AMD Catalyst 7.11 Linux Driver

[cjr2k3]

Memory Leaks are only present with a certain family of cards. My X1400M are one of them

[Nevohteeb]

I should probably test the driver with my X850 as well, things might be different with it, but my hopes are high

I would love you to let me know the results. Anf I would also love to have a look at your xorg.conf since x800 and x850 are same generation cards.

[Pseus]

Given all the fuss about the new drivers totally sucking, I thought it'd be nice to contribute with my (positive) experience.
Yesterday I installed version 7.11 (up from 8.37.6) on an old rig with a Radeon 9600SE, and everything went just fine. 3D performance is up a notch, AIGLX works (albeit slowly) and Xvideo performance is on par with that of the open "radeon" driver from Xorg. I haven't noticed any obvious leaks at all; memory usage is steady even when running intensive 3D apps.
It may have something to do with this card being just an old r300, but at least it seems to work fine on it, and in my experience this is ATI's best driver to date. I guess my only real complaint is subpar performance with AIGLX and Compiz, but I can wait a bit more
I should probably test the driver with my X850 as well, things might be different with it, but my hopes are high

[scotsmist]

Actually, not comical at all. Because of few misleading news of new and *IMPROVED* ATI drivers on phoronix I bought x1650 naively thinking that ATI solved linux problems ages ago. I didn't read the forums, 'cause I had GF5700 which worked like perfectly, didn't even update the driver because when everything works who cares. Then entered the ATI world... Suddenly I couldn't watch HD rips because xv wasnt working properly, my tv and dvb card also stopped working because tvtime stopped working, found out that ATI OFFICIALLY says tvtime and mythtv WILL not work ?!?!?! Well what will ?!

I don't care about compiz and fancy stuff, but watching movies and 2d accel is pretty much basic stuff users expect, right ? According to ATI, no. Then I sold that crap x1650 and put green card in. There was couple of truthfull articles on phoronix, about the current state of ATI drivers, but when a new driver comes tu public you'll read just how great it is, you'll never find that critical piece if information "and we hope it will fix those many problems that plague ATI users".

I have used nvidia since the first geforce series and this build I went with an ati x1650 because I do not play games but wanted some eye candy. The last machine I worked on had a gf5200 in it and the only issues I had was needing to rebuild the driver from time to time. After building the new machine with the Ati x1650 Pro I have spent as much time fecking about with my setup as I have payed work in the past six months. Its not funny anymore, you have had plenty of chances to write adequate 2d support and so yesterday I purcahsed an 8600GT from amazon which arrived this morning. It is installed and working. All the eye candy works, everything just worked, just like that. How's that for support. It may not be the very fastst driver but it works and I have a working control panel that shows me among other things the gpu temperature. I'm off to nvidia forums again. Shame as I really wanted to give Ati a try but 8 months is long enough for the AMD management to decide just how commited they are to the Nix operating system.

If Nvidia keep getting it right in the Nix market they will have a business to support for a very long time because even the 7600 series still kicks incredible ass compared to what I have experienced so far from Ati. Two steps forward and one step back is not a way to keep customers. With so many laptops and notebooks using onbard Ati cards and AMD supporting nix one minute then only producing betas when it comes to the crunch is tale of a half hearted attempt to show that they are at least making an effort. The thing is that drivers don't make money, but if the cards aren't supported they will not sell. More and more people know now to come on forums and search before commiting their hard earned cash to the manufacturers who in my opinion are releasing hardware on us consumers in beta condition for us to test for them, at our expense simply because they do not have the resources to properly test the hardware they make because it is moving at such an alarming rate. No sooner are we, the consumer coming to accept one chipset then we are subjected to another, improved version, which was always the case since the majority of hardware today is already out of date long before it goes into manufacture. They don't usually release their best product first. Keeping something back is normal, however when it comes to drivers, if Ati could get it right with *nix they too could be enjoying a large aftermarket support so long as older cards could run at a decent speed without all the hassle, loops, hurdles, one step two steps, touch your nose and don't forget not to breath until its all finished.

Have fun waiting on Ati, if they are anything like Creative, then they will only ever commit to getting you lot out their faces.

[butdie]

another amd propaganda victim

don't get caught by amd propaganda again.

also, amd boasts how fast their new "real" quad-core processors are.

the fact is barcelona runs super-pi 1M in 30s, while core 2 duo runs 1M in half time.

I would say amd is trying desperately to fix the linux graphic issue, but it's slow.

