warn everyone that suspend is broken with Catalyst 14.1, so you better disable it completely if you plan on using Catalyst. Steam Overlay is also still bugged with Catalyst -- drasticaly reduces FPS. If you play a game for a couple of minutes you will get framerate stuter.

As usual, some things are fixed for some people... and broken, again, for others. Looks like the catalyst devs don't know about the 'if' and 'else' control structures
It's good knowing beforehand that fglrx is broken again, because it saves me of the pain that means installing fglrx just to check if things were fixed again or not... I'm sorry for those who have to suffer it, though.
Meanwhile, the FOSS driver "just works" ;D (except, in my case, for this bug: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43829 )

[AJSB]

As usual, some things are fixed for some people... and broken, again, for others. Looks like the catalyst devs don't know about the 'if' and 'else' control structures
It's good knowing beforehand that fglrx is broken again, because it saves me of the pain that means installing fglrx just to check if things were fixed again or not... I'm sorry for those who have to suffer it, though.
Meanwhile, the FOSS driver "just works" ;D (except, in my case, for this bug: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43829 )

How does the FOSS driver works with Steam games ? More exactly with TF2, L4D2 and DOTA2 ?
...and how about WINE ?

TIA,
AJSB

[asdfblah]

How does the FOSS driver works with Steam games ? More exactly with TF2, L4D2 and DOTA2 ?
...and how about WINE ?

TIA,
AJSB

I'm not a gamer, and I barely play games, but I have those games and they worked just fine. Obviously, you'd need an updated kernel (3.13 or 3.14) and the latest graphic stack from mesa.
You can read comments regarding the FOSS driver in similar threads here in phoronix. People usually say they are "good enough", and sometimes are even better than fglrx (faster, more stable, less crashes or less stutter), like in the previous post by mmstick. No idea about WINE, though...

[smitty3268]

Yes GCN 1.0 and later GCN 1.1 came out. We're now onto GCN 2.x. The GCN 1.1 and GCN 2.x are nowhere near optimized.

The current cards are all GCN 1.1 (and 1.0). GCN 2.0 is still in development.

[suaefar]

I sent a bug report to AMD...

I filed another.

[entropy]

The current cards are all GCN 1.1 (and 1.0). GCN 2.0 is still in development.

Apparently R9 290x is a GCN2 ASIC.
(Whatever that marketing buzz means.)

[darkbasic]

Does it noticeably improve performance of Metro:LL?

Yes it does. Metro Last Light improved A LOT with Catalyst 14.1 beta.