AMD Catalyst 10.3 For Linux Released

[PsynoKhi0]

yeah I got a little carried way I think...what's this going to do exactly? What should I look to be improved? Thanks for the link....I have to admit this is the first ati card I have run under linux primarily...so I guess I am a bit of a noob with their binary blob and all its seemingly secret tweaks

That line helped Kwin get snappier here.

I do get some tearing myself (also a TFT screen maxing out at 60hz at native resolution) when juggling windows around though nothing overly distracting (subjective, I'll give you that). My hunch is that I'd need to fool around with vsync (both in CCC and in individual apps) far too much for me to bother

OpenGL output in Mplayer is great however.

Also I have Debian Lenny installed on an old Dell desktop with the i815 chipset and there is some tearing there too (if you concentrate), although it's on a CRT @75Hz.

[chronniff]

yeah I got a little carried way I think...what's this going to do exactly? What should I look to be improved? Thanks for the link....I have to admit this is the first ati card I have run under linux primarily...so I guess I am a bit of a noob with their binary blob and all its seemingly secret tweaks

[PsynoKhi0]

by the way that was with a vga connections and using an intel i915 integrated card with the stock modules in ubuntu 9.10 which, for those who haven't used intel graphics on linux in the past year or so, fully implements kms (so no tweaking on my behalf), and uses intels UXA, which out of all of the opensource graphics 2d acceleration, I find to be vastly superior, which is ironic considering intel's graphics hardware is inferior.

When you're done ranting:

aticonfig --set-pcs-val=DDX,OGLFMTA2R10G10B10Enable,1

Other useful tweaks: http://forum.compiz.org/viewtopic.ph...0094c255cfb36e

[chronniff]

by the way that was with a vga connections and using an intel i915 integrated card with the stock modules in ubuntu 9.10 which, for those who haven't used intel graphics on linux in the past year or so, fully implements kms (so no tweaking on my behalf), and uses intels UXA, which out of all of the opensource graphics 2d acceleration, I find to be vastly superior, which is ironic considering intel's graphics hardware is inferior.

[chronniff]

Have you plugged your Acer monitor to that inspiron to compare?

Just tested that out...and event though obviously the 3d effects were rather slow since it is an out of date integrated graphics chip, I found there to be absolutely no tearring at resolution 1920x1080....like i said 3d effects like the cube were slow but did not tear, 2d rendering with wobbly windows did NOT tear (also a little slower rendering than on my 5770, but still no tearing) hell, I played a xvid with mplayer I believe was 480p and tried out both gl and xv for video acceleration, and neither them caused tearing and any size (fullscreen, or native res), and the video output, I dare say that the intel video actually might have even looked a little nicer that the video that my 5770 has been playing

[PsynoKhi0]

With all that said, then why is it on my old dell inspiron, that has an integrated intel video card using the old 915 module, doesn't suffer from any of the video tearing issues that I get with my new ati 5770.....If I recall it used to have those issues before intel switched to UXA 2d acceleration....

Have you plugged your Acer monitor to that inspiron to compare?

[mugginz]

Still with GeForce 2 MX-400 (AGP)

Non-Composited

• Move Window
  Tearing
• Full Screen Video Playback
  Some tearing. I'd consider it a little too annoying
  to want to watch. Not bad for a 10 year old PC though.

GeForce 4 MX-440 64MB PCI video card.

nVidia 96.43.14 Binary Blob
Compiz Enabled.

Normal Effects Enabled (No wobbly windows)

• Move Window
  No Tearing
  Much better and smoother than the MX-400 which is to be expected
  given the difference 3D performance of the two cards.
• Full Screen Video Playback
  Virtually no tearing. Mostly tear free but every once in a while
  you see a tear. This might have more to do with the speed
  of the CPU than anything else though.

Extra Effects Enabled (With wobbly windows, etc.)

• Move Window
  No Tearing
  Much better and smoother than the MX-400 which is to be expected
  given the difference 3D performance of the two cards.
• Full Screen Video Playback
  Virtually no tearing. Mostly tear free but every once in a while
  you see a tear. This might have more to do with the speed
  of the CPU than anything else though. (Same as with Normal Effects Enabled)

No Compositing

• Move Window
  Tearing
• Full Screen Video Playback
  Virtually no tearing. Mostly tear free but every once in a while
  you see a tear. This might have more to do with the speed
  of the CPU than anything else though. (Same as Composited.)

Full screen Flash playback was unbearably and unwatchably slow in all cases. The GF2 MX-400 at about 1 f/s and the GF4 MX-440 at about 5 f/s.
Video played from: http://www.abc.net.au/iview/

[BlackStar]

Do try windowed video and non-composited "move window" if you get the chance!

One thing I should have mentioned is that my older 7600GS used to tear much less than my newer 9500 and NVS 135M (~8400). This might have something to do with the fact that these older cards used to have dedicated 2d hardware, while the newer cards don't. Or it might just be a coincidence, I don't know.

[mugginz]

Just performed some tests on an old Pentium III based 1.2GHz Celeron with 512M RAM and an nVidia GeForce 2 MX-400 64MB video card.

Ubuntu 10.04 32 bit.
nVidia 96.43.14 Binary Blob
Compiz Enabled.

Normal Effects Enabled (No wobbly windows)

• Move Window
  No Tearing
• Full Screen Video Playback
  Virtually no tearing. Mostly tear free but every once in a while
  you see a tear. This might have more to do with the speed
  of the CPU than anything else though.

Extra Effects Enabled (With wobbly windows, etc.)

• Move Window
  No Tearing
• Full Screen Video Playback
  Virtually no tearing. Mostly tear free but every once in a while
  you see a tear. This might have more to do with the speed
  of the CPU than anything else though. (Same as with Normal Effects Enabled)

Will now re-run the test with a PCI nVidia GeForce 4 MX-440 to see how that goes with tearing.

[BlackStar]

With all that said, then why is it on my old dell inspiron, that has an integrated intel video card using the old 915 module, doesn't suffer from any of the video tearing issues that I get with my new ati 5770.....If I recall it used to have those issues before intel switched to UXA 2d acceleration....

If you don't use a compositor you can get tear-free video on your 5770 by enabling vsync and using an OpenGL renderer for video. Some people have reported tear-free XV with newer fglrx versions but this has never worked for me. Just use OpenGL.

If you do use a compositor... neither fglrx nor intel can really do tear-free video then (unless you use a hack such as unredirecting fullscreen windows which comes with other negative side-effects).