To the AMD people: Money wasted.

[Mr James]

To any AMD graphics driver people:

Hello.

I am a linux user and the not so proud owner of an Asus HD5750.

Niether nvidia not ati has fully supported the FOSS drivers - a driver that provides the much needed KMS and is in sync with the rest of Linux development. ATI has provided some support and for this I thank you.

Now, Mr Brigman or any other person in connection with AMD, I paid good money for my card(s) and you as a company have stated that you provide support for Linux - a promise. While Nvidia does not support the open
source work, at least it provides a working proprietary driver - something you do not.

- 2D is horrible with tearing everywhere - my Nvidia card does not tear while doing anything.
- Videos are not watchable because of tearing - my Nvidia card is playing all my movies without tearing and without any glitches.
- Gaming in WINE is not a possibility because everything crashes at startup - not on my Nvidia. Though some say it is the WINE devs fault, were ATI to provide more info I am sure the WINE devs would get it right.
- Were you to collaborate more with the Linux devs, there would be no gap in which we have to wait and wait for driver support of some new XOrg update.

Not preaching, but the bible saying regarding religious leaders, that they niether enter the gates of heaven not let those going in to enter, is fully applicable here as you niether provide us with a
proper proprietary driver nor do you give the FOSS devs the kind of support to provide us with a proper FOSS driver.

Regarding the FOSS driver, you provide bits of documentation with some patches, put a dev or two to work on the driver a bit, then abandon the driver halfway to work on support for another card. The result
as the radeon feature matrix shows is 20 cards all incomplete, and all with limping experimental 3D (read "no good for games"). What the hell kind of support is that? You get us worked up about how the *next* (it's always
the *next* isn't it) card will have great support because you started working on it several months in advance. Guess what? The result will be the same as the other cards: semi-working, tearing, and with no 3D. And then you'll
talk about great support with the *next* card.

When you guys said "we provide Linux driver support", that was a promise you have yet to keep. When exactly can I expect a *FULLY* working FOSS or proprietary driver that does what I bought the card for in the first place?

I had already bought my ATI card (as I respected AMD during my Windows experience) when I came to Linux. Had I known I would be forever masturbating with the ATI cards, I would have gotten laid with an Nvidia card.

I, as most all, really hate buying something and not getting my money's worth.

Thank you.

[bridgman]

With respect, you are criticizing us for failing to live up to commitments we never made. I don't have time to go through your entire list, but as an example :

You get us worked up about how the *next* (it's always the *next* isn't it) card will have great support because you started working on it several months in advance. Guess what? The result will be the same as the other cards: semi-working, tearing, and with no 3D. And then you'll talk about great support with the *next* card.

What we claim (and I say this with great confidence because I was the one making the claim) was that support for the next generation would happen *sooner* (relative to hardware launch) as a result of starting work on it earlier, not that it would be "great" or even "better" (other than allowing more time for the community to work on the code). If you follow my posts, you'll know that what I talk about for initial support is delivering the *same* level of functionality on new cards as on previous cards.

When you say "tearing, no 3D" can you be a bit more specific ? All of the currently shipping GPUs include 3D support (except for the just-released HD6xxx parts which are not supported yet) and AFAIK the tearing concerns are with the proprietary driver under certain scenarios, not the open source driver.

You have to admit that your characterization of our open source efforts is unfair at best:

Regarding the FOSS driver, you provide bits of documentation with some patches, put a dev or two to work on the driver a bit, then abandon the driver halfway to work on support for another card.

We work with the community to make initial support available (working code and/or docs) and the open source community does most of the enhancement work. We were told multiple times "just give us programming information and the community will do the rest" - we are doing that and more.

The radeon feature matrix is community maintained. Right now nobody agrees on the exact criteria for moving from "mostly" to "done", so the last few generations of hardware are sitting in "mostly". I guess I could launch a community initiative to redefine the criteria on the feature page but it really doesn't seem like the best use of time to me.

Are there specific Linux games you are having trouble with, or are your issues mostly related to running Windows games over Wine (which brings another set of challenges) ?

[crazycheese]

I think the "effect" that Mr James expects is "gfx hardware on windows" experience:
you buy card, you already have the driver, the driver supports that card, you barely have any issues(maybe very few and minor, which are wiped out after time). You replace the old one, replace the driver and ready to go.

This is currently not happening on amd side, neither in catalyst, nor in foss.

Although HD4770 does get 60 fps fullhd on openarena(with minor gamma bug) using opensource drivers only. Still, not near possible 300+fps and by far not near feature-rich.

The situation is, with both drivers, amd looses to nvidia. And 5xxx/6xxx gen are not usable on opensource at all. 4 developers ain't realistic to finish the driver, maybe after 10 years.

But nvidia is not perfect, with it not only unsupporting opensource, but actively shutting it down; and ignoring optimus support requests. Well, something you might expect if you were using windows, not linux.

[kernelOfTruth]

also there's STILL graphical and text corruptions in combination with KDE4 on nvidia cards (I, e.g., see that with my 8400GS) since years (!)

so it isn't that much different compared to AMD

besides that the catalyst driver in general is getting better and better (stability-, feature-, performance-, etc. -wise)

[crazycheese]

? i do have an hd5670 and the opensource driver works what is your problem???

