R500 Mesa Is Still No Match To An Old Catalyst Driver

[nanonyme]

Although if what BlackStar says is true, the biggest problem is not the developers not having ATi cards but instead being completely oblivious to language standards and implementing things wrong.

[Kano]

Well i think ATI cards are not really common for xbmc dev, even VAAPI support is developed with NVIDIA...

[BlackStar]

Well i also like xbmc, now xbmc gained vaapi support too which is a good move. xbmc only uses opengl to render, but fglrx fails to use the auto mode which is usally the same as glsl renderer. nvidia cards have got no problems using glsl renderer.

9 times out of 10 this is caused by stupid developers using Cg syntax in GLSL shaders. I can't be bothered to go through XBMC's shaders right now but I'm willing to bet on this.

AMD's drivers may have tons of bugs but their shader compiler is reliable and strict. Nvidia's compiler, on the other hand, is a weird half-breed that accepts illegal HLSL/Cg syntax unless explicitly told not to. Add the fact that most developers are clueless and the result is a compatibility shitstorm on the users' backs - or ugly vendor lock-in, depending on how you look at it.

Mesa will also pay the price once the next round of distros picks GLSL support.

[Hans]

No, that won't do. It's still tearing. It only works with composite disabled (KDE will disable it when you watch in full screen, but you're assuming that we want to watch in fullscreen.)

Yes of course I assume you would watch the movie in fullscreen :-)

[Melcar]

OpenGL + Vsync removes tearing for me with fglrx under smplayer, composition or no composition.

[RealNC]

I didn't say the solution was optimal. Just that it works.
You don't have to disable compositing to fix the tearing.
The "only" thing you have to do, is to enable vsync and use mplayer with opengl as output.

No, that won't do. It's still tearing. It only works with composite disabled (KDE will disable it when you watch in full screen, but you're assuming that we want to watch in fullscreen.)

[madman2k]

I bet ColorTiling isn't enabled on Lucid. This one should improve performance A LOT with r300c and even more with r300g since only the latter has full tiling support.

-Marek

yeah! thanks for the hint. finally I am able to play openarena under KMS: http://www.rojtberg.net/390/gallium3d-is-taking-over-2/

[tball]

And the result is a half-assed desktop:

With the OSS drivers, you can get Xv and GL video with VSync without the need to disable compositing. But the 3D speed of the drivers cripple the cards. Half-assed #1.

With fglrx you can use the available 3D power of your card, but the workarounds and compromises needed for fglrx (watch only with compositing disabled, don't use Xv, enable VSync in CCC, bla bla) are crippling the 2D and video experience. Half-assed #2.

I didn't say the solution was optimal. Just that it works.
You don't have to disable compositing to fix the tearing.
The "only" thing you have to do, is to enable vsync and use mplayer with opengl as output.

[RealNC]

What people should do to avoid tearing with fglrx, is to set vsync to always within the amd/ati control panel.
When vsync is enabled, one should use mplayer with opengl as output.

No other mediaplayer (which I know of), is forcing fglrx to go in "real" fullscreen -> Vsync doesn't work properly. So it is important that you see the movie through mplayer!

And the result is a half-assed desktop:

With the OSS drivers, you can get Xv and GL video with VSync without the need to disable compositing. But the 3D speed of the drivers cripple the cards. Half-assed #1.

With fglrx you can use the available 3D power of your card, but the workarounds and compromises needed for fglrx (watch only with compositing disabled, don't use Xv, enable VSync in CCC, bla bla) are crippling the 2D and video experience. Half-assed #2.

[Kano]

Well i also like xbmc, now xbmc gained vaapi support too which is a good move. xbmc only uses opengl to render, but fglrx fails to use the auto mode which is usally the same as glsl renderer. nvidia cards have got no problems using glsl renderer.