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How Old ATI GPUs Can Be Faster On Open Drivers

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  • Originally posted by entropy View Post
    I tend to say this sums it up perfectly.
    This topic polarizing forever is just stupid - "haters gonna hate"...

    Keep up the excellent work!
    To me, every single sum up was useless and shining at same time.

    Like someone said, "A conclusion is the place where you get when you get tired of thinking."
    And once you stop thinking, you sleep and comply.
    If you comply you accept the situation.

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    • Someone can tell me :

      I want to upgrade to the latest kernel GIT and still use S3TC.
      Do I still need to add the "return 0;" somewhere in the cs checker stuff or I can use it without any patching?

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      • Originally posted by RavFX View Post
        Someone can tell me :

        I want to upgrade to the latest kernel GIT and still use S3TC.
        Do I still need to add the "return 0;" somewhere in the cs checker stuff or I can use it without any patching?
        With the latest kernel git, you will receive a snapshot of 2.6.38. You need stuff for 2.6.39, which lie in *-next branches. You need drm-next branch specifically. Please consult someone that had done it already.

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        • crazycheese: i'll admit at this point to just skimming that monster post you wrote. i don't care enough about this topic to actually read it more carefully anymore.

          However, 1 thing that stuck out to me was you think that AMD should give up fglrx and focus entirely on the OSS drivers. It's not going to happen. The only reason fglrx exists is because of the linux workstation market, and fglrx is 10+ years ahead of the OSS drivers for that specific market. It's just for desktop stuff that it sucks. They'd have to drop all the patented stuff from GL3, for example, because they wouldn't be able to license it for an open driver, and that would make their hardware useless for some of their biggest customers.

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          • Originally posted by smitty3268 View Post
            crazycheese: i'll admit at this point to just skimming that monster post you wrote. i don't care enough about this topic to actually read it more carefully anymore.

            However, 1 thing that stuck out to me was you think that AMD should give up fglrx and focus entirely on the OSS drivers. It's not going to happen. The only reason fglrx exists is because of the linux workstation market, and fglrx is 10+ years ahead of the OSS drivers for that specific market. It's just for desktop stuff that it sucks. They'd have to drop all the patented stuff from GL3, for example, because they wouldn't be able to license it for an open driver, and that would make their hardware useless for some of their biggest customers.
            Np, I will make this answer shorter then.

            See I care about this topic, because
            - I preferred AMD hardware a lot over nvidia when I used (more precisely fought with) windows
            - I prefer open driver from AMD much more to proprietary, because every single experience with fglrx made me want to RMA the card

            I was happy to get first ever Radeon instead of Geforce 2(was young and a bit naive), to support ATI. I further used 8500 and later 9700 pro hardware, together with AMD chips. When first socketed Thunderbird started to kick slotted and socketed PIII, it was really fun. But on linux, in desktop use, ATI is just many steps inferior to nvidia, due to driver.

            Yes, AMD will not give fglrx up and I do not ask them to do it. However it is not usable for following reasons:
            Fglrx is workstation payed driver. It is supported by people that purchase workstation fireGL. Purchase.
            When I purchase 6990, I will not support fglrx.

            Being trimmed for fglrx, it completely ignores desktop software and focuses on some production software that firegl customers use. Maybe they run gpgpu tasks on it or use Maya and stuff, nothing more. This is not what desktop usage is - windows is for example desktop usage to very large extent.

            Opensource driver is already usable as 2D and semi 3D driver, however and most importantly two critical points are missing:
            - there is no money to opensource team once people on the street purchase desktop AMD card for desktop use.
            - it does not support newly purchased cards, so even if bought for that driver, without monetary feedback, it is not usable till several years; and not fully usable for further 5 years.

            I see this situation simply as unacceptable and question if AMD cares about gold midrange users at all. Not low-end hardware hackers and 2D IGP users; and not ultra high-end workstation. I simply do not clearly understand the company: they (ATI) exist solely due to selling the cards, however they do not care about selling them for linux - even if setting such mechanism up will carry absolutely <minimal> cost.

            From previous post, even if approximation may be very incorrect, I projected at least 70% current nvidia card buyers come from this golden midrange (GT 450 - 570, GT 240 - 280) and use the cards for desktop linux & gaming, where only 10% of current amd users buy midrange cards (5670 - 6970) for this use. Improving fglrx driver for desktop use will bring only minimal card sells (due to nvidia being already there for many years) and will just remove more user base from opensource driver team (concurrency within ati itself).

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            • Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
              Fglrx is workstation payed driver. It is supported by people that purchase workstation fireGL.

              ...

              - there is no money to opensource team once people on the street purchase desktop AMD card for desktop use.
              How can you claim that money from FirePro purchases flows to fglrx but also claim that money from other graphics purchases does not flow to the open source drivers ? In can understand one claim or the other, but not both.

              In case it helps, we don't actually make or sell most of what you call "AMD cards". We sell chips, other companies make and sell cards. We don't assign or track card serial numbers, we don't track card sales - we just sell the chips and provide reference designs.
              Test signature

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              • Originally posted by bridgman View Post
                How can you claim that money from FirePro purchases flows to fglrx but also claim that money from other graphics purchases does not flow to the open source drivers ? In can understand one claim or the other, but not both.
                No one can see if I actually use opensource driver with non-workstation purchased card. Could you please clarify where does money for windows driver come, ie how do you (AMD) calculate how much money should be placed to correct upcoming bugs in windows driver? Graphics hardware alone does not work without driver. I'm not claiming you (AMD) should invest less in windows driver, I'm mean only that people are not allowed to (or desired that they) make a choice.

                The situation may also be projected onto windows, granted a magic happens and microsoft is suddenly as democratic as ancient Athens, for example windows 9 comes and AMD still produces drivers for windows 8, because they invested lots of resources in it and do not want complete rewrite. So people will buy nvidia for tasks where windows 9 driver model is better. And this is currently the situation in Linux field. So why not to allow people vote with "certificates" proving they invested in the company.


                Originally posted by bridgman View Post
                In case it helps, we don't actually make or sell most of what you call "AMD cards". We sell chips, other companies make and sell cards. We don't assign or track card serial numbers, we don't track card sales - we just sell the chips and provide reference designs.
                Yes, I know this of course. But those MAC number still lands on Gigabyte' motherboard even if the NIC chip comes from Realtek. So Realtek claiming it is not responsible for the driver, but Gigabyte; or it is Gigabyte who should care about people with issues regarding to the NIC chip... is somehow wrong..

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