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ATI Releases New Linux Drivers 445

Posted by michael from the tainted-kernel dept.
dinivin writes "Today, ATI has released all new 2D/3D drivers for Linux/XFree86. The drivers will work on any "Built by ATI" Radeon 8500 or higher card (up to the 9700). Unlike the previous drivers from ATI, these support both the XVideo extension and S3TC (making UT2003 playable with these drivers)."
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ATI Releases New Linux Drivers More

ATI Releases New Linux Drivers

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  • hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mschoolbus ( 627182 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `yelirsivart'> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:05PM (#4723799)
    maybe I wont need to use the Gatos [sourceforge.net] drivers anymore... this would be very nice!

    • Re:hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Wumpus ( 9548 ) <IAmWumpus AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:25PM (#4724019)
      Why? What's wrong with the Gatos drivers?

      I haven't used them, but I'm considering buying an ATI card, and I'd rather use open source drivers, having had a very bad experience with nVidia's binary drivers.

      • Re:hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

        by xanadu-xtroot.com ( 450073 ) <(moc.tibroni) (ta) (udanax)> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @01:15PM (#4724471) Homepage Journal
        having had a very bad experience with nVidia's binary drivers.

        Binary or not, I've never had a problem with them in the year and a half or so I've been using them. They are wonderful. I play a few games (I'm not much of a gamer, but I do have to get my Killing Spree fix in from time to time). I play Q3A and RTCW (mostly - UT2003 won't run on my card). I get better frame rates, and just general performace, under Linux than I ever did with Win*, and I only have a 8Meg TNT2... (I'm going to be getting a GF3 or 4 from Santa this year, the downside is he told me to charge it to MY card. Damn fat guy... Throw me a bone once in a while, won't ya?)

        What's wrong with nVidia's drivers? Nothing, as far as I can tell.

        • Re:hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dildatron ( 611498 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @02:39PM (#4725242)
          My experience has been similar to yours. I have had RtCW crash maybe twice, but I think it was punkbuster related. Either way, it didn't bring the machine down, just the game crashed.

          I have been fairly pleased with nVidia's drivers, and I appreciate that they support linux with my GeForce 4ti. It rocks.

        • Re:hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Wumpus ( 9548 ) <IAmWumpus AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @03:04PM (#4725487)
          Well, I'm glad they work for you, but I'm seeing occasional system lockups that weren't there in the year or so I was running the XFree86 drivers. The only suggestion on nVidia's site was to turn off AGP support, which I did, to no avail.

          I'm a competent C programmer, and I've done driver work before. I can find my way around source code, and I've tracked down problems in open source code I was using before. Not being able to debug this is driving me nuts.

          So, this is what's wrong with nVidia's drivers. When they break, you can't fix them.
      • I've been unable to determine whether it's my Radeon 8500 QL, or the VIA KT266A chipset on my motherboard, but DRI and OpenGL support are still non-functional for my 8500 using the Gatos drivers. If I don't make sure there's a `Option "nodri"' line in my XF86Config file, my monitor looses sync the moment I run startx.

        That said, XV support in the Gatos drivers is fine, and watching a DVD or SVCD full-screen using MPlayer (or Xine) produces a system load of ~30%. Watching a 704x304 DivX;-) using aviplay produces a system load of only 3-4% (windowed or full-screen, the avifile programs are hands down the most efficient).
    • Gatos makes the 2D part, DRI the 3D part. What do you mean you don't need the Gatos drivers?

    • Re:hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 )
      Yeah, but, will these new drivers finally make the TV out work on cards like the 8500 DV? C

  • Here's hoping (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lazyl ( 619939 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:08PM (#4723826)
    Let's hope they got it right.

    Reviews of the stablility and performance of these drivers will probably be a major factor in my decision on whether or not to buy a 9700. I've been hesitating because of all the bad things I hear about their drivers. I use NVidia now and I've never had a problem with the drivers, so I'm a little worried about switching.

    • NVidia drivers not so hot... (Score:3, Informative)

      by X ( 1235 )
      Am I the only one who's had problems with some games crashing until this last batch of NVidia drivers came out. For that matter, the last batch didn't include an update for my GeForce2Go (stuck in OEM land), and it *still* crashes a lot.
    • Same here. I've used both, though, and NVidia is by far the better driver company. ATI may be making some kick ass hardware, but their software/drivers suck flea infested monkey nuts.

