AMD Radeon HD 4290 On Linux

At 1920 x 1080, the Radeon HD 4290 again could not provide a pleasant experience with the Nexuiz game.

The Lightsmark results again were extremely low and rather disappointing.

The ATI Radeon HD 4290 when equipped with the Catalyst 10.4 Linux driver is a mildly disappointing experience. Even open-source games like Nexuiz and barely Warsow could run well with the Radeon HD 4290 / 890GX at a high resolution. The Radeon HD 4290 IGP does offer UVD2 support for accelerated video playback, but UVD2 on Linux is only of limited benefit at this point with XvBA (X-Video Bitstream Acceleration) having turned out to be a closed API with an implementation that's only exposed through a VA-API front-end.

The ATI Radeon HD 4650 as shown in these test results was an excellent performer in comparison to the Radeon HD 4290 IGP with it running several times faster, yet this discrete PCI Express graphics card sells for just $50~60+ USD (at retailers like Amazon.com), which makes it a much better choice for the casual gaming setup. If you're interested in video playback under Linux for an HTPC system, you're really best off buying a NVIDIA graphics card that supports VDPAU for the best Linux video experience possible using NVIDIA's binary drivers. However, if all you need is an ATI IGP for desktop usage with a compositing manager, the ATI Radeon HD 4290 should be able to get you by while being backed by proper open-source support.