AMD Catalyst 8.9 Gets WINE Fix, RandR 1.2 Support

[Extreme Coder]

While it's great to see such a large bugfix list, it's sad to see that new problems have been introduced, or that they haven't been solved completely. For example, when I started reading the article, I was like 'This is it! This is the driver release that will end all problems!', and then I get bummed by 3D corruption on the Unigine Tropics engine :/ Why is having normal 3D acceleration too hard?

[liels]

Still Tearing?

Is xv output (eg with mythtv) still tearing? While the changelog is impressive I won't be able to ditch my nvidia card until I can get tear-free output on mythtv.

[Vighy]

while everybody complains about small missing features :P
I do complain about a bad regression that segfaults my Xorg on start-up.

It already happened with Catalyst 8.7...

[...snip...]
(II) fglrx(0): Direct rendering enabled
(II) fglrx(0): Interrupt handler installed at IRQ 16.
(II) fglrx(0): Exposed events to the /proc interface
(II) fglrx(0): Finished Initialize PPLIB!
(II) fglrx(1): === [atiddxPreInit] === begin
(EE) fglrx(1): Quitting secondary screen -- no monitor specified.
(EE) fglrx(1): PreInit failed
(II) fglrx(1): === [atiddxPreInit] === end

Backtrace:
0: /usr/bin/X(xf86SigHandler+0x6a) [0x49263a]
1: /lib/libc.so.6 [0x7f9e61f5dda0]
2: /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers//fglrx_drv.so(atiddxFreeScreen+0x2f4) [0x7f9e5fcfa434]
3: /usr/bin/X(xf86DeleteScreen+0x7e) [0x4a5ade]
4: /usr/bin/X(InitOutput+0xa1f) [0x46c0bf]
5: /usr/bin/X(main+0x2c6) [0x437256]
6: /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6) [0x7f9e61f491d6]
7: /usr/bin/X(FontFileCompleteXLFD+0x289) [0x4366f9]

Fatal server error:
Caught signal 11.  Server aborting

exactly the same backtrace!! (info about my architecture are in that thread, too)
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11570


and other people experienced it too:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11794
with other chipsets...


Catalyst 8.8 and 8.6 didn't suffer for the hang.
There may be a workaround?

[carpex]

Its funny that WINE fixes are supposed to be an important feature of this release, but there is no mention of WINE in the release notes.

[Kano]

That driver is fully crap for several reasons:

a) Using Debian etch + Xorg 7.1.1

OpenGL accelleration only works as root! The xorg.conf entry

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Seems to be fully ignored. Absolutely unusable!

b) Absolutely no rendering improvements - even as root pointsprites are missing

Hey mtippet didn't you tell me at the end of JUNE that after 2 month all would work - like gl2benchmark and your example with flightgear?

c) Not even the most trivial fixes for 2.6.27 support - load the kernel module only smp_call_function must be fixed - for 2.6.27 and newer the 3rd option has to be removed, wow thats really hard that you can not make it.

Maybe AMD/ATI wants to wins the worst driver of the year award with that piece of shit. I guess the Linux devs there play at home with Nvidia cards in their pcs.

[Pfanne]

That driver is fully crap for several reasons:

a) Using Debian etch + Xorg 7.1.1

OpenGL accelleration only works as root! The xorg.conf entry

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Seems to be fully ignored. Absolutely unusable!

b) Absolutely no rendering improvements - even as root pointsprites are missing

Hey mtippet didn't you tell me at the end of JUNE that after 2 month all would work - like gl2benchmark and your example with flightgear?

c) Not even the most trivial fixes for 2.6.27 support - load the kernel module only smp_call_function must be fixed - for 2.6.27 and newer the 3rd option has to be removed, wow thats really hard that you can not make it.

Maybe AMD/ATI wants to wins the worst driver of the year award with that piece of shit. I guess the Linux devs there play at home with Nvidia cards in their pcs.

well thats one hell of a great post...
why don't you try to rant a little bit less and at least tell us what gpu you are using...

[NeoBrain]

Having tested it a bit further now (esp. regarding Wine), I noticed that (apart from the usual screen corruption) virtual desktop switching works again and Wine doesn't segfault anymore when started twice on the same terminal.

By the way, @Michael: the official spelling is Wine, not WINE.

[BlackStar]

I couldn't get this driver to work: a few seconds after X started, it would (soft) crash. It's the first time a driver didn't work here and no amount of tinkering could get it in shape, so I'm back to 8.8 for now.

RV580 (X1950 Pro) on Ubuntu 8.04 x86_64 with 6GB of memory.

At least 8.8 works quite well, so it's not a problem. Looking forward to Ubuntu 8.10 with the open-source drivers now - already tested and they work flawlessly here!

[rbmorse]

Works fine, here (Ubuntu 8.04) with my HD 3870.

But, I'm not doing anything interesting.

[flami]

Well now "OffscreenRenderingMode fbo" works in wine again, so no stuff thats not supposed to on the screen appears in the bottom left, but I cant minimize or switch desktop anymore . I can interact with the desktop ( e.g. open something in the taskbar ) , but i cant see anything . It flickers for a second where i see the desktop , then wine's all over the place again .

( debian lenny , mobility x700 )