"Ask ATI" dev thread

[Pedric]

Dear Ati dev,

What is the point of the "AMD Proprietary Linux Release Notes" website and the text within the "ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Releases" rss news feed containing different resolved issues lists?

[mitch074]

Catalyst 8.9

Hello all,

I just properly installed Catalyst 8.9 (build 8.532) on my system.

First note: World of Warcraft in Direct3D mode over Wine works beautifully - if slowly (framerate gets a hit). Switching to OpenGL though, that ain't no good (I will probably need to apply the workarounds described in Wine's AppDB) as the screen gets mostly dark (I can login but I can't see my character, and once in-game there are triangles all over the place).

I'll test video quality and corruption (using textured video) tomorrow, but it's reported as fixed.

That's better, all in all.

[oblidor]

My question:

Will AMD/ATI (as they, roumeredly, are merging the Windows and Linux code base) add temperature sensor data of the GPU and possibility to change the fan settings from Linux? Or do we need to buy Windows and break the warrenty by flashing the BIOS?

[oblidor]

@Bridgman:

I recently put together a HTPC MythTV box with AMD 780G chipset and integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics and ran into unexpected problems.

1. Can you provide an estimated timeframe when the video tearing/shearing problem related to the lack of vsync will be fixed?

It isn't even fixed in windows. When in games there are video sessions I get tearing. In actual game I'm not getting it.

When it comes to Linux, DRI2 will solve the problem as you can use OpenGl and Compiz together...

I have use Catalyse 8.7 and 8.9

[oblidor]

To a certain extent open source GPU driver support is a "cost of doing business" on the CPU side, but it benefits both enterprise and consumer users in the process.

It is this dubious mindset that need to change! There would have been no MacOS X today if it wasn't for Open Source. But that is so easily forgotten!

If AMD/ATI looks at making drivers of Linux or other open source OSes as a "cost" then I wonder how much more Windows users pay for the hardware that Linux users don't? I didn't need to pay for the windows driver last time I looked. And if a AMD/ATI thinks that the Microsoft de facto OS monopoly is a Good Thing(TM), then how would they find a NVIDIA or Intel GPU marked monopoly?

[bridgman]

My question:

Will AMD/ATI (as they, roumeredly, are merging the Windows and Linux code base) add temperature sensor data of the GPU and possibility to change the fan settings from Linux? Or do we need to buy Windows and break the warrenty by flashing the BIOS?

I think we already allow reading of temperature sensor data :

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_overdrive_linux&num=2

I don't know enough about fan control details to give an intelligent answer yet, stay tuned.

[bridgman]

If AMD/ATI looks at making drivers of Linux or other open source OSes as a "cost" then I wonder how much more Windows users pay for the hardware that Linux users don't? I didn't need to pay for the windows driver last time I looked.

I think we are already spending more per user (ie per GPU sale) on Linux drivers than on Windows drivers. We obviously spend more on Windows drivers in terms of absolute dollars but once you factor market share in things look very different.

Everything we do is a cost; you just need to balance it against the benefits. Money we invest in open source graphics drivers just happens to benefit the CPU side of the business more than the GPU side of the business, since Linux market share is perhaps 20x higher in the server space (through CPU sales) than in the desktop space. This may change over time, particularly if enterprise client use of Linux increases as everyone expects. If that happens, then we should start to see some benefits from the open source graphics work in the GPU side of the business.

And if a AMD/ATI thinks that the Microsoft de facto OS monopoly is a Good Thing(TM), then how would they find a NVIDIA or Intel GPU marked monopoly?

Depends on whether we were a GPU vendor or an OS vendor

Anyways, that is a bit too hypothetical for me. If we only supported Windows I guess it would be a fair question, but we supply drivers for MacOS, Linux and Windows today, and invest about the same per-customer in each of the areas. If anything our per-customer investment in MacOS and Linux is higher than other OSes, since functionality expectations are about the same even though the market share is much less.

[Tares]

hello,

will the upcoming release (8.10) support 2.6.27 kernel so I could use it with HD4850 and Ubuntu 8.10 ?

[Kano]

The problem is not the kernel (which can be patched), it is the xserver 1.5.

[Tares]

The problem is not the kernel (which can be patched), it is the xserver 1.5.

Okay, so let me rephrase my question ;-)

Will the upcoming 8.10 support xserver 1.5 which is default in Ubuntu 8.10 ? :-)