OpenGL and power management. Do they work?

and 4 developers are not the same as 4 developers.

means you can put the world best 4 developers into the linux team and 1000 worst developers into the windows team and the linux team beat the windows one..

do you really think the linux devs are not the best of the best ?

be sure the linux guys are the best of the best...

This is exactly my problem and root of problems in opensource radeon in linux.

Because they four are like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTXlWYdodnc and still: http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...-overview.aspx

Click on any card, look in the black box, what do you see? Linux somewhere?

Not that nvidia is much different though.

[crazycheese]

yes because its a DESKTOP/WORKSTATION power management don't care i have 4 pices 120mm? fans 1 in the power suply 2 on the cpu 1 for case general i can not remember any noice from the graphic card...

on notebooks you can use low profile for maximum life time on accu

OpenGL yes 2.1 with some openGL3 stuff

Man, you forget, I dont have personal power plant in the backyard
I really want Evergreen to push the Hz down unless its used.

Didnt know about Evergreen 2.1/3.0 OpenGL support, thought its only 2D. Great news indeed. So, that means I can upgrade the card(5850 or 5870), if power management works.

6850/70 is not supported, right?

[jntesteves]

I think there are only 2 fulltime developers from AMD working on the FOSS driver right now. (unless Bridgman does programming too?)

Hope they hire some more soon.

[Mr James]

Thank you for replying so fast Mr Bridgman.

With respect, you are criticizing us for failing to live up to commitments we never made.

When you sell me a device with an official driver for a platform, logically that implies that the device will perform as advertised on the platform targeted by the driver. That is a commitment. Unless of course you are cheating me, and fooling me into buying something that does not work because a card is useless without the driver.
The act of providing an official driver is a commitment.

What we claim (and I say this with great confidence because I was the one making the claim) was that support for the next generation would happen *sooner* (relative to hardware launch) as a result of starting work on it earlier, not that it would be "great" or even "better" (other than allowing more time for the community to work on the code). If you follow my posts, you'll know that what I talk about for initial support is delivering the *same* level of functionality on new cards as on previous cards.

Really? So working drivers is not the plan but more semi support for yet another card. So am I to buy a more powerful and expensive card that does nothing more than a 5 year older card does as the drivers are semi functional?

When you say "tearing, no 3D" can you be a bit more specific ? All of the currently shipping GPUs include 3D support (except for the just-released HD6xxx parts which are not supported yet) and AFAIK the tearing concerns are with the proprietary driver under certain scenarios, not the open source driver.

Puleeez, As a Linux dev you know that the only way to play any games that matter is through wine and thus yes, I am talking about 3D in wine and the tearing is in ALL scenarios - or am I missing a scenario other than 2D window movement and video playback? Please enlighten me as to the scenario in which there is no tearing.

Wine gaming is the only way to seriously game as any game that actually matters is run through wine. Therefore if wine does not run, 3D for me the consumer does not exist - or am I to spend many an hour staring in awe at a 3D cube. For all intents and purposes, WINE IS 3D on Linux.

Linux users have been feeding on scraps for long enough. Linux users are sick of begging for equal treatment.

We work with the community to make initial support available (working code and/or docs) and the open source community does most of the enhancement work. We were told multiple times "just give us programming information and the community will do the rest" - we are doing that and more.

And that excuses you from providing a working proprietary driver how? Not being able to direct the FOSS development has nothing to do with your own (AMD's) work.

The radeon feature matrix is community maintained. Right now nobody agrees on the exact criteria for moving from "mostly" to "done", so the last few generations of hardware are sitting in "mostly". I guess I could launch a community initiative to redefine the criteria on the feature page but it really doesn't seem like the best use of time to me.

Changing the label does not effect the true status. Right now, the drivers are not complete as I have tried them my self. "Mostly" truly is a better description.

Are there specific Linux games you are having trouble with, or are your issues mostly related to running Windows games over Wine (which brings another set of challenges) ?

As stated previously, of course I'm talking about WINE gaming. If you guys don't provide the required documentation and support to the FOSS communities on how to run YOUR hardware, how are wine devs supposed to do their thing? They work with what they got and they got nothing. Even so, they were able to bring Windows games to Linux - quite an accomplishment for them, shame on AMD.



Qaridarium: You have been saying that the *next* driver will solve all our problems for as long as I have been reading this forum. Notice, again the word "next" appears...


Linux users are far more than a minority. I truly see Linux as the future - Windows has brought no new real functionality since XP. Thier same API and libraries has simply been having layers added on. If Windows broke compatibility in thier API, trust me Microsoft is done for.

About the 4 devs thing. That is just sad. But for me, the consumer, I don't care if it is one dev or a million devs. I care about results.

Again, hardware is useless without a working driver. You sold me uselessness.

[evolution]

In nVidia land, not everything is green...

To any AMD graphics driver people:

Hello.

I am a linux user and the not so proud owner of an Asus HD5750.

