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AMD Radeon HD 5750/5770

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  • I have this theory that a lot of the reported problems are from failure to install the driver correctly. fglrx packaging doesn't seem too good and distribution maintainers often don't care enough to get it right. fglrx's opengl libs seem to overwrite the system libs (mesa), which isn't easy to reverse.

    But if you make an effort to cleanly uninstall the old driver (including those pesky files in /etc!) before installing the new one, there really shouldn't be any black screens or failure to boot or anything drastic. At least I haven't had anything as serious as that, ever.

    gentoo is really good in that regard. Not only will it keep track of all the installed files, it'll abort on collisions, it'll always install opengl libraries to a seperate location and use symlink-magic to use the ones you want (say: eselect opengl set ati or eselect opengl set xorg-x11).

    good luck with your borrowed 5770, please tell us how it worked out

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    • Originally posted by rohcQaH View Post
      I have this theory that a lot of the reported problems are from failure to install the driver correctly. fglrx packaging doesn't seem too good and distribution maintainers often don't care enough to get it right. fglrx's opengl libs seem to overwrite the system libs (mesa), which isn't easy to reverse.

      good luck with your borrowed 5770, please tell us how it worked out
      I've got to be honest. I don't think it will go well.

      A lot of people report a lot of problems, and a lot of others try to dismiss these as installation errors.

      Firstly, there should be no problems with installing a driver. I may be asking a bit much for the Windows double click install.exe, next, next, next, reboot and hey presto it works, but launching an installer should never bork your system.

      Secondly, it's beyond stupid to not support the popular distros out of the box with no hassles. Lets hope this is the case but I'm lead to believe it's not. If I must restrict my available choices of distro to support hardware it's likely that the hardware will go, not the distro.

      I'm quite proficient with Linux having used it as my only O/S now since 2001, so I can fix any borkage caused, but if there is breakage I will not be happy with ATI.

      Having said all of that, the biggest test is how well fglrx works with my preferred software stack. I'm not prepared to forgo a composited desktop, and having said that, the card will need to work as expected with video playback, 3D design and video editing software, and the occasional game.

      No glitches, no gotchas, ZERO crashes. Having used nVidia all they way through, there was a rough patch of stability in the early days of Compiz, but for the most part I've been served extremely well by nVidia. Currently ATI offers superior hardware at the moment in my view, but most of the evidence I've seen suggests the software support is likely to cause issues unless you're prepared to restrict your software environment to just a small sub-set of that which should otherwise work. I'm hoping this is no longer the case.

      If others have anything current to offer of this subject before I use up a favor in lending a card,I'd be most grateful.

      If I manage to get the lender and it lets me down, I'll be sure to serve up the full gory details here, and on my blog. By the same token if it performs as I hope it will, I'll be sure to share that as well.

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      • you can either buy from a company supporting opensource.
        or
        you can buy from a company that does not support opensource, lies to costumers and knowingly sold defective chips.

        I bought from the first one. And I am happy. But for some reasons I do not have those 'terrible tearing' problems. Must be my eyes or something.

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        • Originally posted by energyman View Post
          you can either buy from a company supporting opensource.
          or
          you can buy from a company that does not support opensource, lies to costumers and knowingly sold defective chips.

          I bought from the first one. And I am happy. But for some reasons I do not have those 'terrible tearing' problems. Must be my eyes or something.
          If your asking me to buy a defective graphics solution because it's open source friendly then that might be a bit of a hard sell.

          Comment


          • Well if installers are that important to you, use windows. It's up to the distros to properly put fglrx into their package maintenance system - the same is true for nvidia. Both ATI and nvidia provide a custom installer, but they can break things if your system isn't as they expect. They can over-write files you might not want them to (which will be really fun trying to switch between the two).
            AMD/ATI btw does support installation on some of the more popular distros (ubuntu being the one you'll hear about most I imagine).

            But anyway, no issues with fglrx here - I don't use wine too much, and don't use compiz at all, but e17 works fine, e16, quake4, doom3, etqw, ut2004, video playback (I prefer opengl output for the nicer colours), and some of my own development all run without problems. That's with a dual monitor setup (different monitor sizes, no xinerama).

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            • Energyman, I've said I'm not only happy to buy ATI, but would in fact prefer to as long as it works.

              If ATI performs as well as nVidia, then I'd think that ATI would be the automatic choice. I'm lead to believe that it is inferior. If you have details as to why the people who complain of issues with ATI hardware/software combinations are simply mistaken, and are suffering from their own inability to screw together a viable ATI system then I'm all ear as I've said multiple times.

              If you wish to start a thread about nVidia business practices then by all means do. This however is a thread asking the very important question, "Is it sensible to purchase ATI hardware in the face of much discussion about the pitfalls and failings of fglrx?"

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              • Originally posted by mirv View Post
                Well if installers are that important to you, use windows. It's up to the distros to properly put fglrx into their package maintenance system - the same is true for nvidia. Both ATI and nvidia provide a custom installer, but they can break things if your system isn't as they expect. They can over-write files you might not want them to (which will be really fun trying to switch between the two).
                AMD/ATI btw does support installation on some of the more popular distros (ubuntu being the one you'll hear about most I imagine).

                But anyway, no issues with fglrx here - I don't use wine too much, and don't use compiz at all, but e17 works fine, e16, quake4, doom3, etqw, ut2004, video playback (I prefer opengl output for the nicer colours), and some of my own development all run without problems. That's with a dual monitor setup (different monitor sizes, no xinerama).
                But here we have it in a nutshell - It works for me BUT I DON'T USE COMPIZ....

                I personally could deal with a clucky installer, AS LONG AS THE DRIVERS WORK.

                Compiz plus a fully functioning Linux desktop it the proposition I put forward.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by mugginz View Post
                  If your asking me to buy a defective graphics solution because it's open source friendly then that might be a bit of a hard sell.
                  and what bullshit are you talking about?

                  There is nothing wrong with the HD5XXX series.

                  It works.

                  Kwins composition works.

                  And if 2d is slow - complain to your distribution for not including a harmless patch that makes X fly again.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by mugginz View Post
                    But here we have it in a nutshell - It works for me BUT I DON'T USE COMPIZ....

                    I personally could deal with a clucky installer, AS LONG AS THE DRIVERS WORK.

                    Compiz plus a fully functioning Linux desktop it the proposition I put forward.
                    Yes, I don't use compiz, but compiz itself is still under a substantial bit of development unless I'm mistaken. You are apparently rather serious about stability - just suggesting that if that's a primary concern, also consider things without compiz (regardless of graphics hardware vendor).

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by energyman View Post
                      and what bullshit are you talking about?
                      The bullshit that a lot of people are purveying in various forums around the internets. People who've bought cards with the promise of proper software support coming real soon now(tm) but have had to wait so long as to wind up with an obsolete card before good drivers.

                      I'm asking, why are they wrong? But getting no answers. So I'll have to find out if they're accurate or not for myself.

                      Originally posted by energyman View Post
                      There is nothing wrong with the HD5XXX series.

                      It works.

                      Kwins composition works.

                      And if 2d is slow - complain to your distribution for not including a harmless patch that makes X fly again.
                      Well I should know in about 12 hours about the lender card.

                      I'm currently running a 9800GT with two 24" monitors. That'll inform the initial impression of the 5770.

                      Then, I get to lend a 260GTX. I'm happy to deal with a minor degradation in performance in order to run the 5770, but not much loss.

                      Benchmarks will be forthcoming as soon as I can furnish them.

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