What's coming for "fglrx 2.0"?

[Michael]

While everyone has a good time naming the next fglrx driver release, in all seriousness what do you think realistically will come in this new driver code? The new OpenGL driver we've been talking about for months here in the forums and on Phoronix, which is rumored to come out this fall for Linux.

Are you looking for AIGLX? How much do you think the performance will improve? 150%? 200%? Video playback fixes?

[Moustacha]

One would hope the new drivers would be identical in performance and features of the windows drivers, except for maybe some windows-specific things, eg WMV accel, but have xv instead.
AIGLX is pretty much a *must* if AMD want to survive on the linux desktop.

[yoshi314]

i hope they're at least stable for a change.

there's no hope for xvmc or extended avivo h264 encoding/decoding acceleration, as it would most likely have to be implemented outside of the driver.

well, we're talking about new opengl core here. it won't affect 2d features one bit. and judging by the steadily growing number of functions in current fglrx driver for r600 an future r700 series - the old 2d code will stay as it is, without major rewrite.

so we won't see the new driver, but the old 2d code with new 3d backend. i get the feeling that it's going to suck and give us numerous headaches.

[d2kx]

For example in the ET: QW Thread, Michael was impressed by the new fglrx driver coming later this year, so:

- AIGLX
- performance will be as fast as the Windows driver, which is at least 100% faster. Maybe it's a bit faster than the current Windows driver, because the WinXP driver gets updated soon, too, and WinVista is not as fast as WinXP
- Videoplayback improvements, but don't ask me what I mean with that, I've never really looked how videos play, I've ever only had problems with false blue colours which was fixed in 8.39
- R600 Support, I guess they delayed it for the new OpenGL driver, so we don't have something to laugh at when the R600 performance would be as fast as the R300 performance with fglrx 8.3*
- per application optimizations, just look at what Michael has found with 8.39
- big open mouth pictures from anti-AMD nVidia fanboys
- maybe a version renaming to fglrx 7.9 etc.

[Malikith]

I think they're going to improve performance by about 100-125%, more in some cases, might be up to about 200% in some cases. I think naturally with the new opengl code, there will be aiglx support as well. Only thing that concerns me, is video playback and a few driver bugs that have made my performance suffer further, such as the agp x1k issue I have.

I don't know if they're also revamping the 2d side of the driver or not, if its basically going to be a completely different driver, then we're going to be very happy with it I think. But if its just going to have replaced opengl code, then we're still going to suffer in the 2d department for a little while longer I think. But we'll still be happy after all these years of bad performance.

My prediction is the new opengl code is coming this month, why? I don't know, maybe because the driver version hits 8.40? I guess they could consider it their milestone release to do so. But it might be 8.41 as well. It will be either one or the two I think. If I like what I see, I'm going to buy a ATI card for my next build for sure. (Regardless of the AGP bus problem)

I guess my only concerns as I said, are the outstanding bugs that have been around for quite a while. Mainly, video playback, and the agp bus issue. I think the chances are alot higher for the video playback to be fixed in the driver though, over the agp bus problem.

[d2kx]

I don't think fglrx "2.0" is coming this month. But anytime starting next month, I guess. I think so because there was a feedback formular on ati.com where you could chose "8.41 beta" as your driver version.

Btw.: isn't AIGLX some kind of 2D acceleration? So this should be faster even if you don't use Compiz etc.?

I hope that bugs like VT switches / shutdown crashes because of Xserver will go to, but I've had less problems with recent updates.

[wirechief]

I don't think fglrx "2.0" is coming this month. But anytime starting next month, I guess. I think so because there was a feedback formular on ati.com where you could chose "8.41 beta" as your driver version.

A DREAM...
I once had a dream, that ATI would finally make a
driver that works, I had a dream that ATI would produce a driver for my dis-infrancised ATI 1300
but I woke to a nightmare, they could not do it.

It amazes me that people continue to dream. I have made my decision and voted with my wallet. Nvidia graphics really rocks

[d2kx]

wirechef, you know that Michael is an AMD betatester and if he says that there's something coming than there IS something coming. 2007 is the date.

[Svartalf]

wirechef, you know that Michael is an AMD betatester and if he says that there's something coming than there IS something coming. 2007 is the date.

I remain guarded on that subject. I will be pleasantly surprised if they field something usable this year- if they succeed, it will probably be stable compared to the old codebase version, but I don't think they will accomplish a boost in performance unless they figure out what they're doing wrong in the current fglrx codebase on performance. Also worth noting is that if it is based off the same codebase that the Vista drivers are based off of, the Vista OpenGL drivers are missing some features that the old XP drivers had present- if they're using that codebase, we may/may not have features from OpenGL 2.0 that developers expect there- and we may/may not have AIGLX, etc.

I'm not going to suppose ANYTHING at this point with regards to ATI/AMD right at the moment. If you base things on their past track record, they're not going to produce anything useful. The new parent is dead-serious about Linux support, but doesn't appear to be doing all the right things to ensure that this happens, though that seems to be changing. If you listen to Michael, they may surprise us after all- I would DEARLY love to see that, to be honest, but I'm not holding my breath there.

[yoshi314]

wirechef, you know that Michael is an AMD betatester and if he says that there's something coming than there IS something
coming. 2007 is the date.

betatesters are only one or two beta releases ahead of us. at least judging by the development cycle article.