AMD Radeon HD 5750/5770

[agd5f]

However, the open source driver will continue to support R3xx-R5xx cards on newer kernels and xservers. So if you want to use the Catalyst drivers for that generation of hardware you will have to stick with a supported Linux distro.

[rohcQaH]

Will be this support extended in the near future or old cards will continue to be left at the mercy of the open drivers?

I don't quite understand the "at the mercy"-part. If there's bugs in fglrx, you're "at the mercy" of AMD to fix them. If there are bugs in the OS drivers and AMD doesn't fix them, anyone else can.

I am aware that the OS drivers still lack some features compared to fglrx, but if you're concerned about company-dependence, wouldn't OS drivers be a better choice?

The second is for anyone who knows what's what and who is able to compile a list of all the problems encountered with the ATI Catalyst restricted drivers.

The most popular are these:
- xv has slightly washed out colours.
- ATIs video decoding API is inferior to nvidia's VDPAU
- fglrx isn't too stable with wine games (but for most recent games, you'll need a real windows anyway).
- fglrx uses an older method for 2D acceleration that doesn't work too well in some situations

And for some people it's not stable or doesn't install at all, but the same is true for nvidia's drivers.

[deanjo]

So if you want to use the Catalyst drivers for that generation of hardware you will have to stick with a supported Linux distro.

The problem with that is those "supported" distro's are only supported with security and patch updates for so long.

[Pedric]

The most popular are these:
- xv has slightly washed out colours.
- ATIs video decoding API is inferior to nvidia's VDPAU
- fglrx isn't too stable with wine games (but for most recent games, you'll need a real windows anyway).
- fglrx uses an older method for 2D acceleration that doesn't work too well in some situations

And for some people it's not stable or doesn't install at all, but the same is true for nvidia's drivers.

- multi-monitoring/randr/external displays are still a bloody mess, especially with notebooks
- aticonfig is extraordinarily good at messing up xorg.conf, for example when you need exotic configs for hybrid graphics
- standby/hibernate with fglrx is prone to blackscreening your system to death

[rohcQaH]

- multi-monitoring/randr/external displays are still a bloody mess, especially with notebooks

hu? What's wrong with fglrx's xrands implementation? For me, it works way better than nvidia's proprietary TwinView crap.

[bingel]

@agd5f
I believe that you did not understand my question because I think that it was not clear enough.
Mi request was: support for current-newer-cards will be as short as it has been for current-older-cards or in the future things will change so current-newer-cards will be supported for more years?

My English is very poor, I hope I was clearer this time.

Thanks to any other people who answered to me.

[bingel]

P.S.: I was talking about ATI Catalyst restricted drivers.

[bridgman]

It was 7 years for R300, 5 years for R4xx, 3 years for R5xx...

We normally aim for about 5 years, but it depends on when support gets dropped on other OSes since so much of the code is shared.

[bridgman]

&^$$%*&(%^!!! 1 minute edit...

For clarity, we dropped support for 3xx, 4xx and 5xx at the same time, that was not "a declining trend"

[bingel]

Thanks for your reply ...but now I have further important questions:

- What you said means that support for this cards have been dropped for Linux and for Windows at same time, is this right?

- Why support for processors R2xx, R3xx and R5xx have been dropped at same time? I think this is not good for who buyed a R5xx card! 3 years are far too few. To my knowledge the support of NVIDIA is more durable!
I think there are no excuses for this.

My personal considerations:

I am not a detractor from ATI, on the contrary I hope that ATI will soon arrive at the NVIDIA also in linux sector and that this two manufacturers will continue in their eternal dispute between competitors which should theoretically lead to the production of improved cards. Provided that this does not create conditions of duopoly between the two companies and that they begin to make arrangements among themselves to keep up the price of their products. And honestly, given the increasing trend in the prices of graphics cards, I fear that this hypothesis is occurring.

I'd like also to understand what is the reason why the code is not made completely available to the open community:

- I've read that there are non-disclosure-agreements with third parties. I believe that this is not a good excuse because in any case, in view of changing environmental factors, the agreements should be revised (or at least You could try).
- In opening the code could means to expose to all people (including competitors and interested third parties) Your technology? In that case I would not have anything to say because NVIDIA and ATI have worked hard to arrive where they are and then maybe it's right that they keep their secrets.
What is not fair, however, is that so, the two companies sell us their homes without giving us the key to enter, or rather they give us the key, but they can change the lock and let us out at any time (in short, without a modifiable code they sell us incomplete products). This is the case just presented, covering many buyers of R5xx that only after 3 years were left on foot.
Thus, at least, if You were honest, You should ensure a reasonably long support.

Excuse me again for my not improved English