AMD Catalyst 11.8 Linux Driver Released

[storma]

Debian/testing
Xfce
Compositing: Yes and no.

With HoN and Savage2, I could alt-tab regardless of the state of compositing.
With Oilrush, Trine and Sauerbraten, alt-tab didn't work regardless of the state of compositing.

[BlackStar]

Debian/testing
Xfce
Compositing: Yes and no.

With HoN and Savage2, I could alt-tab regardless of the state of compositing.
With Oilrush, Trine and Sauerbraten, alt-tab didn't work regardless of the state of compositing.

The issue is that many games grab the keyboard indiscriminately, stealing alt-tab messages from the window manager. Fglrx had an additional "feature" on top of that where it would automatically unredirect fullscreen-sized windows, which appears to be fixed now.

[xpander]

i have been using alt+ctrl+D (show desktop) that has been working good so far
some games ofc like Trine grab the mouse so u have to use ctrl+g first to ungrab it.

[vervelover]

better than NVIDIA

to me, this driver works perfectly, far better than any nvidia driver I used on other machines. The Nvidia driver needs compiz to be switched off for playing games (or the peformance is A LOT slower), has no localization for nvidia-settings, which also looks outdated, and video-tearing is still an issue. Also, no open-source alternative.

[DeepDayze]

to me, this driver works perfectly, far better than any nvidia driver I used on other machines. The Nvidia driver needs compiz to be switched off for playing games (or the peformance is A LOT slower), has no localization for nvidia-settings, which also looks outdated, and video-tearing is still an issue. Also, no open-source alternative.

Sorry if offtopic

Nouveau is the OSS alternative to the nVidia blob and is under heavy development. Right now it's at the point where the radeon driver was at like 2 years ago in comparison (2D works pretty well and very basic 3D support in Mesa)

Then people should keep reporting bugs or adding info to existing bugs for Catalyst if they want them fixed. Also people should open or add to bug reports for radeon driver as well :^)

[b15hop]

I don't know why, but my asus crosshair 4 formula seems to be incompatible with 4870 x2 (single GPU card with crossfire) ... Win7 HPE x64 is treating it like it's a removable USB device.

It's even come up with a second fake LCD screen. One that doesn't physically exist!

[PsynoKhi0]

The only annoying thing I've noticed out-of-the-box is a couple of funky texture artifacts in HoN (HD4670).
Most notably, if I start at the hellbourne camp, folliage is randomly replaced by black and white checkers patterns. Same goes for mini-map "death ping" icons. No issues with 11.7.

[crazycheese]

The Nvidia driver needs compiz to be switched off for playing games (or the peformance is A LOT slower),

No difference.

has no localization for nvidia-settings

Thats correct, but nvidia-settings is opensource application.

video-tearing is still an issue.

Absolutely no tearing issues here, kde4.7 with composite on, on gtx260sp216.

Also, no open-source alternative.

What is this?

Mate, your arguments are wrong. Why I use nvidia now? Cause this card is backed up with binary driver for many years after its initial release, way more than amd; and it performs much better than amd closed source.
On the opensource side, I don?t see amd be interested more in opensource, as much as it is interested in closed source. Of course, opensource is way to go, but for me not before at least 5 years when performance is fixed and we are close to opengl4, opencl lands in opensource and there is fairly efficient power management. Then it will rock. Then I will buy amd card, knowing its backed up by good quality driver.

[vervelover]

No difference.

Actually, with ATI I get a performance boost when compiz is enabled while playing games. Some phoronix tests also show this (can remember the link sorry)

Thats correct, but nvidia-settings is opensource application.

Does it matter when the only driver they support is closed-source?

Absolutely no tearing issues here, kde4.7 with composite on, on gtx260sp216.

Sorry, but on my laptop I still get it, I updated the drivers everytime but still compiz=tearing.

Also, no open-source alternative.

Sorry, what I meant to say is "no open-source actively supported (by nvidia) alternative". Nouveau is not supported by nvdia in any way.

this card is backed up with binary driver for many years after its initial release, way more than amd

I have a geforce2 on another computer, still supported but the drivers are CRAP. Equally aged ATI cards have a WAY better support with open source drivers that will last forever.

[crazycheese]

Actually, with ATI I get a performance boost when compiz is enabled while playing games. Some phoronix tests also show this (can remember the link sorry)

Its good that you have performance increase, but I cannot confirm that either. I used opensource driver on 4770 and turning compiz off resulted in 20% performance increase. With nvidia proprietary I see absolutely no decrease. Maybe it is combination of either buggy drivers and/or very weak cards. As mentioned, I see no decrease.

Does it matter when the only driver they support is closed-source?

Yeah, AMD does not support open driver too. Don?t get me wrong, they released documentation and have at least 3 people working on drivers full day, yet official driver is closed source catalyst.
So your statement makes no sense.
However, your previous statement had sense, since nvidia settings is opensource, yet has no support for non-english language.

Sorry, but on my laptop I still get it, I updated the drivers everytime but still compiz=tearing.

9800gt(gnome2/compiz, now sold) - no tearing, 8300 IGP(gnome2/compiz, not my machine) - no tearing, 260sp216(kde4/kwin) - no tearing. I?m sorry you have the bug on laptop, I have no idea why.

Sorry, what I meant to say is "no open-source actively supported (by nvidia) alternative". Nouveau is not supported by nvdia in any way.

Yes. Pretty much correct. But small details:
- nvidia does not hinder noveau, amd controls(less or more, bad or good) radeon
- noveau is firmware-free as it can generate the firmware itself, unlike radeon(xf86-video-ati and corresponding kernel driver)
- noveau, in features and performance is same to nvidia, as radeon to fglrx. Well, due to AMD not turning away, radeon is 150% of noveau, yet not even close to nvidia blob or fglrx. In terms of power management noveau is better..
- noveau is clean-room reverse engineered driver, but radeon is not link
- amd is completely satisfied with how, and how fast radeon driver is developed and financed; and how it lives together with fglrx. Well, I?m not. But everyone is free to choose,no?
- if you buy discrete card for 3d, neither of the drivers is usable, both opensource are interesting mostly for legacy unsupported cards(much less impacts nvidia)

I have a geforce2 on another computer, still supported but the drivers are CRAP. Equally aged ATI cards have a WAY better support with open source drivers that will last forever.

I have five or six geforce2mx cards and one radeon 64 DDR(aka first radeon, R100). I don?t know when I will throw them away. They are all completely outdated crap. The performance of such cards nowadays on anything but 2D, is great luck. No one ever will bother to correct the driver code or fix bug, be it closed or opensource. Voodoo is much more sexy, even stays today, but they threw out its code from Mesa, remember?