AMD Dropping R300-R500 Support In Catalyst Driver

[pawstar]

In the case of the 3xx-5xx range, we ended up successfully using the same architecture for an unusually long time, so we ended up supporting the 3xx family for almost seven years (2002-2009). The 5xx line was introduced in fall 2005, so it had the shortest run -- about 3-1/2 years from introduction to reduced support.

I don't think that this is a fair way to assess how long the card family is supported. IMO, you should consider when the last major hardware revision was released not the first i.e. the latest and greatest iteration of a given core. E.g. the X1950 XTX was released on the market here mid September 2006; held the performance crown for a few months and remained competitive for quite a bit of time.

[bridgman]

I agree. In an earlier post I think I mentioned that the 5xx family had about a 2-1/2 year gap between the last introduction and reduction of support.

IIRC the context here was someone asking for a guess as to how long a more recent card might be supported, so my answer was based on what we have done in the past.

[b15hop]

Bridgman:
The funny or should I say sad thing is. Nvidia isn't much better either. I have had to install beta drivers just to get the latest xorg to work. Frustrated me so much. None of the "It Just works(tm)" stuff... After about the 7th xorg.conf file I get mouse and keyboard working again. As hal only accepted my USB mouse but not the trusty old ps2 keyboard. (ARGH)

[mitchellvc]

bridgman:
Please can you please clarify if the RS690 based cards will be supported in the future?.
The comment about this cards is very confusing in the article.

To the customer, this is a good move, permitting you are an owner of a Radeon HD 2000 graphics card or later (or an RS690/RS740 IGP, but the RS780 will remain supported).

I don't understand if this means that my card (Radeon x1200) in my Toshiba laptop will be supported in the future.
thanks in advance.

[bridgman]

In terms of support, the 690/740 would be in the same class as 3xx-5xx since they have a 4xx-series 3D engine. I believe there will be specific exceptions for new designs but so far all the OEM activity is Windows only (which has been the norm anyways).

[mitchellvc]

sorry, I forgot to mention that I use Ubuntu in my laptop, that's why I'm interested in the future support from AMD for this RS690 based card. So, I would understand that the future versions of Catalyst will not support my card... bad news! because the actual open source radeon driver doesn't perform well with my card. I hope the one distributed with jaunty perform quite well, otherwise I won't have any alternative solution!

[bridgman]

When you say "doesn't perform well" with the open source drivers are you talking about 2D/video or 3D ?

If it's 2D we should be able to get that working well today, if it's 3D that will take longer but it's in the pipe as well.

[DeeMan]

Control power

Im currently using the opensource driver on Ubuntu 9.10 beta and it works, unfortunately it cannot control the powermodes of the card so my laptop battery is draining fast.

And since the opensource driver cannot control the power of the card, its 20 degrees warmer than with fglrx driver.

For ATI to be successfull on laptops (old and new), powercontrol should be high priority in the opensource driver.

Right now, I have to choose between battery time (Ubuntu 8.10) or upgraded OS (Ubuntu 9.04). As you may have realized I have a X1600 card that is not supported by fglrx for 9.10.

Any timeframe on getting powercontrol into opensource driver?

[grigi]

I also have a mobility x1600, nad recently tried the open source driver again.

I'm very happy with performance (even 3D performance is OK for what I use it for), but on idle my notebook uses about 4-5watts of extra power (according to battery drain via ACPI - powertop).

I managed to reduce the temperature to a reasonable setting by using radeontool-1.5qq (the power-managed patched version of radeontool), but power consumption still kills my battery considerably faster...

Is there an experimental power management option for the ati-radeon driver?

[NSLW]

Im currently using the opensource driver on Ubuntu 9.10 beta and it works, unfortunately it cannot control the powermodes of the card so my laptop battery is draining fast.

And since the opensource driver cannot control the power of the card, its 20 degrees warmer than with fglrx driver.

For ATI to be successfull on laptops (old and new), powercontrol should be high priority in the opensource driver.

Right now, I have to choose between battery time (Ubuntu 8.10) or upgraded OS (Ubuntu 9.04). As you may have realized I have a X1600 card that is not supported by fglrx for 9.10.

Any timeframe on getting powercontrol into opensource driver?

For me it's also a big issue. I think ATI should concentrate on providing powercontrol in open source drivers especially when they dropped support for X1600 in fglrx, because nobody will switch to open source drivers when there is a possibility to burn own graphic card.