FGLRX Catalyst and Resizing with Desktop Effects

[tball]

I ask again... Couldn't this be a composite bug? Why blame the driver? My nvidia card was also slow with composite on?

[Kano]

That EXA, UXA and whatever is the fastest should be standard in the driver - if you are forced to select it on your own to get best speed out of it then something is really wrong. From usage point it does not matter at all whats the name of the accelleration mode, it just has to be fast enough. I can only guess that the path fglrx took compared to nvidia was more depending on others - because they mainly only override one mesa lib. Nvidia is much more invasive but in most cases faster - not always however.

[bridgman]

ATI developed this driver, justified by the claim that they could do better then the OS crowd. The OS crowd is addressing all the issues you are claiming are not required. I therefore expect ATI's driver to exceed what the OS crowd is doing. Otherwise there is a problem with the original justification for the driver.

The fglrx driver was developed because we needed high performance OpenGL for commercial workstation customers, who generally do not run compositing or any other effects. That is still the primary justification for developing and maintaining the fglrx driver.

Since late 2007 we have also been trying to do more for consumer users, who *do* run compositors and expect snappy performance with a composited desktop. We are doing this in two ways -- by supporting open source driver development, and by adding consumer-oriented features and test coverage to the proprietary driver.

radeonhd supports EXA.. much faster in KDE4,..
the FGLRX can only XAA+someAMD-Improvmens.."

Yep... AFAIK we need EXA to get good performance under a compositor.

[RealNC]

Then someone inside AMD needs to hit someone else in the head with a stick. There's this thing called the "Linux Desktop" everyone tells "it's not ready yet" mainly because of the philosophy you just described.

[Melcar]

This "Linux Desktop" is meant to revolve around FOSS software. Radeon/radeonhd are the drivers targeted towards this audience. As Bridgman has said several times, fglrx is mainly targeted towards workstations, so it's rather silly to complain that this particular driver does not satisfy every single need of the Linux desktop user. I much prefer having a driver primarily focusing on workstation use while another focuses primatily on the desktop environment, rather that have an all encompassing driver that is forced to do everything.

[RealNC]

This "Linux Desktop" is meant to revolve around FOSS software.

I disagree. That is not the point of Linux. That is the point of the FSF. We are not all FSF fundamentalists here. Linux needs commercial support, even if from proprietary software.

[dkasak]

the FGLRX are the better desktop driver becourse games needs a fast and good openGL part..

I consider gaming under Linux quite a corner-case ... in much the same way as I consider workstation 3D usages a corner-case. The sad truth is that if you're serious about gaming, you either run Windows, or get a gaming console. Put another way, typical Linux desktop use involves very little gaming. Now I know there are games out there for Linux - I have some of them ( I even bought them ). But honestly, Linux is not currently a gaming platform. And for that matter, if it were, ATI would not be the card of choice. Rock up to the wine mailing list and tell them you have an issue and you're using an ATI card, and see how many flames you can attract.

That's not to say I condone the current situation. But I think there are different usage profiles between Windows and Linux users, and it's not correct to say that fglrx is the best driver because it produces the highest framerate in games. This view is backed up by Bridgman's statement that fglrx is targeted at workstation use, and the OS drivers are intended for desktop use.

[RealNC]

AMD should do what NVidia does and target desktop users with fglrx.

[Linuxhippy]

KDE 4.2 resizing is horrible on my HD3850.
My old GF6600 does a way better job here :-/

[yotambien]

But I put it to you that 2D acceleration IS a basic feature. [...] The reasoning is simple ... ATI developed this driver, justified by the claim that they could do better then the OS crowd. [...] I therefore expect ATI's driver to exceed what the OS crowd is doing.

It *is* a basic feature. Compositing is now standard in most OSes. OS X, Windows and Linux. [...] today, Vista Aero, OS X Aqua and Linux Desktop Effects is something people take for granted when buying a new graphics card. I didn't pay 300 bucks to get a graphics card that's slow as molasses in Linux with compositing while it's fast as hell in Vista.

Linux needs commercial support, even if from proprietary software.

AMD should do what NVidia does and target desktop users with fglrx.

If we talk about 2D acceleration that works on a regular (non composited) desktop environment, yes, it is a basic feature. Now, you want the same to work on a new technology, which is bound to be experimental and buggy and for which developers from all camps are still coding to get it right. The problem is not that you want it, but your expectations as to when it should be ready--yesterday, according to you, and here's why you consider it a basic feature.

That Vista or OSX have it already is anecdotical, each platform has its own history and associated problems. If this is really that important to you maybe you should reconsider why a) you bought an AMD card before doing some research; b) why are you running linux at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being elistist here, I'm sure you have your good reasons for the choices you make; but you'll agree with me in that, e.g. it would make no sense to choose linux (for whatever reasons) and then feel betrayed because Windows games don't run on it.

However, what you guys have definitely wrong is the thinking that AMD develops fglrx for you to run a composited desktop, play videos or some other mundane tasks:

The fglrx driver was developed because we needed high performance OpenGL for commercial workstation customers, who generally do not run compositing or any other effects. That is still the primary justification for developing and maintaining the fglrx driver.

Let me quote it again:

That is still the primary justification for developing and maintaining the fglrx driver.

Do you still wonder why fglrx has by far the best 3D performance when compared to the OSS drivers? Or why radeon handles compositing much better than fglrx? Or why the accelerated video playback progress in fglrx is rather slow?

The (not hindered) strategy of AMD is to developed the closed source driver for the linux platform to deliver what their big customers want (I would assume CAD people (*)). The linux market for regular users like us is ridiculously small, so you should be happy that other more worthy people (in market terms) also run their crap on the same platform, forcing AMD to not ignore it completely. At the same time, AMD decided to open the documentation for their graphics cards, outsourcing their duties to the community, and that's where the OSS developers can kick in and deliver the features that they like and are liked by regular users.

Again, it's a matter of expectations. My R300 card had to wait years to have a good driver available. Your much modern and powerful card, with the documentation already available will have a much shorter waiting time--and rich, seeing the pace of developments.


(*) Based on what happened with the OpenGL 3 especification (read: what I read that happened).