ATI drivers. Sigh.

sultanoswing · 2010-06-24 05:08:57

I've just purchased some hardware upgrades, and had been seriously considering an ATI 5770, since they're cooler, more efficient and cheaper than nvidia's DirectX 11 offerings, plus have excellent HDMI support.

What scared me back to nvidia (a GTX260) was reading (on here, the wiki, and elsewhere) the various niggles, incompatibilities and general hassle of ATI's linux drivers (and ATI's Window's drivers also seem more problematic than nvidia's from my readings). Nvidia's drivers have been seamless for me on both platforms, on laptops and desktops.

For ATI I've read the stories about freezing, graphic artifacts on firefox, KMS woes, odd colours etc. etc. Warnings to not buy ATI if you run linux and I didn't want to be constantly 1-2 XOrg revisions behind waiting for catalyst to catch up, or alternately to sacrifice desktop 3D performance by using the open source drivers, which don't even seem to properly support the 5xxx series ATI cards.

Why the hell are ATI drivers (and I'm mainly angry at the proprietary ones) so poor on linux??

That's partly rhetorical and partly a frustrated plea for answers!

Last edited by sultanoswing (2010-06-24 07:08:29)

tomk · 2010-06-24 06:01:22

For your rhetorical requirements, get a blog.

For answers, ask ATI.

Cdh · 2010-06-24 07:24:18

sultanoswing wrote:

For ATI I've read the stories about freezing,

Did never for me.

sultanoswing wrote:

graphic artifacts on firefox,

It's the new 2d acceleration that's buggy. Can be reverted easily with one command.

aticonfig --set-pcs-str=DDX,ForceXAA,TRUE

sultanoswing wrote:

KMS woes,

KMS works neither with fglrx nor with nvidia.
Without xf86-video-ati installed everything should be ok.

sultanoswing wrote:

odd colours

With xv. But why should you use xv when you have vaapi?

sultanoswing wrote:

etc. etc.

etc?

sultanoswing wrote:

Warnings to not buy ATI if you run linux

Not warnings but "warnings".

sultanoswing wrote:

and I didn't want to be constantly 1-2 XOrg revisions behind

catalyst 10.6 works with xorg 1.8 from [extra] without any problems.

sultanoswing wrote:

waiting for catalyst to catch up,

and also runs on 2.6.35.

sultanoswing wrote:

Why the hell are ATI drivers (and I'm mainly angry at the proprietary ones) so poor on linux??

They are not.

sultanoswing wrote:

That's partly rhetorical and partly a frustrated plea for answers!

It's called FUD.

okraits · 2010-06-24 08:53:59

I don't see the problem, either. Running 2.6.34 with catalyst 10.6 on a Radeon HD 5770 without problems.

agapito · 2010-06-24 10:15:31

okraits wrote:

I don't see the problem, either. Running 2.6.34 with catalyst 10.6 on a Radeon HD 5770 without problems.

SAME HERE.

ngoonee · 2010-06-24 11:44:21

ATI has the burden of a bad rep for a long time, compared to nvidia's generally good driver support. Things may be getting better, but reputations are tough to erase.

sultanoswing · 2010-06-24 12:47:05

Thanks for the positive anecdotes to balance others' negative experiences.

From what you've written I might now consider an ATI when I next upgrade (won't be for a year or two at least now).

EDIT: I don't care about ATI's misfortune as such (other than if they go out of business, the lack of competition is bad for we consumers). IMHO if you screw up for years and get a bad rep, then you deserve to have to work hard to get people over it. I do care and am very pleased for those of you whose ATI cards are behaving themselves and functioning as advertised under either *nix or windows - the above mini-rant is not directed at you or your card choice.

Last edited by sultanoswing (2010-06-24 13:32:36)

flamelab · 2010-06-24 12:50:48

Yes, catalyst 10.6 is ok NOW with xorg-server 1.8. When a new xorg-server OR kernel passes to core/extra, you will have to RUN in order to have patched xorg-servers and kernels in your system and custom repos for that.

If you want to have a highly experimental 2D guinea-piggy-like acceleration, you can use catalyst.

If you want artifacts (UVD2 through xvba-vaapi) if you want glitchy resizing (that so called D2D on Linux), if you want to run each time a new xorg-server or kernel is out, you can buy an ATI.

Cdh · 2010-06-24 16:29:18

flamelab wrote:

Yes, catalyst 10.6 is ok NOW with xorg-server 1.8. When a new xorg-server OR kernel passes to core/extra, you will have to RUN in order to have patched xorg-servers and kernels in your system and custom repos for that.

The patched xorg server was not a very good solution, yes. But when came xorg 1.8 to extra?
Also you never needed a patched kernel, it always worked with 2.6.33, with every 2.6.34-rc and now with the 2.6.34 in core. The only thing that needed minor patches, was catalyst. But that's no problem for users who use the catalyst repo.

flamelab wrote:

If you want to have a highly experimental 2D guinea-piggy-like acceleration, you can use catalyst.

You can disable it with one simple command, as I said.

flamelab wrote:

If you want artifacts (UVD2 through xvba-vaapi)

I always hear people talk about that...
I have only one video where there are artifacts (Home 2009 1080p BluRay DTS x264-GAÏA.mkv) but it seems to be the file because all other videos that are encoded with x264 work well.

flamelab wrote:

if you want glitchy resizing (that so called D2D on Linux),

Do you mean the slow resizing? That's NOT happening with d2d but without - and only with compositing.
I guess for people who "need" compositing AND don't want to install a patched xorg this is a problem.

flamelab wrote:

if you want to run each time a new xorg-server or kernel is out,

You could have used the catalyst repo all the time and having never problems because in the catalyst there was the patched xorg, patched xorg 1.8 etc.
As I said, catalyst worked on every kernel since now.

Last edited by Cdh (2010-06-24 16:29:51)

sultanoswing · 2010-06-24 20:50:55

flamelab wrote:
If you want to have a highly experimental 2D guinea-piggy-like acceleration, you can use catalyst.
You can disable it with one simple command, as I said.

So no 2D acceleration on 5xxx-series cards??!

Problems with compositing (which is a fairly standard, basic expectation these days).?! Hmmmmm.

Cdh · 2010-06-24 21:27:23

Only some people have problems with d2d... I don't know how many there are that have no problems.
It also doesn't affect many applications. I know only about firefox and thunderbird...
With d2d the slow maximize/resize with compositing is finally fixed... Still nobody seems to know what causes these artifacts in firefox for some people it seems.

okraits · 2010-06-24 21:39:05

I use both compositing and the 2D acceleration architecture and i have artifacts only from time to time and in a limited manner, so no huge problem for me. I even had the feeling that the artifacts were worse with 2D acceleration without composite. It really seems to depend.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-06-24 05:08:57

ATI drivers. Sigh.

#2 2010-06-24 06:01:22

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#3 2010-06-24 07:24:18

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#4 2010-06-24 08:53:59

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#5 2010-06-24 10:15:31

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#6 2010-06-24 11:44:21

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#7 2010-06-24 12:47:05

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#8 2010-06-24 12:50:48

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#9 2010-06-24 16:29:18

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#10 2010-06-24 20:50:55

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#11 2010-06-24 21:27:23

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

#12 2010-06-24 21:39:05

Re: ATI drivers. Sigh.

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