      Save yourself a headache and stick to NVidia.

  • Goodbye Forever, Windows (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RailGunner ( 554645 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:08PM (#4723828) Journal
    This is what I was waiting for to finally become windows-free.. drivers for my Radeon 9700 Pro card.

    Goodbye forever, windows, you won't be missed.

    If I ever see a BSOD again, it will be too soon.

    • Re:Goodbye Forever, Windows (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      and what are you going to do with that $300 card in linux?
      • play ut2003 perhaps?

        devel some cool stuff?

        watch movies.. whatever.

        • Re: Butterscotch (Score:4, Funny)

          by CyberKnet ( 184349 ) <slashdot&cyberknet,net> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @01:42PM (#4724721) Homepage Journal
          Butterscotch is superior to vanilla when analyzed at a compound level.

          In fact, butterscotch is superior in all aspects. Butterscotch tastes better, due to its ingredients it is healthier. Recent studies show that butterscotch *looks* better too. The only thing that vanilla is better than butterscotch at is hit/miss ratio of the trash can. And that is because butterscotch actually gets eaten; recent surveys indicate that butterscotch pudding is preferred 100% to 0% over vanilla pudding.

          Butterscotch also contains a larger feature set than vanilla. When distilled, butterscotch makes a great, long-lasting chew-candy. When frozen, it makes a fantastic jawbreaker, when heated, it results in a glorious milkshake.

          In conclusion, your must see what is obvious: Butterscotch is Better Because it Begins with a B, and because they don't make Apple pudding. If you weren't so closed minded to new ideas, you would have seen this a long time ago. I hope that this simple explanation corrects your longstanding error in judgement.

  • PPC? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by *xpenguin* ( 306001 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:09PM (#4723836)
    Does anyone know if this will work on PPC with Gentoo or Debian such as those Powerbooks that come with the mobility radeon 9000?

    • Re:PPC? (Score:5, Informative)

      by *xpenguin* ( 306001 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:13PM (#4723877)
      Nevermind, the page says:

      # This version supports only Linux/x86 versions based on libc 6.2.

      • Re:PPC? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Elendil ( 11919 )
        2 words: source code...

        • Re:PPC? (Score:3, Informative)

          by dinivin ( 444905 )

          http://dri.sourceforge.net

          There are open source drivers for the 8*** series cards, and I do believe they work on PPC... Not quite as feature complete, but decent drivers nonetheless.

          Dinivin

      • Re:PPC? (Score:2, Informative)

        by LordKariya ( 195696 )
        ATI needs to get their act together. There are entire forum sections dedicated to trying to get your ATI drivers to work.

        Congrats on the easiest 10 karma ever (+5 for asking the question, +5 for answering it)

      • Re:PPC? (Score:2)

        by Otter ( 3800 )
        It doesn't apply to the Mobility cards, anyway.

        Yeah, I was hoping for a new TiBook/XFree driver, too.

    • Re:PPC? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Abnormal Coward ( 575651 )
      if you look in the readme that you can get to from the link, you would see only x86 (P3 and higher) is required.

    • Re:PPC? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wilburdg ( 178573 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:22PM (#4723984)
      Please, anyone who would be interested in these drivers for PPC go here [ati.com] and let them know. If enough of us do so, they will quickly realize that supporting linux isn't only about x86.
  • I bought a Radeon 9700 Pro a while back, and the only way I could run X with it was to use the VESA driver, which was SLOOOOW! I can finally go back to Gentoo as my primary OS! (Now if they would just release 1.4...)
    • I can finally go back to Gentoo as my primary OS! (Now if they would just release 1.4...)

      emerge rsync (update the list of what's available)
      emerge -up world (preview what's comming)
      emerge -u world (do it!)

      Gentoo isn't like other distros, in which you must wait for a release to stay current. With gentoo, the above three commands bring you up to what is current, which is generally close to the leading edge of the state of the art.

      Oh, but you don't like the freeze and want all those new ebuilds waiting in the wings for the release? Fine, just set ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" and you can jump past the pending release and play with all the experimental stuff coming down the pike.

