Arch Linux

Naijeru

Member

From: England

Registered: 2011-10-19

Posts: 23

[SOLVED] (ATI HD6950) Which ATI driver to use?

I'm trying to figure out which driver to use on my Arch system now that I've moved from Nvidia to ATI recently. However reading up on the arch wiki (and with the x wiki being unavailable), I'm left confused as to what support is in the xf86-video-ati open source driver.

From what I understand it's better to use the xf86-video-ati instead of catalyst because
1) it's supported
2) updated more often
3) more stable

However, (using a cached google version of www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature) I see that the open source driver doesn't support anti-aliasing for the north islands chipsets at all. Is that true? I'm learning to develop and using opengl, so if features are missing... then I'm only going to hinder my learning.

If I force the catalyst drivers on the other hand, I'm looking at a potential nightmare of un-supportability and having to patch the kernel manually to get them working, or is the arch wiki out of date in that regard?

TL;DR> As a beginner OpenGL developer, which of the 2 drivers for ATI is recommended?

Last edited by Naijeru (2012-09-18 16:30:39)

zero_one

Member

Registered: 2010-07-07

Posts: 104

Re: [SOLVED] (ATI HD6950) Which ATI driver to use?

Try them both out. Depending on your usage xf86-video-ati should be good enough.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Catalyst willl get you set up with fglrx in no time. Just make sure to use the right aur pkg for your video card.

I for one use fglrx cause my kids like their games.

Last edited by zero_one (2012-08-28 16:40:41)

ratcheer

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 924

Re: [SOLVED] (ATI HD6950) Which ATI driver to use?

I am using fglrx with my 6770 because of high video card temps, but I have learned how to slow the card down and get better temps with the FOSS driver. It is documented in the Wiki.

Mainly I'm saying, if you use the FOSS driver, watch the temperature of your card.

Tim

Naijeru

Member

From: England

Registered: 2011-10-19

Posts: 23

Re: [SOLVED] (ATI HD6950) Which ATI driver to use?

Thanks for the advice on that one guys. I tried them both out for awhile, and ended up deciding on the fglrx also.

Surprisingly it wasn't too difficult to switch between them, albeit a bit fiddly in some parts (dependencies etc....) when removing one to install the other.

While the xf86-video-ati is mostly okay, it seems a little unstable with GLSL in various games. Where as the fglrx one never gave me any issues. So for developing in OpenGL, in my opinion, it is definately better to stick to fglrx for the time being, especially on newer cards.