AMD/ATI lost another Linux customer

[Ant P.]

Unfortunately, for the consumer side, we have haphazard OEM engagement and no quantifiable data for how many home or office PCs are running Linux.

Have you asked any distros about this? Ubuntu already has an optional survey, and the results are made public. Their restricted driver stats suggest that there are about as many desktop fglrx users as there are nVidia users.

I wouldn't know how that compares to actual FireGL card users though. I'm stuck with a R100 at work :/

[cutterjohn]

In particular, where aer your issues with the 4870, not that I can prioritize your issues over other work, but I am interested none the less.

Regards,

Matthew

Since you're "interested", let's fix these freeze on video playback after awake from sleep bug AND freeze on awake from sleep with desktop effects(compiz/beryl) enabled too.. They've been around since 9.2 (or 3) AFAIK and likely longer.

[Panix]

Hey, sorry to interrupt. I'm confused about the issues of ATI cards and drivers in Linux still. I suggest someone presenting a list of what 'works' and doesn't work regarding use of fglrx/binary drivers and open source drivers.

If one wants to play games, the popular ones like Call of Duty 4, WOW and Crysis or whatever, you have to use the fglrx drivers, right? Would a Radeon 4870 card be usable or do you have major issues so you cannot play games? I consider you cannot use the card if you run into issues and have to spend time compiling drivers or otherwise configuring stuff (after the drivers have been installed).

Secondly, if one wants to watch a movie or video that requires the necessary codecs but the codecs are installed and the movie is in divx mode (.avi) or DVD H.264 (for e.g.), is the movie playable without issue when using fglrx drivers? Is there anything you have to do? I read you need to disable composite/compiz (desktop effects). Is that right? Why?

Perhaps, AMD/ATI should pick either the binary or open source driver and focus entirely on it until one or the other is workable and not plagued with issues? In other words, 'fix' one so the problems are minimized or at least no worse than the situation when using a Nvidia card and Nvidia drivers. Then concentrate on the other driver option (be it, open source or binary). Trying to optimize both or dividing the workload on both seems to be very difficult since many people have been disappointed in the current status for ATI hardware so far (even if it has come a long way in Linux). It's one thing to say that development have been made at a faster pace and improvement is at a greater significance but if buyers of cards that cost around $200 and more still have extreme issues, that is a major problem. Buyers of these cards don't care if ATI drivers in Linux are improving. They want to use their card without major obstacles.

If they have to wait months before playing a recent game or deal with tearing with videos/movies they have, they won't tolerate it. If the alternatives (Nvidia, Intel etc.) allow for avoiding the isues, they will switch or demand sufficient improvement.

Anyway, I would like more specifics or a list of what works and doesn't and which driver path (open source or binary/fglrx) you should use and what to expect when using it. I'd like to get an ATI card still because they are a good price, especially ATI Radeon HD4850 or 4870 cards. I would probbably have a Windows partition so I could use it in Windows until significant improvements happen since I'm planning on having a second machine/build. But, I would like to know whether there would be any major progress in Linux so that I could boot up Linux at some point and use ATI hardware to watch movies/play games or what not.

Anyway, sorry for rambling on. I hope I didn't disturb the flow of the discussion too much.

[RealNC]

Hey, sorry to interrupt. I'm confused about the issues of ATI cards and drivers in Linux still. I suggest someone presenting a list of what 'works' and doesn't work regarding use of fglrx/binary drivers and open source drivers.

It's mostly a matter of how it works. That's why it's confusing I guess. With fglrx, everything works. But if you try, you see that even while it does work, it does so in a very, very crappy way. So many questions can't be answered simply with "works" and "doesn't work". That's for fglrx though. I don't know about the open drivers, they don't support my card yet.

[BlackStar]

Since you're "interested", let's fix these freeze on video playback after awake from sleep bug AND freeze on awake from sleep with desktop effects(compiz/beryl) enabled too.. They've been around since 9.2 (or 3) AFAIK and likely longer.

I can confirm both issues (4850, amd64).

[m4rgin4l]

Hey, sorry to interrupt. I'm confused about the issues of ATI cards and drivers in Linux still. I suggest someone presenting a list of what 'works' and doesn't work regarding use of fglrx/binary drivers and open source drivers.

