AMD's UVD2-based XvBA Finally Does Something On Linux

[mugginz]

Well I am only using fglrx at the moment, because of my need of opencl. I don't have issues watching movies and playing native games.

If you want, I can test fglrx with wine. I might have some old windows games in a box somewhere.



Fglrx in the ubuntu lucid repo works fine.

Have you had similar success with Karmic? Also, which model card are you using?

If I'm to be in a position to recommend ATI cards, I need to be sure of the specifics. Recommending the wrong card for the wrong use case will likely result in someone developing a hatred of the said hardware.

I can now see a point off into the future where an ATI card will basically be the equal of an nVidia one from driver standpoint, but until we're there I'm going to remain very cautious. I don't want to rush jumping onto the ATI bandwagon until it's warranted. To do so will simply breed a mistrust of ATI for Linux deployment so at this stage I do the safe thing and recommend nVidia hardware for Linux, and ATI for Windows exclusive systems.

[Hans]

Have you had similar success with Karmic? Also, which model card are you using?

If I'm to be in a position to recommend ATI cards, I need to be sure of the specifics. Recommending the wrong card for the wrong use case will likely result in someone developing a hatred of the said hardware.

I can now see a point off into the future where an ATI card will basically be the equal of an nVidia one from driver standpoint, but until we're there I'm going to remain very cautious. I don't want to rush jumping onto the ATI bandwagon until it's warranted. To do so will simply breed a mistrust of ATI for Linux deployment so at this stage I do the safe thing and recommend nVidia hardware for Linux, and ATI for Windows exclusive systems.

I have also have succes with karmic.
But as I said before, keep in mind that you have to patch xorg with the backclear patch to get good 2d performance (maximize/resize). So the out of the box experience with fglrx is not that good actually. Both karmic and lucid uses the oss drivers pr. default, which works very well in both karmic and lucid. You will even have basic 3d and compiz out of the box in lucid.

[Hans]

I have also have succes with karmic.
But as I said before, keep in mind that you have to patch xorg with the backclear patch to get good 2d performance (maximize/resize). So the out of the box experience with fglrx is not that good actually. Both karmic and lucid uses the oss drivers pr. default, which works very well in both karmic and lucid. You will even have basic 3d and compiz out of the box in lucid.

Damn those sentences are badly formulated. But I can't edit the post?
I almost forgot. I have a hd4650 mobile card.

[Panix]

I have also have succes with karmic.
But as I said before, keep in mind that you have to patch xorg with the backclear patch to get good 2d performance (maximize/resize). So the out of the box experience with fglrx is not that good actually. Both karmic and lucid uses the oss drivers pr. default, which works very well in both karmic and lucid. You will even have basic 3d and compiz out of the box in lucid.

How do you patch xorg with 'backclear' patch? Is there a how-to for that?

I just want to be aware of the 'extra' work I'd have to do if I got an ATI card. I would be prepared to do this and hopefully, would avoid further frustration if I am 'in the know.'

I have experience with manually installing the latest Nvidia driver in Debian-based distros so maybe the patch for fglrx drivers w/ ATI card won't be as complicated?

I have a hard time believing Q's claim that all those applications and features work with the radeon driver. The radeon driver's claim to fame is 2D, I thought, but his affirmation that they all work with the FOSS driver is somewhat suspicious. I guess some people's version of working is it worked once or 'kinda' worked. I was asking whether it's trouble free or relatively trouble free with issues that are negligible. But, having no issues seems to indicate that the radeon driver for these recent cards (well, one yr old) could do 3D and were full featured now in Linux.

The other side of the table would be that the Evergreen cards definitely can't do this. So, wanting a new generation card means waiting or relying on proprietary (fglrx) drivers without any choice. It might be ideal to use FOSS drivers but like I said, the situation is NOT perfect so the user/customer just wants to use their card to it's fullest extent. Windows users want this, too. Ack, a similarity to Windows users...

[mugginz]

How do you patch xorg with 'backclear' patch? Is there a how-to for that?

I just want to be aware of the 'extra' work I'd have to do if I got an ATI card. I would be prepared to do this and hopefully, would avoid further frustration if I am 'in the know.'

I have experience with manually installing the latest Nvidia driver in Debian-based distros so maybe the patch for fglrx drivers w/ ATI card won't be as complicated?

If there isn't a very easy to both find and apply how-to for this and the patch is required for normal operation then this needs to be rectified ASAP.

I have a hard time believing Q's claim that all those applications and features work with the radeon driver. The radeon driver's claim to fame is 2D, I thought, but his affirmation that they all work with the FOSS driver is somewhat suspicious. I guess some people's version of working is it worked once or 'kinda' worked. I was asking whether it's trouble free or relatively trouble free with issues that are negligible. But, having no issues seems to indicate that the radeon driver for these recent cards (well, one yr old) could do 3D and were full featured now in Linux.

I have this issue with some of his posts as well. I'm after the reality of the situation. If you're required to fiddle with patches then I need to know this before I buy the card. Also, even if the drivers "mostly" work, I need to know this as well. Mostly working isn't fully working and the final 5% of functionality is sometimes a prerequisite.

The other side of the table would be that the Evergreen cards definitely can't do this. So, wanting a new generation card means waiting or relying on proprietary (fglrx) drivers without any choice. It might be ideal to use FOSS drivers but like I said, the situation is NOT perfect so the user/customer just wants to use their card to it's fullest extent. Windows users want this, too. Ack, a similarity to Windows users...

This is the series of card I personally am after so I myself probably have a bit of a wait on my hands.

[Kano]

@Qaridarium

First of all, you need a special mplayer build to use more threads for decoding. That's the mplayer mt branch available from git. By default you can use h264 mt with it, for vc1 you need an extra patch.

