ATI/Radeon newbie, help me select!

[MrZammler]

Hi,

Ever since my usage life with Linux I was always using nvidia cards with the closed source driver. Things run fine, but now I'm itching to try an open-source driver instead and make a small upgrade on my current card (an 6600).

I'm looking at an HD5450, which comes with passive cooling. So, how well would it work? What I'm basically interested is (@1680x1050 with a Core2Duo E8400 64bit/4G RAM):

KMS
suspend/resume
video playback without tearing
kwin effects

Any real world experiences?

Thanks!

[Aquous]

I have a 5450. It works perfectly. Does everything you ask for and more.

What I did notice is that the colors of videos were garbled. I fixed that by switching from classic to gallium.

[curaga]

You might want to consider a 6450, because it's double the speed of a 5450, just on hw side.

Whether it works well yet, can't say.

[Welsh Dwarf]

I've got a 5870 here, and can vouch for it.

Please remember though that with Open Source ATI, git is often far ahead of stable/distrib packages.

[Panix]

Doesn't sound Linux-friendly at all. For all the discussion on here, there's no FAQ about it including git.

Questions abound. E.g.:

http://help.lockergnome.com/linux/gentoo-user-xf86-video-ati-git--ftopict531363.html

So, when someone googles, they come up with this mess:

http://www.x.org/wiki/radeonBuildHowTo

No wonder many Linux users get a Nvidia card. Who writes this stuff?

Where's the support from ATI?

[chithanh]

A 5450 is a good choice if your 3D needs are limited to desktop effects. In the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 release it will have excellent out-of-the-box support. However, its 3D performance is probably not an upgrade from a 6600.

[bridgman]

Doesn't sound Linux-friendly at all. For all the discussion on here, there's no FAQ about it including git.

Questions abound. E.g.:

http://help.lockergnome.com/linux/gentoo-user-xf86-video-ati-git--ftopict531363.html

So, when someone googles, they come up with this mess:

http://www.x.org/wiki/radeonBuildHowTo

No wonder many Linux users get a Nvidia card. Who writes this stuff?

Where's the support from ATI?

Panix, the idea behind the open source drivers is that they can be included in the Linux distros rather than having to be built/downloaded/installed separately.

The Linux distros pick up and integrate the latest open source drivers each time they create a new distro version. You only need to build the drivers yourself if you want "bleeding edge" features & HW support, ie code which has been developed upstream but not yet pulled into Linux distros.

If you want to help with development/testing or try out the very latest code you can get prebuilt "bleeding edge" repositories for many distros, or you can build the code from git yourself, but most users just run with what the distro packagers have included.

There is always a challenge with the very latest hardware - not just for GPUs but for most devices - because the "upstream => distro => user" path requires that code be released ~6 months *before* hardware launch in order to be available in common distros at launch time, and that doesn't happen very often today so new HW still relies on "bleeding edge" repositories and proprietary drivers a bit more than anyone would like.

[Panix]

Panix, the idea behind the open source drivers is that they can be included in the Linux distros rather than having to be built/downloaded/installed separately.

The Linux distros pick up and integrate the latest open source drivers each time they create a new distro version. You only need to build the drivers yourself if you want "bleeding edge" features & HW support, ie code which has been developed upstream but not yet pulled into Linux distros.

If you want to help with development/testing or try out the very latest code you can get prebuilt "bleeding edge" repositories for many distros, or you can build the code from git yourself, but most users just run with what the distro packagers have included.

There is always a challenge with the very latest hardware - not just for GPUs but for most devices - because the "upstream => distro => user" path requires that code be released ~6 months *before* hardware launch in order to be available in common distros at launch time, and that doesn't happen very often today so new HW still relies on "bleeding edge" repositories and proprietary drivers a bit more than anyone would like.

Ok, thanks with the info.

What is the best/cheapest ATI card that is better or an upgrade over a GeForce 7950 GT?

Does it matter if it's the HD 5xxx series compared to HD 6xxx? Min. gaming but good overall 2D/3D.

I would try to participate with some bleeding edge stuff probably as I'll soon have an extra HDD. I'll be using VirtualBox with the new drive but I still have the current drive. I am open to experimenting with Debian and latest Ubuntu...maybe Fedora... whatever I can tackle...

I'm delaying a purchase for two reasons: 1) used hardware bound to be more affordable and new releases will have current hardware go down in price - the theory... 2) don't need it yet :- )

I was reading about xorg-edgers and git and it seemed for OSS, these are needed for most optimized performance.

I am not sure if I trust the distros with OOTB OSS drivers esp. ATI and I believe I am safe in being cautious with such situations.

[MrZammler]

Hi, sorry I didn't specify that I'm running Gentoo, so I should be able to pull git stuff.

I can also find a 5570 with passive cooling for not too much, so I might go with that one instead.

Right now on Gentoo, the latest x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati is 6.14.1 and mesa is 7.10.1. Won't those versions provide with stable 3D/2D for the HD5XXX ?

[MrZammler]

(ironie mode) your genttoo is so up to date with mesa 7.10.1 (ironie mode off)

i run mesa 7.11dev pullet with xorg-edgers on ubuntu 11.04 with kernel 2.6.39rc2

Gentoo is really outdatet (just fun)

Ah, but I'll just add this ultra-secret overlay with mesa-not-even-in-upstream-git-yet code, and be done with it!