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AMD Dropping R300-R500 Support In Catalyst Driver

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  • Originally posted by deanjo View Post
    Expecting on par performance levels of the card when in another OS in not unreasonable at all. People don't purchase video cards for 70% of it's potential. People will buy and upgrade cards when there is a 20% increase in performance though.
    Unfortunately, it's not just another OS, it's an OS that has at best, what, 3% of the market? And how many of that 3% is dualboot-for-gaming?

    Get real. Most people wouldn't invest a penny in Linux if they were AMD, you need a _really_ long vision to believe that that investment should pay off sooner or (much) later. If I were AMD and wanted to _make good money_, I wouldn't give a rat's ass about Linux.

    What you get on Linux is per user _much_ more than what a normal Windows user gets. The fact the quality on Windows is still better is just because Linux has a _very_ small share of the market.
    Last edited by susikala; 05 March 2009, 08:04 PM.

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    • You know, my original reaction was rather kneejerk. I would have even posted it, had I not fallen asleep. But stepping back, I find two things: first off, I need more information before I can draw a solid conclusion on all of this. Second, and possibly more importantly, I am absolutely appalled at some of the willful ignorance I am seeing in the replies: This is part of the "sense of entitlement" that people talk about when they paint a negative picture of Linux users!

      "I paid money so you should grovel at my feet!" That's the sort of attitude I'm seeing in some of this. Absurd. It's ridiculous even before you consider that comparing the price of even a hundred-dozen cards to what ATi (and now AMD) pays supporting our OS reveals a multiple-orders-of-magnitude disparity. You know, even if you don't write code; even if you don't bother to submit bug reports at all, you should at least be aware. Being a Linux user doesn't conjure you a license to ignore everything that's happening outside of a very myopic scope; it gives you an impetus to join your community of fellow users to solve complex problems. You know, that thing we're supposed to be good at? I'm honestly having trouble comprehending this concept that there are users claiming to have hardware that hasn't worked for years. Users that are posting on the forum of a site actually dedicated to news about the current state of their drivers and alternatives not knowing about the drivers...this is all a big joke, right?

      I have a 9700 Pro. All-in-wonder. Great card. Now, I could have waited five years for a "driver that works," but instead, I chose to read. I chose to join my distro IRC channel. I chose to root out reference to my problem and hone my troubleshooting skills. In the end, I found the issue that I was having, corrected it (in userspace, even!), and had a driver that worked. fglrx worked. Later, on my laptop, fglrx stopped working on a new kernel. Rather than complain, I knew, having kept myself abreast of driver development, that R300 support is great in radeon.ko. Fantastic. My open driver works. This isn't handing out solutions on a platter. Nor is it being the insular geek cabal from their moms' basements. This is a user being proactive about solving a user's problems by communicating well.

      So yes, if you think that, by being a single paying customer out of the multitude of paying customers, you're somehow entitled to a sense of outrage when AMD exercises good business sense in a terrible economy while still supporting your hardware at great cost to them, you are indeed whining and likewise every bit a part of the problem. Why not cool your head a little?

      That said, Mr. Bridgman, I wonder if you could possibly be the supplier of the information I seek? Here is the situation as I have experienced it currently:
      Originally posted by rvdboom View Post
      So just keep using the 9.3 release, what's the problem with that?
      If you've ever tried using fglrx with a kernel after 2.6.24, I find it rather likely that you'll know exactly what the issue with this is.

      The problem, unless the next release is a bloody miracle, is that fglrx tends to depend on parts of the kernel that are long obsolete and due for removal. Even 2.6.30 will most likely break fglrx in a new and novel way. And now, with older hardware, there's no update in sight. What's more, fglrx really doesn't have an outstanding track record with "just work"-ing for many even after you finally get it installed. My own experience, and those that I correspond with, indicates as much.

      "fglrx on one side and nvidia on the other...Larrabee can't get here fast enough; to hell with the cries of 'monopoly!'" was how I actually ended my original post.
      However, now I must instead ask this question of you, Mr. Bridgman and associates:

      Will this action of discontinuing support for older hardware result in an fglrx that is much smaller, substantially more stable, and better able to cope with the kernel release cycle?

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      • What planet are you from, then?

        Originally posted by energyman View Post
        it doesn't 'loose support'
        Yes it does, because...

        The old drivers will continue to work.
        So what, when they won't compile against newer kernels or work with newer X servers? Do you expect people to run (say) Fedora 9 forever? Or the 2.6.27 kernel? Do you understand that Fedora 8 is already dead in that no new security fixes/updates are being released for it?

