Catalyst 14.4 Has Advantages Over Linux 3.15 + Mesa 10.3 Git

[remm]

What about performance and stability?

If you want to run demanding games, the proprietary driver is the way to go IMO. However, for smaller games and gnome 3, it is very stable (my 7870 was less stable and had bios issues too ...).

IMO nouveau is better than radeon-si, and nv proprietary is better than catalyst.

[schmidtbag]

Hmm catalyst has really improved it seems. I wonder how it compared to Windows now. I'd consider switching back to catalyst, if:
* crossfire works with more games
* crossfire doesn't conflict with IOMMU
* window manager compositing is as smooth as it is on the radeon drivers
* performance isn't choppy in games (even if frame rate is high)
* mouse responsiveness is normal
* intended future support for wayland

[droidhacker]

Contrary to the title of this "article", the only conclusion you can draw is OPPOSITE.
Mesa has advantage OVER crapalyst.

Specifically, EVERY SINGLE MEASURE of mesa EXCEEDED the fluid-motion threshold. MOST of them were downright into the OMG EFFPEEESSSSSSSS jerkoff range.

The ONLY measure that was BELOW fluid-motion threshold was... yep, CRAPALYST. Page 3, first chart.
Fooling is irrelevant, since crapalyst simply can't handle it.

[dungeon]

Small testing from me Xonotic @1024x768 on Athlon 5350:

Windows 7 32bit Catalyst

low 99.63 fps
med 90.65 fps
normal 84.28 fps
high 70.17 fps
ultra 59.69 fps
ultimate 42.57 fps

Debian Sid 32bit radeon

low 78.62 fps
med 72.23 fps
normal 65.60 fps
high 54.95 fps
ultra (N/A)
ultimate (N/A)

N/A = radeon fails on ultra/ultimate because of Offset Mapping feature.

I don't wanna any of these making looking good (even Xonotic is one of the best scenario to making radeon looking good) , Don't have 64bit Windows.

I can run fglrx on 32bit Debian but in 32bit OS fglrx 14.4 for some reason have very slugish 2D, but on 64bit Debian Sid flgrx 2D works fine . And also 64bit Xonotic executables working faster .

[deanjo]

It's true, but if you set console level of quality (720p+low) it's will work just fine even on Intel HD4600. A lot of PS3/Xbox360 players played game this way and it's designed to be playable in this resolution.

Not really, talking from first hand experience. Even at 720p and details cranked down it gets pretty choppy on a HD4600.

[jrch2k8]

well i too believe people should evaluate more seriously the drivers instead of just cry FPS OMG.

my system:
AMD FX 6100
AMD radeon HD 7700 2GB
16 GB DDR3 1866
256GB Crucial M500 SSD

for example:

Catalyst

1.) Xvba: is horrid to make it work(even this day even on arch is a miracle to get it to render and not hung up the whole GPU)
2.) 2D accel: feel very slow and is a tearfest but if you activate tear free it does tear less(still tears tho) but it get considerably slower too, quite crash prone, sometimes you get render/input lag too(has improved i admit that but well)
3.) OpenCL: you got to pray hard so it won't hang the GPU(except in some well known benchmarks, ohh big surprise) when it works(quite touch and go depending the catalyst version)
4.) 3D accel: huge FPS for the moar moar people but input lag, frame skip, texture quality issues, poor OpenGL compliance(this is true in windows Catalyst too for OpenGL), in driver per game optimization hacks, questionable security blackhole, wine support require divine assistance
5.) Opengl Version: 4.4 but lots of softwares fallbacks and bad implementation and weird result all over the place, technically is better to stick to version 3 API and handpick working extensions from 4+, so it technically shows 4.4 but is mostly for show to the moar moar people
6.) easy of install: depend your distro kernel Xorg version, normally very late compared to radeon or Nvidia Blob
7.) stability: very dependant on the version, sometimes fix 1 but break 10 stuff sometimes not and is a very variant experience depending your GPU
8.) old hardware support: inexistant unless your distro got stucked in 2009
9.)Wayland support: knowing AMD speed to catch up, expected in quarter 3 of year 2022 as technical preview
10.) bug support: unexistant at best
11.) DPM: quite good (windows catalyst is a tad better)
12.) video enconding: non existant