      I have one set of partitions for exactly that purpose, and one set for the more formal, stable stuff. And you know what? With this approach, I don't have to even care at all when, or even if, they're going to have a "final" release of 1.4. The only other distros I know which come close to this is Debian unstable and Source Mage. The former suffers from the Curse of Binary Distros (lag behind the state of the art by weeks or, in the case of xfree, months), the latter is quite good, comparable to gentoo in many respects (but a different approach, so like salad vs. steak, the choice is entirely up to your own sensibilities and taste).

  • Bastards! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by noda132 ( 531521 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:10PM (#4723848) Homepage
    Man am I ever mad. Three months ago when I bought my GeForce Ti4400 the only reason I did so was because I had been assured by an ATI salesperson that there were no plans for a Linux driver. I would have gladly waited three months and gotten a Radeon if I had known Linux drivers were in the works.

    • Re:Bastards! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by CynicTheHedgehog ( 261139 )
      I'll wager that the drivers weren't written by ATI. Remember, the Weather Channel commissioned accelerated drivers for the ATI Radeon series for Linux/XFree86 a few months ago. Perhaps this project finally came to fruition and ATI decided to cash in on it.

      • Re:Bastards! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by dinivin ( 444905 )

        That is not the case. These drivers were written by the FireGL division of ATI, based in Germany. The weather channel drivers were written by the DRI project and are open source.

        Dinivin
    • Was this an ATI salesperson or the pimply-faced teenager working the counter at CompUSA*, who answered after a short period of silence and blank stares?

      Honestly, there aren't very many major, brand-name cards that aren't supported under Linux. The companies who don't provide the drivers (and some who do) usually find that a sufficient driver is written by someone else who really needs/wants one.

      * My intention was not to insult the teenagers at CompUSA. Relax, I'm sure the acne will clear up soon.

  • Bah.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:12PM (#4723863) Homepage Journal

    Spoiled Linux punks.

    Back in my day we had a galvanized metal box with a circuit board dangling in it. We had an old VT100 terminal hooked up, and we were happy!. In fact we were so poor we couldn't afford all the serial lines so we had to get by with just both data lines and the ground, but we were happy! None of that Fancy-Pants hardware control stuff that became popular among the Brylcreme'd University people at the time.

    Did I mention that to get to this VT100 I had to walk 40 miles uphill kneedeep in snow? Both ways?

    bah..

    [/curmudgeon]

    • Re:Bah.. (Score:3, Funny)

      by gorilla ( 36491 )
      A VT100? I had to do with a VT52 [columbia.edu] clone. No inserts or deletes, so you had to clear the screen and redraw all the time.
      • Yeah well I had to make due with an etch-a-sketch. We could bearly write let alone read! The only upside was all that screen clearing built up massive triceps.
    • You forgot to say...

      "... And we liked it!" from Dana Carvey's 'Grumpy Old Man' skit.

      • Re:Bah.. (Score:5, Funny)

        by RDW ( 41497 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:38PM (#4724118)
        Dana Carvey? LUXURY! When I were a lad we had to make do with watching Monty Python on a 3 inch oscilloscope while we paid IBM 6 shillings an hour to let us debug their punch cards for 26 hours a day with a blunt knitting needle underwater in total darkness! And when you tell young people that today, they don't believe you...

        • You had Monty Python? Well, if WE wanted to look at half-burnt black and white still photographs of naked Buster Keaton doing his "spoon dance" act, WE'd have to march through nine feet of snow for six miles! With no shoes! Over broken glass! Uphill! Both ways! AND THAT WAS THE WAY WE LIKED IT!!!
    • Hey! I've worked with RS-485 myself!

      Actually, for what we used it for, we were happy.

  • Wonderful for Competition (Score:4, Insightful)

    by theBraindonor ( 577245 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:12PM (#4723870) Homepage
    This is absolutely wonderful for Linux 3D graphics. Depending on how well these drivers perform, gamers and graphics developers alike will have an alternative to NVidia.

    The ATI drivers don't even need to outperform NVidia's. An ATI graphics card is almost always cheaper than the corresponding NVidia card. Some of us don't like spending any more of our own money on a computer than we have to.
    • There have been alternatives from Matrox and PowerVR for some time now, but that may not be viable for all users. PowerVR especially is tight-lipped about weather or not they have plans to release a new product any time soon. The Kyro 2 cards are almost 2 years old now, and I am looking for an upgrade. The Radeon 9700 could now be a good choice for me.