I doubt that you have got hd content that will require multithreaded decoding.

For that test clip in the benchmark it is not even needed with Atom.

Why do you base your statement that cpu needs less power than a gpu to decode hd videos on that stupid benchmark which is completely irrellevant for real hd movies with high bitrates.

[curaga]

There's youtube HD, pirate HD, and bluray HD, in rising quality & descending amount order. The first two are most volumous, and also play just on practically any cpu.

Guess HD means different things to you two.

[Hans]

How do you patch xorg with 'backclear' patch? Is there a how-to for that?

I just want to be aware of the 'extra' work I'd have to do if I got an ATI card. I would be prepared to do this and hopefully, would avoid further frustration if I am 'in the know.'


I have experience with manually installing the latest Nvidia driver in Debian-based distros so maybe the patch for fglrx drivers w/ ATI card won't be as complicated?

Its quite easy in practice. In most distro's a modified xorg is already in the repo. In Arch its located in yaourt and in Ubuntu you could for an example use this ppa:

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/xserver-no-backfill

Well the ppa patches the xserver with the no backfill patch (which is similar with the back clear patch). I have used both patches and can't find the difference, but I think the backclear patch is the newest one (couldn't find a ppa for that though).

I hope I don't confuse you with now two patches. ;-)

I have a hard time believing Q's claim that all those applications and features work with the radeon driver. The radeon driver's claim to fame is 2D, I thought, but his affirmation that they all work with the FOSS driver is somewhat suspicious. I guess some people's version of working is it worked once or 'kinda' worked. I was asking whether it's trouble free or relatively trouble free with issues that are negligible. But, having no issues seems to indicate that the radeon driver for these recent cards (well, one yr old) could do 3D and were full featured now in Linux.

My current hd4650 and former hd3650 mobility card works quite well. I think there is a change you will see problem with some special revision mobility cards, judging on the different problems with the oss drivers in this forum.

Actually I once had a problem with the driver writing garbage in some opengl output buffers. I went to the #radeon irc channel and asked if this was a commmon problem. It weren't, but agd5 found and fixed me a patch the very same day fixing my problem! Thats what I call customer support.

The other side of the table would be that the Evergreen cards definitely can't do this. So, wanting a new generation card means waiting or relying on proprietary (fglrx) drivers without any choice. It might be ideal to use FOSS drivers but like I said, the situation is NOT perfect so the user/customer just wants to use their card to it's fullest extent. Windows users want this, too. Ack, a similarity to Windows users...

To be honest. You can't use your card to the its fullest extent with the oss drivers as for right now. But fglrx isn't that bad really. When people complains about fglrx its almost always about the lack of video decoding, wine support, lack of kernel or xorg-server support.

Well the last two issues is easy fixed -> Just use a supported OS.
The video decoding with XvBA is out there, but is at beta stage (maybe alpha), but isn't something I really miss. My computer decodes movies just fine. Wine support is someting I can't say anything general about, because I have only tried guildwars and counterstrike::source with it (They ran fine with fglrx).

[Hans]

If there isn't a very easy to both find and apply how-to ...

Look at my answers to Panix.

Oh and btw. Again I want to emphasize, that I am not telling you to bye fglrx over nvidia. I am just telling you that fglrx isn't that bad really.
I have had fglrx in over two years now, and the improvements done within these two years with fglrx is enormous.

[mugginz]

Its quite easy in practice. In most distro's a modified xorg is already in the repo. In Arch its located in yaourt and in Ubuntu you could for an example use this ppa:

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/xserver-no-backfill

Well the ppa patches the xserver with the no backfill patch (which is similar with the back clear patch). I have used both patches and can't find the difference, but I think the backclear patch is the newest one (couldn't find a ppa for that though).

I hope I don't confuse you with now two patches. ;-)

Even if it is initially non-trivial, most technically proficient users will be able to deal with just about anything really. But there's two problems I see straight away. Firstly, and most importantly, it's not usually something you can require of non-technically minded users, so when things like this are required for reasonable performance, it rules out garden variety users. Secondly, while there are no-fuss alternatives (say like nVidia) it diminishes the desire to fiddle in this area somewhat.

My current hd4650 and former hd3650 mobility card works quite well. I think there is a change you will see problem with some special revision mobility cards, judging on the different problems with the oss drivers in this forum.

Actually I once had a problem with the driver writing garbage in some opengl output buffers. I went to the #radeon irc channel and asked if this was a commmon problem. It weren't, but agd5 found and fixed me a patch the very same day fixing my problem! Thats what I call customer support.

I certainly cant knock the effort put into the drivers buy the devs working on them, that's for sure. It's only a matter of time before things get fixed I guess.

To be honest. You can't use your card to the its fullest extent with the oss drivers as for right now. But fglrx isn't that bad really. When people complains about fglrx its almost always about the lack of video decoding, wine support, lack of kernel or xorg-server support.

Well the last two issues is easy fixed -> Just use a supported OS.
The video decoding with XvBA is out there, but is at beta stage (maybe alpha), but isn't something I really miss. My computer decodes movies just fine. Wine support is someting I can't say anything general about, because I have only tried guildwars and counterstrike::source with it (They ran fine with fglrx).

Lucky for me the distro I prefer to use is a supported one. Not all are that lucky though I guess.

With respect to GPU video decode, if you have a reasonably modern machine then most video will decode on the CPU without much issue if that's all that's happening. When you're loading your machine with a larger background load, this can present problems when also having to do CPU decode as well. Thankfully I've not bought an Evergreen card yet so am not in as much of a hurry for this support as others with cards already.