Niether nvidia not ati has fully supported the FOSS drivers - a driver that provides the much needed KMS and is in sync with the rest of Linux development. ATI has provided some support and for this I thank you.

Now, Mr Brigman or any other person in connection with AMD, I paid good money for my card(s) and you as a company have stated that you provide support for Linux - a promise. While Nvidia does not support the open
source work, at least it provides a working proprietary driver - something you do not.

- 2D is horrible with tearing everywhere - my Nvidia card does not tear while doing anything.
- Videos are not watchable because of tearing - my Nvidia card is playing all my movies without tearing and without any glitches.
- Gaming in WINE is not a possibility because everything crashes at startup - not on my Nvidia. Though some say it is the WINE devs fault, were ATI to provide more info I am sure the WINE devs would get it right.
- Were you to collaborate more with the Linux devs, there would be no gap in which we have to wait and wait for driver support of some new XOrg update.

Not preaching, but the bible saying regarding religious leaders, that they niether enter the gates of heaven not let those going in to enter, is fully applicable here as you niether provide us with a
proper proprietary driver nor do you give the FOSS devs the kind of support to provide us with a proper FOSS driver.

Regarding the FOSS driver, you provide bits of documentation with some patches, put a dev or two to work on the driver a bit, then abandon the driver halfway to work on support for another card. The result
as the radeon feature matrix shows is 20 cards all incomplete, and all with limping experimental 3D (read "no good for games"). What the hell kind of support is that? You get us worked up about how the *next* (it's always
the *next* isn't it) card will have great support because you started working on it several months in advance. Guess what? The result will be the same as the other cards: semi-working, tearing, and with no 3D. And then you'll
talk about great support with the *next* card.

When you guys said "we provide Linux driver support", that was a promise you have yet to keep. When exactly can I expect a *FULLY* working FOSS or proprietary driver that does what I bought the card for in the first place?

I had already bought my ATI card (as I respected AMD during my Windows experience) when I came to Linux. Had I known I would be forever masturbating with the ATI cards, I would have gotten laid with an Nvidia card.

I, as most all, really hate buying something and not getting my money's worth.

Thank you.

I agree with you in some of your points. But I disagree with you in the following ones:

1- Yes, I've some (little) tearing in my videos, but I can use HW acceleration with VAAPI (even if it's a bit rudimentary and sometimes doesn't work due to driver updates). And after all, you also have this problem on Windows (although it seems to not happen so frequently).

2- No 3D acceleration?! It might be a problem you have. Most people here doesn't have it. Furthermore, I can play almost all my games in Linux at very acceptable framerates (some even faster than on Windows).

3- No games with Wine?! I can play some DX9 games such as FarCry, Max Payne2 or similar ones without any major glithces. HL2 has some little issues, but mostly of the time works properly (at least for me).

4- Bad Linux support? I think we also have to blame linux kernel dev's because they're always changing the DRM stack.

5- Xorg dev's are also a bit "narrowminded", and sometimes, seem to forget about the existence of proprietary blobs. If they didn't exist, there wouldn't be any multimedia workstations using Linux.


Now, agreeing with you, I'm going to talk about my personal "rants":

1- I don't understand why in (some) older releases, my r600 cards worked properly with UVD DxVA and VAAPI acceleration. Now, I can't get them to work... And I think it's a bad policy if you are really disabling driver features, because not every people buys a new laptop every 3 years (like me, for instance...)

2- I don't know what really is your support (for instance, bug reporting, driver feedback, etc.) for Linux, but it seems, at least, almost negligible. And it's not good to "forget" your users (even if they're just a few).


Finally, I'm going to talk about some "nice" nVidia stories (real facts):

- I've a few colleagues (in my graduation course), that bought laptops with GF9xxx and GF8xxx cards (because of the CUDA support). Guess what?
They were severly affected by design faults in their cards. After the guarantee time ended (in about 3 years), most of their laptops stopped to work. And the fail? nVidia cards. Because the guarantee time expired... you know the rest of the story.

- There are also some problems recently with nVidia. In recent Xorg releases, I've found ATI is catching up compatibility earlier than nVidia counterpart driver. Furthermore, Some recent drivers also caused overheating with nVidia cards.
Btw, I think nVidia is better than ATI at the driver's kernel support, (it seems to be more agnostic to kernel updates) and driver features (the interface seems to be more user-friendly).

So, as I said in the beginning, not everything in nVidia's land is "green"...

And... that's all folks... (Yes, I know, Bugs Bunny )

Cheers

[droidhacker]

Anybody reading this thread, don't worry about mrjames. What I suspect is most likely is that he is simply using an old driver. He is definitely a wondoze user, he clearly stated that he wants a wondoze experience.... well keep in mind that a wondoze experience involves using 3 different graphics cards just to get the stupid thing installed, installing several drivers, all of which are *supposed* to work, and having them all fail and causing bluescreen, resulting in garbage canning the hardware and buying one that is preconfigured.

He probably tried installing fglrx with a kernel using kms, it didn't work, fglrx replaced a whole lot of mesa, and now he's tried uninstalling it and it is broken. TOUGH. Go back to wondoze ya cry baby.