If one wants to play games, the popular ones like Call of Duty 4, WOW and Crysis or whatever, you have to use the fglrx drivers, right? Would a Radeon 4870 card be usable or do you have major issues so you cannot play games? I consider you cannot use the card if you run into issues and have to spend time compiling drivers or otherwise configuring stuff (after the drivers have been installed).

Secondly, if one wants to watch a movie or video that requires the necessary codecs but the codecs are installed and the movie is in divx mode (.avi) or DVD H.264 (for e.g.), is the movie playable without issue when using fglrx drivers? Is there anything you have to do? I read you need to disable composite/compiz (desktop effects). Is that right? Why?

Perhaps, AMD/ATI should pick either the binary or open source driver and focus entirely on it until one or the other is workable and not plagued with issues? In other words, 'fix' one so the problems are minimized or at least no worse than the situation when using a Nvidia card and Nvidia drivers. Then concentrate on the other driver option (be it, open source or binary). Trying to optimize both or dividing the workload on both seems to be very difficult since many people have been disappointed in the current status for ATI hardware so far (even if it has come a long way in Linux). It's one thing to say that development have been made at a faster pace and improvement is at a greater significance but if buyers of cards that cost around $200 and more still have extreme issues, that is a major problem. Buyers of these cards don't care if ATI drivers in Linux are improving. They want to use their card without major obstacles.

If they have to wait months before playing a recent game or deal with tearing with videos/movies they have, they won't tolerate it. If the alternatives (Nvidia, Intel etc.) allow for avoiding the isues, they will switch or demand sufficient improvement.

Anyway, I would like more specifics or a list of what works and doesn't and which driver path (open source or binary/fglrx) you should use and what to expect when using it. I'd like to get an ATI card still because they are a good price, especially ATI Radeon HD4850 or 4870 cards. I would probbably have a Windows partition so I could use it in Windows until significant improvements happen since I'm planning on having a second machine/build. But, I would like to know whether there would be any major progress in Linux so that I could boot up Linux at some point and use ATI hardware to watch movies/play games or what not.

Anyway, sorry for rambling on. I hope I didn't disturb the flow of the discussion too much.

You'll hear a lot of people swearing that fglrx works and it is the best, but then you'll also hear people saying that it's crap. I'm in a third group, the ones that happen to use an unsupported distro.

So that's the thing. If you're hoping to get an acceptable fglrx experience on Linux, you'll have to stick to whatever AMD chooses to support. It won't be perfect, though.

In regard of the oss drivers, yes, they are progressing really fast, but they're still pretty far away from an acceptable set of features. It'll be at least a year (and a half?) until the useable drivers reach the most popular distros.

My advise is this: If you're a serious gamer and a Linux user, avoid AMD altogether (as I'm going to do until they get their shit together). If you don't mind using Windows to play, then an AMD card is not such a bad idea, your Linux experience will suck, but at least you'll be able to play the games in all their intended glory.

One more thing, forget about using Intel to play games. Until Larrabee hits the market, Intel cards are only good for running WordStar and Lotus 1-2-3 on a text console.

[Panix]

You'll hear a lot of people swearing that fglrx works and it is the best, but then you'll also hear people saying that it's crap. I'm in a third group, the ones that happen to use an unsupported distro.

So that's the thing. If you're hoping to get an acceptable fglrx experience on Linux, you'll have to stick to whatever AMD chooses to support. It won't be perfect, though.

In regard of the oss drivers, yes, they are progressing really fast, but they're still pretty far away from an acceptable set of features. It'll be at least a year (and a half?) until the useable drivers reach the most popular distros.

My advise is this: If you're a serious gamer and a Linux user, avoid AMD altogether (as I'm going to do until they get their shit together). If you don't mind using Windows to play, then an AMD card is not such a bad idea, your Linux experience will suck, but at least you'll be able to play the games in all their intended glory.

One more thing, forget about using Intel to play games. Until Larrabee hits the market, Intel cards are only good for running WordStar and Lotus 1-2-3 on a text console.

