The New Driver Is Out! Meet Oktoberfest!

[Michael]

The New Driver Is Out! Meet Oktoberfest!

AMD 8.41 Display Driver Preview -- Our first article on this new driver are simply the technical details such as noting this driver has been actually in development for over a year, the AIGLX support that is coming next month, and other relevant information.

Read More: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10955

ATI R300/400 Linux Performance -- We re-tested the Radeon X300 and X800XL with this new driver and it offers some HUGE performance improvements! The Mobility Radeon X300 was as much as 54 times faster compared to the previous ATI Linux driver. The improvements in these older ATI GPUs are simply astonishing.

Read More: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10964

ATI R500 Linux Performance -- With an X1300PRO, X1800XL, X1800XT, and X1950PRO in hand we compared the ATI 8.40 and 8.41 display drivers. The performance improvements for the Radeon X1000 series range from 50% to 90% faster.

Read More: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10970

ATI Radeon HD 2900XT Linux Performance -- Four months after the Radeon HD 2900XT was introduced there is finally proper Linux support! Not only is there support, but it offers a pretty darn good level of performance. In fact, the ATI Radeon HD 2900XT offers the best bang for the buck when it comes to high-end graphics cards. There is also more on the R600 support in general inside this article.

Read More: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10973

AMD: Accelerating Open-Source Drivers? -- Not today, but in the near future AMD will be making an announcement about accelerating efforts within the open-source community. What does this mean? Open-Source ATI Drivers? We will tell you in due time.

Read More: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10977


More to come later in the morning... It's been a very long day. If there are any test requests or other information you would like to know before the driver actually is downloadable, let me know.

[lenrek]

Hey... Finally something interesting to read about.

[Svartalf]

I'll say...

If Michael hadn't already named it...I still like my pet name for 'em...

[Svartalf]

If there are any test requests or other information you would like to know before the driver actually is downloadable, let me know.

Can we see some abuse dished out via Viewperf (Yeah, yeah, I know- it's one of the standard torture tests all the same and NVidia AND AMD/ATI use it as one of their benchmarks)?

(EDIT) Oh, can we see if the driver actually WORKS with Hypermemory machines properly in UMA, Dedicated, and UMA+Dedicated modes and what performance values we get from all three modes?

[www1862]

I have a question,what about my X1100 IGP?It belongs to which series?It seemly to be based on X300?

[hobophobe]

If there are any test requests or other information you would like to know before the driver actually is downloadable, let me know.

(Emphasis added)

Does it blend?

The main question I have is where will AMD go from here. I'm assuming that over the next few months they'll roll out AIGLX (next month), and continue to tweak performance on some of the older cards, do maintenance on the new driver... but does 8.41 mark AMD 'caught up' to linux and able to do more in the future in terms of keeping up with kernel releases and X.org releases?

And the best answer to that I can hope for may be contained in "...what AMD will be sharing in the near future with this announcement..."

Thanks for the good news, Michael.

[hmmm]

WOW - Michael the hype leading up to it 8.41 was well worth it. I made a decision to get a HD2600XT a month ago based on your hype - thankyou and thanks ATI

Just have to wait a week or so...

Have there been any changes with respect to CCC and the installation procedure (other then just updating packaging scripts and a new ccc version number)?

Test request - no chance you can see if any major games [hl2, oblivion] supported by wine now "work better"?

Test request 2 - Savage 2 beta old driver vs new driver comparison

Test request 3 - comparison of windows vs linux performance with new driver in doom 3 & q4:et

[hobophobe]

I have a question,what about my X1100 IGP?It belongs to which series?It seemly to be based on X300?

You can find out via 'lspci' or else it's probably printed in your Xorg log somewhere as well (and other places too probably)...

If I do

lspci | grep ATI

it shows

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc R420 JI [Radeon X800PRO]
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc R420 [Radeon X800 PRO/GTO] (Secondary)

[Noneus]

Now let's all hope ATI will continue developing this new driver Perhaps I'll buy an ATI next year to replace my 7800GT.
One thing is bugging me though. No word about using the videoplayback acceleration for ATI cards. Someone has a clue?

[hugues]

How nice! You just made my decision easy! I was to go for Nvidia after years with ATI. I recently dropped Windows for Linux and was looking for a performance improvement...

Is there a date of availability for the new driver?