Reality check - AMD needs to get their priorities right.

[maggot_brain]

I'm quite bemused by all these people complaining that they can't get Compiz working. Some of us do not have usable video playback or working suspend/resume or the fglrx driver just doesn't work at all.

It infuriates me when people complain about daft wobbly windows when a lot of users cannot even use their graphics cards for simple tasks (or indeed at all).

AMD/ATI needs to get its priorities right and fix the following:

1. Get the driver to work on ALL systems, X86 or X86-64 and for all GPUs it claims to 'support'.
2. Fix suspend/resume on laptops
3. Fix Xv output and general video playback to stop video TEARING or the xserver crashing.
4. General games support needs to be improved

It is my opinion that these should take precedence over AIGLX.

What does everyone else think? Feel free to add to the list of issues you believe are more important that AIGLX.

[FunkyRider]

1. Fix the damn scrolling slow down as it is really irritating to see a super fast computer acts like a dog when browsing a webpage!

[Crunchy]

Your right: as it stands no driver works well for my x1950 AGP. 8.40.x and earlier treat my card as PCIE, video and most 3D apps run very slowly. Only way to get it to work at all is with AGP apeture set to 256MB.

8.42.3 finally treats my card as AGP but I get an error in my Xorg.0.log and video and all 3D apps run even slower.

Windows is not much better, 7.8 Catalyst were causing crashes and it wasn't till I installed 7.9 that didn't work at all that I found out that there was a "Known Issue" with my card in the Release Notes, grr. You tell them your card when you download so you'd think there could be a warning!

Get the basics right on all supported cards ATI!

[Game_boy]

1. Make the install, update and overwrite process as simple and predictable as Windows. Double-click on binary, progress bar, done.

[lionheart]

I can't think how some people can be amused at this driver release. They actually worsened what it was already worse.

Terminal scrolling now became slow and unworkable with, AIGLX support is there on its early stage and in fact it still misses supporting many visual modes (not counting the fact with Compiz still many people can't make it work or find it slow or, in some case, are able to get it partially working with third party hacks).

Xv output is still indecent and suspend/resume doesn't work.

For people like me using Fedora 7, they even broke the packaging scripts for x86_64 systems.

I can't obviously trash the videocard as that would imply trashing the whole notebook, and at the time I have no intention to waste money for ATI's fault. I will keep using Windows where their driver runs just fine but, in the future, be the driver improved or not, I will avoid as rape ATI.

Like already someone else said, NVIDIA did it better and since almost 1 year. They are terribly late and instead of rushing a mature driver development they keep coming up with this sort of driver aborts that work only with some empirical workarounds.

I won't wait anymore for a driver release like this crap. I'd rather look at the Avivo project how it is going, you can bet they will do a better job than those incompetents at ATI.

Sorry for being harsh but the topic called reality: there you go...

[koolmanoncampus]

I'm quite bemused by all these people complaining that they can't get Compiz working. Some of us do not have usable video playback or working suspend/resume or the fglrx driver just doesn't work at all.

It infuriates me when people complain about daft wobbly windows when a lot of users cannot even use their graphics cards for simple tasks (or indeed at all).

AMD/ATI needs to get its priorities right and fix the following:

1. Get the driver to work on ALL systems, X86 or X86-64 and for all GPUs it claims to 'support'.
2. Fix suspend/resume on laptops
3. Fix Xv output and general video playback to stop video TEARING or the xserver crashing.
4. General games support needs to be improved

It is my opinion that these should take precedence over AIGLX.

What does everyone else think? Feel free to add to the list of issues you believe are more important that AIGLX.

I agree whole-heartedly. AIGLX is nice; but it's not nearly as important as those 4 things you mention. I would also add proper-dual head support. I used to have it perfect back with fc6 & 8.whatever was out then; I even had it right in f7 for awhile. But then all of a sudden their dual-head support fell apart.


And I am personally thrilled about how AMD is opening up their driver development process; as that is the best method of all as it removes dependency on the fglrx blob. On principle and given time, it will be better than anything NVIDIA can offer; unless of course they open up their sources too.

[FunkyRider]

Their attitude of opening up spec is somehow questionable

It's been a month and half since they released 2 2D specs. Are they ever gonna release 3D spec so open source driver developers can work on getting OpenGL to work at all? If yes, how long do we/they have to wait?

[lionheart]

The problem is really this: concept of time. We are getting bug fixes at the rate of 1 per month and for each new release 3 or 4 new ones get introduced.

This is a clear evidence of lack of expertise that ATI/AMD management put on Linux driver development. I'm quite surprised how Michael follows the driver development so enthusiastically in this board. Though he doesn't deserve to get blamed as the problem comes from a much higher level and he's just trying to do his best. He's probably neither on ATI/AMD's payroll and do this just for fun.

I think many appreciate his work but if my suggestion can be worth something, there are so many users well right pissed off with ATI that have no enthusiasm to spend on alpha quality driver releases (neither alpha quality I'd say, given the continous bugs not being fixed even after 1 month).

If this will be the normal long-term schedule, I expect disastrous drivers for the future. I'm on the way of getting a laptop with Intel X3100 and selling the old one losing 50% of the value. Money wasted but open drivers for the future and no guaranteed ATI hassle.

[Karel]

AIGLX may work, but some of us still can't use it as Compiz/Compiz Fusion/Beryl doesn't start at certain cards (seems to be problem with Radeon 9600XT).

ATI/AMD needs to invest money in Linux development, that's the only single problem - more developers, more resources, less hype.

[koolmanoncampus]

Their attitude of opening up spec is somehow questionable

It's been a month and half since they released 2 2D specs. Are they ever gonna release 3D spec so open source driver developers can work on getting OpenGL to work at all? If yes, how long do we/they have to wait?

I imagine it's legal that's holding them up. Lots of companies are afraid of losing IP. Even if that is a valid argument from legal, what would lose by opening up their sources is balanced by the loss of customers if they don't.

I was talking to an AMD rep a few months ago, and they said they had been working on what they released already for like a year because of legal. So I imagine its just a matter of time until the 3d specs come out. Unless legal really drag themselves on it. But the fact is having a binary closed-source driver for linux is just dumb. Things change so fast; it pays to be able to have it updated by the linux community themselves.