AMD 2007 Year In Review

The first major change of the year for AMD's Linux Graphics Product Group was with the Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition and then things really started to get interesting in the late third quarter with the new driver code-base with performance improvements galore and Radeon HD 2000 compatibility with AIGLX support. That's in addition to their tandem support for the open-source RadeonHD driver and delivering open specifications.

Looking over our benchmarks of these twelve Linux drivers, it's very easy to see where the new Linux driver code-base was implemented. In Doom 3, Quake 4, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars there are terrific gains attributed to this new driver code-base. Even after the new driver was implemented in fglrx 8.41.7, there has been a slight performance boost in the 8.42.3 release while in 8.43.2 and 8.44.3 the frame-rate had recessed.

This year, however, wasn't perfect and many Linux users are still frustrated by AMD's Linux support. If you look at the AMD/ATI Linux section of the Phoronix Forums it's still very visible that there are some bugs to be worked out in this new driver code-base and not everyone is satisfied. The driver has improved dramatically over the past year or even comparing it to six months ago, but there is still work to be done. AMD does realize that everything isn't perfect and going into 2008, they are working on more features and changes for their Linux driver as well as bringing on additional staff. Need we say that 2008 should be another very interesting year for AMD and Linux?