  • RPM package format only (Score:5, Insightful)

    by denisb ( 411264 ) <denis@d e n i s . no> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:17PM (#4723915) Homepage
    Quote the ATI driver page :
    ATI FireGL provides the drivers in only one standard packaging

    format. It's the widespread RPM packaging standard which is well
    Known in the Linux community. Respective files are named "*.rpm"
    and are just called RPMs. Its assumed that this is the method
    that serves the needs our customer's best.

    RPM is nice and such, but please do like Nvidia, and provide a non RPM option ! I can get around this by using RPM and extracting the stuff, then making an ebuild or something, but hey, it is much easier if RPM is complemented by a tgz ..

    • Re:RPM package format only (Score:5, Informative)

      by crimsun ( 4771 ) <crimsun@ubuntu. c o m> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:24PM (#4724011) Homepage
      Please see this file [instacontent.net]. It recommends using Alien [Debian users are specifically mentioned], which can easily generate a tgz as well.

      Also of note is that Debian Sid's libc6 isn't supported. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) Again, please refer to the above readme.
      • Alien requires that you have all the RPM junk installed too. So it still requires a lot of extra work just to get a .tar.gz file.
      • Theres also a program called rpm2targz:

        emerge search rpm:
        app-arch/rpm2targz
        Latest version available: 8.0
        Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
        Size of downloaded files: 3 kB
        Homepage: http://www.slackware.com/config/packages.php
        Description: Convert a .rpm file to a .tar.gz archive

    • RPM is the standard Linux package file format. If your distro aims to be Linux Standards Base compliant, it must have a mechanism of installing such files.

      Preferably a full RPM implementation, but systems like alien or even (I guess) rpm2cpio are acceptable.
      • RPM is the standard Linux package file format. If your distro aims to be Linux Standards Base compliant, it must have a mechanism of installing such files.

        No. RPM is not the standard Linux package file format. The standard Linux package file format is the tarball, either gzipped (.tar.gz) or bzip2ed (.tar.bz2), or uncompressed (.tar).

        RPM is a part of the LSB standard, which is just one of several Linux standards that are NOT universally accepted, nor should it be. RPM was placed in the LSB because of Red Hat politicking and in an IMHO very illegetimate effort to give them an edge over other distributions. Indeed, RPM's inclusion in the LSB is the main reason why the LSB should, IMHO, either be rectified to exclude it, ignored altogether, or (ideally) adhered to in other respects, with the RPM provision sumarilly ignored.

        The pointlessness of including RPM in the LSB standard is underscored by the incompatability between Suse RPMs, Red Hat RPMs, and Mandrake RPMs (to name just three), and by the success of many products which have been packaged in proper, distribution-agnostic form (nvidia drivers being one such example, but by no means the only one).

        Yes, superior distributions such as Debian and Gentoo can extract the necessary data from the cumbersome RPM format, but forcing them to jump through that particular Red Hat hoop is neither justified, nor desirable.

  • Forgive my skepticism... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GeckoFood ( 585211 ) <geckofoodNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:22PM (#4723975) Journal

    ...Radeon 8500 or higher card (up to the 9700)...

    It is all well and good that they are putting out drivers that works "across the board" for their product line, but I have seen, time and again, where a "universal" device driver is not so universal after all. If it was written on a machine sporting an 8500, where does it degrade with the 9700 and so on? If they are not the same card, they won't be 100% compatible.

    Another possibility is that the drivers are written to work generically with the chipset. This would have the distinction of having unremarkable drivers that do not push any card to its full potential.

    My deep and sincere apologies to ATI if they are successful in making a universal driver for their stuff that actually takes full advantage of each device. I would bet that such a driver would be a real winner.

  • The original drivers were for the professional FireGL 8800-type cards only. Then people figured out they could be made to work on the regular 8500 as well, and instead of putting the smack down decided to officially support it as well. Now these new drivers have xvideo and s3tc support so that desktop and gaming users will enjoy them a lot more, and work on 8500-9700 ATI cards. Keep up the good work, and don't forget DRI people too :)

  • benchmarks (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pyr0 ( 120990 )
    Has anyone benchmarked the new drivers vs. NVIDIA yet? I'd be curious to see how well they perform.