Well, I haven't heard a lot of people swear up and down that fglrx works! At least, not yet.

What are the supported distros? Fedora and Ubuntu are included, right? I use those two most often although I use Kubuntu instead of Ubuntu. Not sure if the graphics/video experience is different with the KDE desktop (I have read people here ask for reviews using KDE distro or Kubuntu and I agree, btw).

I could live with firing up Windows (for games or what else) in the meantime although not proud to say it. However, I'm saying that because I'd have more than one machine. Furthermore, I watch movies on my computer so I was wondering how the experience is if you have an ATI video card. If I have to use Windows for that, too, then that is pushing me towards Nvidia again.

I liked ATI cards, the 4870 and 4890 since they are shorter cards than Nvidia comparable cards (in terms of performance) so that I can use any case with them easily (maybe even my Antec Solo?!?) and supposedly, the temps (power consumption, too?) are a bit better?

However, like you, I am not sure I want to play the waiting game and be forced to use Windows for very long when I could just go to Nvidia and use whatever OS I want and do what I want without worrying too much about graphics/video issues. Although, I must say, I have some strange video behavior with LiveCDs with my EVGA 7950 GT card. Even the latest K/Ubuntu 9.04 LiveCD presented the issue and I still have no explanation for it. I assume once the OS is installed and the drivers are installed, things improve, however.

Thanks for the replies, guys!

[cutterjohn]

I can confirm both issues (4850, amd64).

Ok, in my case MSI GT725-074US, Ubuntu 9.04 x86-64. I didn't bother posting my specs as in EVERY single cat release thread I've mentioned that they're still there, and usually leave my specs there.

I had a shocker yesterday though, this bug is apparently, intermittent, as I tried to play a video with mplayer after sleep and it actually played. Although now that I'm thinking about it this behavior was exhibited in the past as well. I still think like I mentioned elsewhere that the state is not being corrected stored on sleep or possibly restored when the machine is awakened.

In any event my CTRL-PRTSCR + RSEINUB keys are getting worn out.

[EDIT]
Windows, heh, the dreaded atikmdag has stopped working has started showing up when playing 3 of my games now, which prompted me to use mobility modder & installed cat 9.7s, and install SP2 for Vista. They seem to have helped slightly, but it's very odd that this problem only seems to show up in 3 of my games, Drakensang, UFO: Aftershock(buggy anyways), and rarely in Mount & Blade(vanilla). I'm guessing a combination of weird DirectX programming(all of those games are by small studios) and possibly one of the recent M$ updates(last month). It's hard to tell though as it first reared it's ugly head with Aftershock which is horribly buggy anyways. Happen at any temps according to ATI Tray Tools, plus furmark didn't trigger it after running fullscreen @ various resolution for 20m or so, passes multiple memtest+ passes, so I'm inclined to believe some strange rendering error or something fishy in Vista itself.

Running Oblivion, STALKER SoC, and some other games didn't seem to trigger this, so I'm also inclined to doubt hardware problems in addition to the above furmark & memtest+ results.

SP2 also ate my wifi drivers a while later, but the drivers needed to be update anyways(195MB?! WTF?!), and I see that the problem is common after a quick Google, but it's a good thing that I had linux installed otherwise I'd've been SOL as I'm not sure where my driver + restore disks(useless anyways as they're the kind that want to make the notebook look like it did when shipped apparently) are ATM.
[/EDIT]

[Pulfer]

However, like you, I am not sure I want to play the waiting game and be forced to use Windows for very long when I could just go to Nvidia and use whatever OS I want and do what I want without worrying too much about graphics/video issues.

Using nVidia is good idea. I recently replaced ATI 4850 card with nVidia 250 card and I was impressed with nVidia's proprietary driver quality. ATI's hopeless Cataclysm sucks in everything, ATI's promising open source ati/radeon driver is very good in 2D and video playback, but with nVidia you get all features (2D, 3D etc) at the same high level of quality.

Most likely I will buy ATI card in future, when open source driver gets full-feature support for modern cards. But for now buying expensive modern ATI card (like 4850) is a waste of money if you use Linux...

[RealNC]

I agree with everything except the part about the 4850 being expensive.