Open-Source R500 Driver Can Compete With Legacy Catalyst

With the older OpenArena (0.8.5) release that does not make use of GLSL or other advanced OpenGL features, the binary ATI driver from 2008 is still much faster than the open-source driver in its current form in 2012. At a mere 1024 x 768 resolution, the fglrx 8.47.3 allowed for a frame-rate on the X1400 GPU of 95 FPS while the best the open-source driver did was 54 FPS.

When increasing the resolution to 1400 x 1050 to match the native resolution, the fglrx 8.47.3 driver was at 67 FPS while the latest Git driver code allowed for a frame-rate of just about half that: 35 FPS.