  • Uh... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by puppetman ( 131489 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:26PM (#4724028) Homepage
    nVidia has used a universal driver for years. Doesn't matter if you have a GeForce2 MX or a GeForce 4600, you download the same driver for the OS.

    I wonder - is the "installation" package unified, or is the actual driver that gets installed unified?

    IE the installation program detects what driver needs to be installed, and then pulls the relevant files out of the installation file and installs them (how many times can one use the word install or it's derivatives in one sentance before you are forced to take a technical writing class?).

    I think will have to wait for the benchmarks to come out to figure out the answer.
    • Damn. This was supposed to be in response to a message by GeckoFood,

      "...Radeon 8500 or higher card (up to the 9700)...

      It is all well and good that they are putting out drivers that works "across the board" for their product line, but I have seen, time and again, where a "universal" device driver is not so universal after all. If it was written on a machine sporting an 8500, where does it degrade with the 9700 and so on? If they are not the same card, they won't be 100% compatible.

      Another possibility is that the drivers are written to work generically with the chipset. This would have the distinction of having unremarkable drivers that do not push any card to its full potential.

      My deep and sincere apologies to ATI if they are successful in making a universal driver for their stuff that actually takes full advantage of each device. I would bet that such a driver would be a real winner."

    • Re:Uh... (Score:4, Informative)

      by 3vi1 ( 544505 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @01:12PM (#4724450) Homepage Journal
      The actual driver is unified. You can pull a TNT-based card out of your machine and replace it with a GF4 board and never have to update the drivers.

  • Woot! (Score:2)

    by ACK!! ( 10229 )
    Now, I can buy that outrageously expensive alienware laptop with the Radeon 9000 and bring it to my lan party to kick some serious rear in UT200-whatever!

    I just need more linux games.

    Brother, do have another Loki to spare?

    One that can run a company this time would be nice.

    Ok, now back to serious work.
    ___________________________________________ _______

  • 3DNow! support too (Score:5, Funny)

    by Brian Stretch ( 5304 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:29PM (#4724055)
    From the release notes:

    NOTE: The OpenGL driver can use AMD 3DNow! enhanced opcodes as well
    and - due to design - does not need a kernel patch for AMD 3DNow!.

    Now that's the kind of thing I like to see.

  • All-In-Wonder support, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Fafhrd ( 37655 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:31PM (#4724067)
    Does anybody know if this driver supports the video input/output features of my All-In-Wonder Radeon 8500DV? I'd love to have xawtv running on my screen, or to watch mplayer on the TV.

    Or do I have to run the GATOS driver for that?
    • ATI is investigating the possibility of supporting TV Out under Linux for products which include this feature.
      The GATOS Projectmentions limited use of this feature in some of their configurations.
      Linux ATI TV Out Support Programis a work in progress by Lennart Poetteringto control the TV Out feature of certain ATI graphics products under Linux. It has currently been tested on Rage Mobility P/M devices only, but should also work for RADEON and RAGE 128 according to the author.

  • Nice License Agreement (Score:4, Funny)

    by waldoj ( 8229 ) <waldo@NOSpAM.jaquith.org> on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:32PM (#4724079) Homepage Journal
    I like how their license agreement on the download page [ati.com] is in a text area in a form. I erased all of the text and wrote "ATI will give me one BILLION dollars," and submitted it. And they accepted it! Thanks to UCITA [4cite.org], that's valid, too. (I think. OTOH, who the hell can figure out UCITA?)

    Ooh, I submitted it again and now they owe me a monkey. Pay up, ATI!

    -Waldo Jaquith
    • I think you meant "one beeeeelion dollars". Please, let's try and be accurate.
    • I like how their license agreement on the download page [ati.com] is in a text area in a form. I erased all of the text and wrote "ATI will give me one BILLION dollars," and submitted it. And they accepted it!

      I don't think they'll be out too much..... ATI is a canadian company. 1 Billion canadian is about $1.25 US, right?
    • How can you agree to binding another party to do something, by simply agreeing to an agreement of your own writing ?

      If ATI sent back the contents of the form in a confirmation page that acknowledge they were accepting the agreement as set for in the form, it might work.

      As it is, I think the way you will be seeing a monkey is if you start beating your own.

  • press release (Score:4, Informative)

    by tornater ( 574689 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:33PM (#4724086)
    The press release [ati.com] gives more information. These are unified drivers for ATI cards on Linux--COOL.

