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AMD's New Card Supports Linux From the Get-Go
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jun 19, 2008 06:45 PM
from the no-present-like-the-time dept.
from the no-present-like-the-time dept.
Michael writes "Back in September AMD had announced a new ATI Linux driver as well as opening up their GPU specifications, and today they have taken an additional step to better support the Linux OS. With the just-announced Radeon HD 4850 RV770 they have provided same-day Linux support, and the Linux driver is now shipping alongside the Windows driver on their product CDs. In addition, they are encouraging their AIB partners to showcase Tux on the product packaging as a sign of Linux support. Last but certainly not least, AMD is committed from top-to-bottom product support on Linux and they will be introducing high-end features in their Linux driver such as MultiGPU CrossFire technology. Phoronix has a run-down on AMD's evolutionary leap in Linux support along with information on the open-source support for the RV770 GPU."
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Linux: AMD Launches New ATI Linux Driver 262 comments
Michael Larabel writes "AMD has issued a press release announcing 'significant graphics performance and compatibility enhancements' on Linux. AMD will be delivering new ATI Linux drivers this year that offer ATI Radeon HD 2000 series support, AIGLX support (Beryl and Compiz), and major performance improvements. At Phoronix we have been testing these new drivers internally for the past few weeks and have a number of articles looking at this new driver. The ATI 8.41 Linux driver delivers Linux gaming improvements from the R300/400 series and the R500 series. The inaugural Radeon HD 2900XT series support also can be found in the new ATI Linux driver with 'the best price/performance ratio of any high-end graphics card under Linux.' While this new driver cannot be downloaded yet, in their press release AMD also alludes to accelerating efforts with the open-source community."
[+]
Linux: AMD To Open ATI Specs 426 comments
Several readers tipped us the followup of yesterday's AMD/ATI news, the new development hinted at by Phoronix: AMD has announced they are releasing the specs for all new Radeon chipsets, and will be working with the open source community to develop a fully functional 2D and 3D graphics driver. An anonymous reader opines: "AMD appears to be following in Intel's footsteps with upcoming releases. If AMD is successful NVidia will have real competition in the GNU/Linux gaming arena. While past support by ATI was unsatisfactory the new AMD buyout appears to be having some effect."
Firehose:AMD Makes An Evolutionary Leap In Linux Support by Anonymous Coward
[+]
Linux: AMD's OverDrive and CrossFire Come To Linux 48 comments
twljagflba writes "Since last year AMD has made ATI increasingly Linux friendly by releasing 3D programming guides and helping out the open-source community. At the same time they have been continuing to develop their binary Catalyst driver for the Linux platform and most recently they delivered same-day support for their new graphics cards. Today though they have released the Catalyst 8.8 Linux driver that adds two very important features: CrossFire and OverDrive support for Linux. Linux users are now able to use CrossFire to split the rendering workload between multiple GPUs and they're also able to overclock their graphics cards now using the binary-only driver. Phoronix has a complete run-down on both features — including benchmarks — in their AMD OverDrive on Linux and ATI Radeon CrossFire On Linux articles. Other features were also introduced in this update such as Linux 2.6.26 kernel support, Adaptive Anti-Aliasing, and other fixes."
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But.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
It might help their Windows drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
People debugging their Linux rivers will often also be helping to debug their Windows drivers too!
Hw vendors should really use OSS more to help them get more eyeballs on the code.
Parent
high-def features? (Score:5, Informative)
hell, even on windows xp nvidia (piss be upon them) has not released accelerated video drivers for their year-old 8series cards!
I was one of the suckers who bought an 8-series thinking the 'hardware accel' onboard would finally solve my HD playback tearing issues. nvidia is infamous for video stutter and tearing unless you use 'magical commercial' dvd playback programs. the regular free ones don't seem to have the magic and the magic is NOT in the xp driver, that's for sure. and there's no way in hell I'm going to convert to vista just to get their new driver support. so basically, I have a 'fast frame buffer' in the 8series card but there's a whole lot of hardware that is sitting idle due to their 'push' to vista and how they want to force the DRM of vista on people.
ATI was worse; but maybe things have changed? I simply want to have glitch-free playback of HD sources on some kind of video card and NOT be locked into vista or commercial players.
but for now, I've settled on the popcorn hour [popcornhour.com] box. it Just Plain Works(tm), is fanless and does NOT care about which OS you use to serve networked files to it.
i heart this (Score:5, Insightful)
Until... The proprietary nvidia driver decided its automatic screen mode (res and refresh rate) was best, and ignored any attempt to add a modeline to xorg.conf. I had to (gasp) look at the back of my monitor and add the v and h frequencies myself. Sadly the nvidia driver simply ignores my monitors EDID.
I've been a long long proponent of "if it works" proprietary drivers in the kernel, such as nvidia's, providing they are robust and either equally or a more significantly more beneficial component to the system than others more important. But that was back when I accepted the fact there was an amount of tinkering to be done, or there was an amount of work to be done to glue things together. As the linux "system" becomes better at handling things automatically, the flaws in proprietary drivers are becoming less forgiveable because they are a bottleneck. When proprietary pieces of technology can't be glued together because they're at fault, I begin see the issues. In my case the nvidia driver finally became a more significant hindrance to my system, than a graphically accelerated benefit when correctly configured.