        Or will the windows driver stiop working with the release of 9.5?
        Huh? Windows? What's that? I run LINUX, and am not remotely interested in what happens in this "Windows World" of yours.

        No! Nobody forces you to update the drivers.
        Yes they do; drivers that are incompatible with your OS are useless, and compatibility is something that must be actively maintained. fglrx doesn't even work with Fedora 10 out of the box - so frankly I must call "BS" on your post.

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        • Originally posted by Qaridarium
          you will see the marketshare is completly wrong!

          becourse the definition of the market share is wrong.
          2 definitions one of them says money the OS with the most mony ern is the winner.. or the second definition piece the OS with the most
          quantity is the winner.
          In the first definition linux Can't win! becourse Linux is Free and const nothing!
          In the second definition linux can't win becourse only Computer with OS pre installed are Cound to the statistic!
          And linux user don't by pre installed hartware they Buy Software-Less hartware and install linux!

          so in my Business and frend circle Linux Grows up to 50% Real market share!

          i know a lot people they Buy Windows AND MACOS and they let RUN LINUX not windows or macos! (i have windows licenes and macos licenses to! )
          Your business and friends are not a real world indicator of the market especially when it comes to the desktop/portable space which is exactly the market for these cards. When it comes to the desktop market linux makes up for a extremely small share. You analysis of market share is akin to saying "I went to the football game and most people there were cheering for the home team therefore that home team must be the most popular team in the world".

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          • Will this action of discontinuing support for older hardware result in an fglrx that is much smaller, substantially more stable, and better able to cope with the kernel release cycle?
            I think I can answer this: tell me what happened when AMD dropped the Radeon 8500 from the product list back in 2006? Shortly after that release Fglrx starting having feature creep. AIGLX was added. This year, Crossfire was added (for HD 4x00). Catalyst A.I. has been added.

            So yes, the idea is that cutting down the driver matrix will make for a leaner, meaning, easier to maintain package.

            Also, it could mean performance boosts in 3D. Currently the 3D Fglrx core, as indicated, is largely based on the architecture from the older R300 ArtX drivers. Moving to a 3D core that STARTS at Shader Model 3.0 could mean even MORE performance can be squeezed out of the RadeonHD series.

            ***

            Whether or not that's actually what happens remains to be seen. For me, I'd say give AMD time to get the details worked out.

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            • Timing is everything!

              Originally posted by bridgman View Post
              We aren't dropping support for your hardware, as much as saying "from this point on we will be supporting your hardware via the open source driver, which we just spent a pile of time, money and effort on...".
              The problem is one of timing. Speaking as someone mainly interested in 3D support, the open-source stack isn't remotely ready to replace fglrx on the R500-series chips yet.

              (Mesa's current 3D support for R300 chips is considerably less than impressive, too.)

              At best, this news is like a very, very bad haircut. At worst, it's like being decapitated. In either case, you're telling us "Don't worry, it will grow back!"

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              • It exists. I use it.

                Originally posted by Qaridarium
                STOP Talking abaut the Crap Fedora!
                No. Grow up.

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                • About Xserver 1.6 support, is it feasibly possible to allow a third-party under NDA, like Canonical with the 8.10 driver, to work on providing at least new kernel and xorg support for the current Q2 distributions?

                  I think overall it is a very good move albeit bad timing for linux catalyst users with old hardware. By years end I think, that ATI owners will be in far better position(for older and newer hardware).

                  I was wondering if it would be any chance at all that the 9.04 driver may still work with the legacy hardware, just without 'support', or are deliberate purges or breakages about to occur, to shrink(hopefully) the 80MB driver?

                  It does mean that people with ye old comps, with AGP buses can't play demanding wine games at least until OGL2 and GLSL are supported - hopefully by years end in the open drivers.


                  For all you pathetic whiners complaining, saying your next card will be Nvidia is just no logic at all. AMD producing brilliant open drivers, and the proprietary driver to be specifically for newer hardware. Unless your a developer or the most stupid fucker in the world you don't just go and buy obselete, more expensive(cause they're old), underperforming hardware. Your loss if you buy NVidia, when this news is positive for buyers.

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                  • Not a big deal. The things never worked with my X1300 PRO anyways.

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                    • It doesn't matter which distro you use!

                      Originally posted by Qaridarium
                      if you talk abaut fedora i talk abaut debian SID and Sidux...
                      Irrelevant: the distro is not the issue because they all use the Linux kernel and Xorg, and so are all affected equally.

                      Geez.

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