  • Why support binary drivers? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by azz ( 12928 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:35PM (#4724094) Homepage
    There were rumours flying around a while ago that open-source Radeon 8500 drivers would be appearing. I'm therefore sad to see that ATi have decided that closed source drivers are the way forward. I don't see any reason to promote this on Slashdot, or to consider this in any way beneficial for the open source community; remember, closed-source Linux drivers are not support, they're marketing. Thanks, ATi, I'll be buying my graphics hardware elsewhere in the future.

  • open source? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by richard.kilgore ( 449400 )
    Are these drivers open source, or do they include pre-compiled object files that cannot be re-compiled?

  • Excellent. (Score:3, Funny)

    by YahoKa ( 577942 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @12:37PM (#4724113)
    This is excellent news. Now all i need is to find the book on "Installing ATI Drivers under linux."
  • Now I can buy an ATI card. Good for them and for us.
  • This topic is timely, because I'm spec'ing out a new computer for the family for Christmas. In these dog days of the economy (national, local, and mine) I'm trying to keep the entry cost down. Besides, it will give me the chance to add parts over the next year or two.

    Someday DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2 will be worthy targets for purchase. But today, only the Radeon 9700 is there, and I'm not spending that kind of money. So near term, the target is Doom3.

    My price target is around $60, since I plan to replace it in a year or two when R300/NV30 features become affordable. ($150-range) But I don't want to wait until then before playing Doom3.

    The Radeon 8500 cards are all above my range, so...
    Some Radeon 9000 cards are in my range.
    Some Radeon 8500LE cards are in my range.

    Will these new drivers work for these cards?
    Will these cards (9000, 8500LE) play Doom3?

    My backup plan has been a GeForce4MX-440, which is supposed to play Doom3 with reduced features and speed - not a preferred card.

  • The Other Question? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 1stflight ( 48795 )
    Now can Doom III be played on a Linux box, I remember John Carmack saying how only the Geforce series was to be supported?

  • Unified drivers?! (Score:5, Informative)

    by m0i ( 192134 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @01:43PM (#4724736) Homepage
    Well, I own an All-in-Wonder Radeon. It's not _that_ old (300USD a couple years ago), and it's unsupported by their unified driver! And I don't even talk about the multimedia features, TV in-out, which are mostly broken in Gatos tools/drivers and non existent in their own driver.
    I'm back on Win2k for the time being, partly because of this. And I wonder if my next purchase will be ATI, based on my current experience. Sad, because the hardware is rock-solid!

  • No source RPM (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gukin ( 14148 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @02:01PM (#4724897)
    I went to the download page and discovered that the
    rpms were ONLY in i386 packages, no re-linkable source distro.

    In the past I've always downloaded the NVIDIA src RPMS and just done a "rpm --rebuild . . ." This allows me to build the NVIDIA drivers for any distro I'm using OR any tweeked kernel I'm using.

    Restricting the users to the distro's stock kernel kinda sucks.

    But it doesn't suck nearly as bad as having NO support whatsoever.

    Thanks ATI, you just made the decision for my next notebook considerably more difficult.

  • The Driver SUCKS! (Score:5, Informative)

    by GeekDork ( 194851 ) on Thursday November 21, 2002 @03:58PM (#4725950)

    I just had a 1-hour confrontation with those drivers. There are several things:

    • XVideo is dud.
    • Video overlay creates artifacts all over the screen like it did since the first fricken FGL drivers.
    • The drivers cannot be compiled with gcc 2.95 without modification and don't work properly (oh wonder) when compiled with gcc 3.0 on a 2.95 system.
    • The drivers depend on DRI 3.0.x, recent DRI CVS is 4.1.0. No fun.

    Well, after installing a fresh X 4.2.1 from debian unstable, fixing about thirty parser errors in a source file and wreaking general havoc, I was at least able to start X. 3D seems to work, but I was not inclined to do much testing beyond fgl_glxgears and glxinfo after realizing that I was unable to use a text console without snapping back to the X console every second.

    All this slowly leads to a heartfelt "fuck ATI" feeling and I'll have plenty time to ponder this while I restore my X config that mysteriously lost all 3D acceleration and Xvideo capabilities after switching back to the DRI driver.

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