It's finally the time to say the bottleneck in Linux on the desktop is edging towards drivers, so very slowly.
Matt
It's Already Working With Open-Source Driver Too (Score:5, Informative)
Waiting for a supported TV card (Score:5, Informative)
Hauppauge cards are supported to some extent but getting their remote controls to work is a pain in the butt, even on MythTV based distros!
In fact, getting the remote control to work is more of an exercise in frustration than anything else.
Ask and ye shall receive (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pchdtv.com/ [pchdtv.com]
Not sure about your troubles with remotes, but that doesn't have anything to do with the TV card.
Parent
just what I've been waiting for... (Score:5, Funny)
After AMD bought ATI (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, today I make the shift from Nvidia to ATI. I stuck with Nvidia because I had didn't have much trouble getting OpenGL apps to work in Linux and I hear horror stories about ATI and Linux.
^&@$#l?/)(**!!!1!!! (Score:5, Funny)
AMD sees the writing on the wall (Score:5, Insightful)
AMD wants in on that stuff.
If you really care about open source (Score:5, Insightful)
AMD is without equal in the x86 space right now in terms of openness. They release specs, and they write and release code. All the Family 10 support in coreboot (a.k.a. Linuxbios) was written by AMD employees. We saw this open approach earlier with the K8, then Hypertransport, then the Geode CPUs used in the One Laptop Per Child, now we see the same trend in graphics. AMD is on a roll right now with openness.
I just, yesterday, downloaded the "BIOS programmers guide" for the AMD FAM10. This is the kind of information that few vendors release.
If you care about having this kind of access to hardware specs, you need to vote -- with your purchasing $$$. AMD has taken a huge gamble on openness. Keep that in mind next time you need a machine.
Ron Minnich (who forgot his password)
Re:linux games (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:linux games (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:linux games (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:linux games (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, Linux support is my #1 deciding factor in deciding on a laptop or video card. Like a lot of others I dual-boot, XP for gaming, Ubuntu for all else. Since nvidia & ATI are nearly equal, dollar for dollar, for gaming then Compiz support becomes the default deciding factor.
ATI supporting Linux opens up a whole world of, for instance, new laptop choices. The cheap embedded GPUs in the laptops will run Compiz without sweating.
Parent
It isn't just games (Score:5, Insightful)
For me, compiz fusion has become really useful. My widescreen notebook has limited vertical screen real estate, so the ability to get rid of the bottom bar and use window scaling to find running apps is great. The ability to fade windows and look underneath them is also great. Up until recently, I have bought nVidia, because while the drivers are non free blobs, they have tended to just work. Now that's changing and this additional step in promoting Linux support means that the next graphics I buy will ATI.
I don't really play games except occasionally and the games that are available for Linux are more than enough. It's the advertised support for desktop effects and apps like blender that has me sold, but maybe the fact that they are pushing for Tux to be included on the box means that the mindshare has increased to the point where more games will follow.
Parent
Re:linux games (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Demand? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Demand? (Score:5, Informative)
NUMA architecture-- Intel doesn't do it-- really, REALLY helps with this on all but one of the CPUs in the machine.
Parent
Demand? Yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
I also prefer cards without active cooling and ATI ist known for many cards with passive cooling which consume low power.
So, if the drivers they made are pretty good, especially the OpenGL implementation (i write simple OpenGL programs and i use Blender),
they could be a very good choice for me. But after years of bad experiences with ATI on my Linux-powered notebooks,
i'm sceptic and wait until the responses to their drivers are positive.
I don't want slow, errorneous and CPU-intensive 3D-support through DRI again.
Parent
Re:losing strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Gaming is HUGE, Linux is gaining every day, as far as I see it they can't go wrong here, because its not like its Linux only, it still supports Windows, they probably hired one or 2 people to code the Linux drivers... so what, no real loss there, and if they created their own little open-source driver thing it would be no loss at all really, and I think its fairly safe to say that Linux isn't going anywhere, and will be increasing the market share consistently for years to come...
They are creating the demand (in part) now we just have to wait for the supply (the game devs)...
Parent
Re:But is this open? (Score:5, Informative)
Please stop playing the FOSS zealot if you don't know what your talking about.
ATI HAS released the specs to their cards unlike nVidia. The new card already runs with the FOSS driver. The FOSS driver is improving daily.
Parent
Re:But is this open? (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, the card already works with the open-source xf86-driver-ati thanks to the code-sharing and documentation provided by ATI. Pretty soon the R6xx series (The generation I've got) will have 3D hardware acceleration as the R5xx series has now. It's not perfect and complete support, but it's getting there and progress has been excellent. If you really want to support a company that's supporting Linux, you would buy an ATI (Or Intel?) card. NVidia sure as hell isn't talking about any F/OSS drivers.
Parent