AMD Makes An Evolutionary Leap In Linux Support

[duby229]

Haven't had any probs here in a long while, but I haven't used any of the new cards yet, waiting for a good gaming need. I wonder how the open nvidia drivers vs. the open ati drivers perform. I do know nVidia's closed drivers are pretty solid though at least.

nVidia's open drivers are a total joke. They have a very poorly written 2d stack, no video , no 3d.... Even the mode setting code was written in a way that it cant really be ported to anything else.... That whole driver was written specifically so that it couldnt be improved on.

Then there is Nouvou(sp) that is doing great under the curcumstances, but wont work for most people for most needs. Some folks may be able to get it to work properly for there needs ,but its just so far from completion that it isnt ready yet..

[Svartalf]

You can't say we suck relative to NVidia because our open source driver does something faster than our closed source driver

No, and I wouldn't. Things have improved both with fglrx and with the FOSS driver that I'm evaluating acquiring a couple of AMD parts- which is about 6-12 months sooner than I thought that was going to happen...

[Dragonlord]

Haven't had any probs here in a long while, but I haven't used any of the new cards yet, waiting for a good gaming need. I wonder how the open nvidia drivers vs. the open ati drivers perform. I do know nVidia's closed drivers are pretty solid though at least.

I would not consider ever-crashing drivers solid. Granted I went for the big cake with the 4870 but as a gamedev this is what you do :P . That said I had quite some unpleasant clashes with fglrx in the past... I mean... "FBO + Stencil = Crash" or "glReadPixels + FBO = Crash" are just two of the things I had to struggle with. That said nVidia has it's own quirks ( like FBO-Render-Target-limitation idiocy, notoriously ignorance to glPolygonOffset or GLSL compilation tombola ). But at last their drivers do not crash all the time except if you choke something down OGL which has not been proper ( in which case though it has been your fault ).

[Yfrwlf]

nVidia's open drivers are a total joke. They have a very poorly written 2d stack, no video , no 3d.... Even the mode setting code was written in a way that it cant really be ported to anything else.... That whole driver was written specifically so that it couldnt be improved on.

Then there is Nouvou(sp) that is doing great under the curcumstances, but wont work for most people for most needs. Some folks may be able to get it to work properly for there needs ,but its just so far from completion that it isnt ready yet..

Yeah I have hopes for Nouveau too but at the same time I wanna say screw it to nVidia for not even wanting to be nice to open source, so it just depends on how well AMD follows through and how their drivers and performance are in a few months compared to nVidia.

On another note I'm definitely opposing any of the lock the motherboard to the gfx card crap though, I'm angry enough as it is with Intel and AMD not using standard CPU socket types, so whoever tries to dig even deeper into making the whole system locked in will lose my business and support. Standards means more options and competition for consumers.

[Yfrwlf]

I would not consider ever-crashing drivers solid. Granted I went for the big cake with the 4870 but as a gamedev this is what you do :P . That said I had quite some unpleasant clashes with fglrx in the past... I mean... "FBO + Stencil = Crash" or "glReadPixels + FBO = Crash" are just two of the things I had to struggle with. That said nVidia has it's own quirks ( like FBO-Render-Target-limitation idiocy, notoriously ignorance to glPolygonOffset or GLSL compilation tombola ). But at last their drivers do not crash all the time except if you choke something down OGL which has not been proper ( in which case though it has been your fault ).

I'm excited to see the push toward Gallium3D, I hope it makes driver development much easier and solves a lot of the Linux gfx driver bugginess. Any way, once some of the newer and bigger Linux games come out, I'll be excited to see the current state between nVidia and ATI on Linux to plan my upgrade, and I will give AMD some points for their open source friendliness.

[Dragonlord]

What goes for features if a game engine is not totally dick headed it should not make too much of a difference. There are some differences from the game developers point of view ( which are though due to lousy definitions in opengl leaving room for too much interpretation ) but for the end user there is not much difference. Speed wise I would say the two are not too much different what goes for the drivers just the level of troubles you have is different ( ATI = Linux troubles, nVidia = Windows troubles ) but this can ( and hopefully WILL ) change.

[Yfrwlf]

What goes for features if a game engine is not totally dick headed it should not make too much of a difference. There are some differences from the game developers point of view ( which are though due to lousy definitions in opengl leaving room for too much interpretation ) but for the end user there is not much difference. Speed wise I would say the two are not too much different what goes for the drivers just the level of troubles you have is different ( ATI = Linux troubles, nVidia = Windows troubles ) but this can ( and hopefully WILL ) change.

Hell yeah it will change, the rest of 2008 should bring good changes to Linux, we shall see. =^_^=

[pamindic]

That was the hope..

Hell yeah it will change, the rest of 2008 should bring good changes to Linux, we shall see. =^_^=

.. but the reality is something quite different.

I don't know how Phoronix are supposed to have gotten the ATI HD4850 card to play with Linux, but after buying the Gigabyte card in June on the strength of this article and their enthusiastic 4850 review, its still in the ant-static bag waiting for a driver that will work it under Ubuntu. That makes around the 6th ATI card that has given me eye-watering grief over the years. AMD's much reported Linux commitment, as far as I can tell, is pure hype. And graphics card problems remain the biggest single barrier to the adoption of Linux on the desktop.

[BlackStar]

.. but the reality is something quite different.

I don't know how Phoronix are supposed to have gotten the ATI HD4850 card to play with Linux, but after buying the Gigabyte card in June on the strength of this article and their enthusiastic 4850 review, its still in the ant-static bag waiting for a driver that will work it under Ubuntu. That makes around the 6th ATI card that has given me eye-watering grief over the years. AMD's much reported Linux commitment, as far as I can tell, is pure hype. And graphics card problems remain the biggest single barrier to the adoption of Linux on the desktop.

Yesterday, I upgraded from an MSI X1950 to a Connect3d 4850. Ubuntu Intrepid with the closed drivers: old card out, new card in and it just works, compiz and all. That's better than vista where drivers had to be reinstalled.

I'm sorry, but you are simply spreading FUD here.

[cruiseoveride]

No he is not.

You are probably running an old version of Linux. And thus the drivers even installed in the first place. Give it a try on any new Distro and see if it works for you

We all know Phoronix is biased towards ATi, so don't take the "enthusiasm" seriously.