Don't buy anything from amd yet before a new stable open driver available. I bet it means no AMD in years.

Actually, not comical at all. Because of few misleading news of new and *IMPROVED* ATI drivers on phoronix I bought x1650 naively thinking that ATI solved linux problems ages ago. I didn't read the forums, 'cause I had GF5700 which worked like perfectly, didn't even update the driver because when everything works who cares. Then entered the ATI world... Suddenly I couldn't watch HD rips because xv wasnt working properly, my tv and dvb card also stopped working because tvtime stopped working, found out that ATI OFFICIALLY says tvtime and mythtv WILL not work ?!?!?! Well what will ?!

I don't care about compiz and fancy stuff, but watching movies and 2d accel is pretty much basic stuff users expect, right ? According to ATI, no. Then I sold that crap x1650 and put green card in. There was couple of truthfull articles on phoronix, about the current state of ATI drivers, but when a new driver comes tu public you'll read just how great it is, you'll never find that critical piece if information "and we hope it will fix those many problems that plague ATI users".

[absbrain]

Why Phoronix is all the time advertising these drivers with such emphasis? All the time I read words such as "great" "the drivers had a long run" etc etc followed by hate comments.

A bit comical, isn't it?

Actually, not comical at all. Because of few misleading news of new and *IMPROVED* ATI drivers on phoronix I bought x1650 naively thinking that ATI solved linux problems ages ago. I didn't read the forums, 'cause I had GF5700 which worked like perfectly, didn't even update the driver because when everything works who cares. Then entered the ATI world... Suddenly I couldn't watch HD rips because xv wasnt working properly, my tv and dvb card also stopped working because tvtime stopped working, found out that ATI OFFICIALLY says tvtime and mythtv WILL not work ?!?!?! Well what will ?!

I don't care about compiz and fancy stuff, but watching movies and 2d accel is pretty much basic stuff users expect, right ? According to ATI, no. Then I sold that crap x1650 and put green card in. There was couple of truthfull articles on phoronix, about the current state of ATI drivers, but when a new driver comes tu public you'll read just how great it is, you'll never find that critical piece if information "and we hope it will fix those many problems that plague ATI users".

[Nevohteeb]

The ATI*.RUN package that Kano's script downloads from ATI, has package build functionality in it. When Kano's script calls ATI*.RUN --buildpkg Ubuntu/edgy, the ATI script generates 4 files, 3 of which are needed for install. The driver it self, starts with Xorg, you will have fglrx-kernel*.deb and fglrx-amdccc*.deb packages installed as well. Which should have the latest version numbers on them.

Indeed, I read the whole script and saw that it automatically does what I used to manualy do and a lot more. What I said is that maybe the package build fonctionnality given in ATI*.RUN doesn't generate the best .deb or something, so maybe that's why I don't have good performances with my hardware. After all, in ATI official release note it is said :

AMD recommends that this release of the AMD Catalyst? Linux software driver not be used for distribution packages. Distributors should continue to use the AMD Catalyst? Linux driver version 8.40.4

Hope that sheads light, and yes Kano's script has saved me on multiple Debian systems from headach.

That's why I keep the script for December release

[toxigenicpoem]

The ATI*.RUN package that Kano's script downloads from ATI, has package build functionality in it. When Kano's script calls ATI*.RUN --buildpkg Ubuntu/edgy, the ATI script generates 4 files, 3 of which are needed for install. The driver it self, starts with Xorg, you will have fglrx-kernel*.deb and fglrx-amdccc*.deb packages installed as well. Which should have the latest version numbers on them. Hope that sheads light, and yes Kano's script has saved me on multiple Debian systems from headach.

[Nevohteeb]

I got a huge performance boost from repo drivers to the 7.11. The thing is that I found something is leaking memory now, and WoW crashes after a bit of playing. I going to mess with Xorg.conf to see if I can stop the leaking (Composite "Enabled" maybe causing the leak?)

My card is a X1400 Mobility

Ok, so I guess my problem is due to the .deb generated by the official binary... All I have to do now is to wait for 7.11 to migrated to testing repo (4 days to go! )

I still have hope.

Thanks a lot, and let me know the results of your xorg.conf investigation.

[cjr2k3]

I got a huge performance boost from repo drivers to the 7.11. The thing is that I found something is leaking memory now, and WoW crashes after a bit of playing. I going to mess with Xorg.conf to see if I can stop the leaking (Composite "Enabled" maybe causing the leak?)

My card is a X1400 Mobility