advantages: show moar FPS and report moar GL version

RadeonSI:
1.) VDPAU: works beatifully(if your GPU supports it) and out of the box, never hangs or present render errors, pletora of compatible clients, miss some codecs tho
2.) 2D accel: brutally fast especially with Xorg-1.16 and latest code, render and input lag free and rock solid stable even living on the git
3.) OpenCL: still on heavy development but when used in a supported enviroment never hang the GPU(may vary depending the GPU) just sigsegv the application(i think is better this way)
4.) 3D Accel: good enough speed for most task(valve, wine, native games, desktop, Qt5, wayland,etc), no noticeable hacks or input/render lags and no per games driver hacks(may be bad for some ppl in the FPS moar fest but i believe is the right way), wine support is very good
5.) Opengl version: 3.3 + some 4+ groundwork but very good level of complaince overall and minimal software fallbacks this days, overall very good compliance(apply to most mesa drivers)
6.) easy of install: good for release distros(may require external repos sometimes to try new features) and braindead for rolling distros like Arch
7.) stability: since kernel 3.12 never had any stability issue at all(may vary per GPU)
8.) old hardware support: excellent and improving daily even on 20+ years old hardware
9.) wayland support: SuperB
10.) bug support: excellent and improving, direct access to developers
11.) DPM: almost or close to catalyst level(some GPU need hardware bugs fixes)
12.) video encoding: OMX support for latest hardware only, future releases will support previous hardware generations

advantages: pretty much ass kick fglrx at everything but moar FPS in benchmarks

[dungeon]

I overall considered radeon driver at 40-80% GL performance level of Windows Catalyst. And we are at the same level for more then 10 (fuckin' years baby yes ) years, so nothing changed for that matter in more then 10 years . I use r200 driver ~10 years (and compared it from the dri1 times when it perform the best that is around 2006. just before AMD cames with their opensource strategy), and now i see radeonsi is on the same level when compared with Windows Catalyst, so i can clearly say - absolutly nothing changed there with GL performance wise .

When i say that i always excluded bugs in radeon (there are many bugs out there), i just considered that N/A .

[blackiwid]

I am totaly fine if somebody uses a blob maybe even buys a nvidia card or something. But just do it and shut up.

If u are on a opensource site operating system site / forum u should not produce comments that just say something is bad because in one aspect it is not the best, fps.

If you really do not value at all if software is free/opensource Software even a driver that has root-privileges k nice for u rape GNU/Linux by installing this nsa-spyware and live happy with bugs and stuff u cant fix and be happy with each kernel update breaking your linux, as long as u dont try to blaim kernel developers for nvidia not accepting the lisense of the kernel.

But what really sucks is this attitute u can say FOR U Speed matters more than freedom, and in comparsion of both u tend more into speed and u take that.

But dont slag on the work of others, the specs are there, if you wanna make it better u could do it. If not shut your faces.

[dungeon]

If u are on a opensource site operating system site / forum u should not produce comments that just say something is bad because in one aspect it is not the best, fps.

Who says it is all about fps, there are many rendering bugs too .

If you really do not value at all if software is free/opensource Software even a driver that has root-privileges k nice for u rape GNU/Linux by installing this nsa-spyware and live happy with bugs and stuff u cant fix and be happy with each kernel update breaking your linux, as long as u dont try to blaim kernel developers for nvidia not accepting the lisense of the kernel.

Who says that i don't value opensuorce software or other people work . What i say is: when i am doing benchmarking, i don't favor any of the drivers. And i use radeon, but when i doing benchamrking i considered it the same as any other drivers blob or not, and i don't wanna make it or others looking good

What i think during benchamarking is only: if rendering is good, lets do some benchamarking. If rendering is not good, or drivers have problems which can make results be wrong - i don't mind doing it, blob or not that is N/A who cares .

But what really sucks is this attitute u can say FOR U Speed matters more than freedom, and in comparsion of both u tend more into speed and u take that.

Do i need to repeat again, that is my mind durin' benchmarking . I don't say nothing about software freedoms, etc .

[dungeon]

absolutly nothing changed there with GL performance wise .

Maybe you think about this i am saying there, that is very true from my angle . And that does not mean i don't value people who making it work, even at that level or any level . If situaton is better for us radeon users, i will say that also - but that is simply not the case when compared with Windows Catalsyt driver .