Rate Catalyst Linux 5.1

redsolar · Jan 31, 2005, 04:24 PM

This is something we have not done yet, but we hope it will become a tradition, just as we have it happening with Windows Catalyst driver.

On the scale of 1 to 10, 1 being worst and 10 being best, please rate ATI Proprietary Linux driver

If you have any comments to post, don't forget to add your distro, kernel version, XFree86 or X.org version you are using/trying to use these drivers on.

redsolar · Jan 31, 2005, 05:41 PM

I personally gave them a 6. I have so far had good (or to be more correct "successful") experience installing them on SuSE 9.1. Simply followed instructions, and it all worked like a charm. Even made Doom 3 work (about half the FPS I get in Windows, but still). Surprisingly, Quake 3 worked very fast (about 5% speed difference Linux vs Windows), but then its engine is a lot more mature, and Linux-tested. Note, Doom 3 only works with the latest drivers, the previous ones had rendering issues, and usually crashed a few minutes into the game (machine unresponsive

)

go1dfish · Jan 31, 2005, 06:08 PM

I'll have to also give them a 6 for the latest release. (A note maybe you should change the thread title, ive never heard this linux driver release called that, ive always seen it designated 8.8.25

I havent tried a large ammount of gaming on them, just some hl2 and world of warcraft under cedega, not the best performance in the world, and shaders still do not work correctly in hl2, but those are likely at least in part due to cedega.

I did not notice any performance increase in any games.

The biggest improvement I have noticed with this release, is that running two simultaneus X servers does not immediately freeze the entire system, in fact it is working quite well (Ratpoison on :0, gnome on :1) though I have had a couple of lockups switching between servers. Currently the ati page says this still does not work at all so I suppose I am lucky that it works as well as it does.

One of the bigger changes in this release is support for Xorg 6.8 (previously with 6.8 any opengl call would kill the xserve or hardlock the system). However some of the neater features that 6.8 introduced (true window transparancy, drop shadows) do not seem to function correctly with the new drivers yet.

I have not tried the special effects myself, as they really arent my type of thing (X exists for the sole purpose of providing faster higher resolution terminals), but my roomate who is running a 9800pro under gentoo tried enabling it on his dual head setup, and got some VERY strange artifacts on secondary monitor, and monstrously slow performance, so he disabled it.

One thing I am curious about is if ati has once and for all fixed what I like to call the kaleidescope bug. In the older drivers, any intensive 3d work (doom3 under cedega before the linux release, and ut2004 native) would occasionally cause the driver to just completely break down in regards to 3d rendering, and just spew a large number of aparantly random polygons seeming to originate from the center of the screen and move outward. I could never really get a good performance estimate of the old drivers as compared to windows, because whenever I would turn up the graphics options in ut, it would break in the kaledescope fashion within seconds.

Up until recently I had sworn that I would never buy another ati product again, but the new drivers are beginning to make me reconsider that assertion. I guess ill wait and see if they continue to improve.

I saw on another thread here that ATI may be interested in some beta testers for their linux drivers, I would be very willing to do so. I am currently running a 9800pro under gentoo (2800+ xp processor) with xorg 6.8

redsolar · Jan 31, 2005, 06:16 PM

go1dfish, thanks for sharing. In my experience, latest drivers fixed the kaleidoscope effect in Doom 3. No apparent speed improvement. I am yet to get around to try Cedega and play some games with it, but it certainly looks promising.

As to the title - I realized that I made a mistake, and tried to fix it, but it looks like the title is attached to the pole, and I have not found a way to edit it yet, and will definitely do so if there is a way.

UberLord · Jan 31, 2005, 08:47 PM

I gave them an 8 because

1) They finally worked with my old ASUS motherboard

2) They finally worked on my new AMD64

(abit mobo)
3) They managed to get the GLSL stuff in

Installation in Gentoo was a snap once the official Gentoo ebuild got into portage - so from the Gentoo side, installation cannot really be simpler!

I'm hoping that the speed concerns compared to the Windows driver are addressed slowly but surely - more important imo is OpenGL 2.0 support which is something the Windows driver lacks.

Importantly, all my games now work - almost flawlessly! Good work ATI

Kombatant · Jan 31, 2005, 10:07 PM

I will give them a 7. Not because I don't find them to be a much needed step in the right direction, but because we are talking about ATI here. And I don't know about you guys, but I have large expectations from a company that is leading the 3D industry right now. So kudos where it's due, and please, keep up the good work!

shaman9876 · Jan 31, 2005, 11:20 PM

I gave them a 6 due to the fact I had to manualy edit the xorg.conf file in order to get the monitor to config right and the fact that the keyboard line should of said "kbd" Also it change my mouse config and I had to edit that back in. It also made a xfree86 config file instead of a xorg.conf file. This was running the xorg RPM. I did try the livina RPM and it would only give me mesa and no direct 3d rendering. I am running fedora Core 3 stock kernel. (I had the updated kernel when trying the livina rpm but I just could not get it to work.)

good job

so far. Since I could not use the earlier driver at all.

RIV@NVX · Feb 1, 2005, 09:41 AM

Well, there are obviously good and bad points:

* Good points:
- It installs and it claims to support X.org (apparently does, since UberLord got it working nicely)
- Apparently games work, if you get it working

* Bad points:
- Config it generates is only for XFree86 - it has wrong filename, and even if you change it, it won't -work with X.org
- After installing fglrx driver module, I can't change refresh rate anymore with FC3's refresh rate tool - big issue to me
- To support some more special resolutions, you need to add them manually to xorg.conf - not quite big issue, because they are in XFree86Config, so you can just copy-paste and do some editing
- Mesa steals OpenGL from fglrx, and fglrx doesn't steal it back, so games stop working (in FC3 at least)

I give it 5, but I'm certain this will improve in the future.

EcPercy · Feb 1, 2005, 03:39 PM

Well x.org still has to have a symbolic link to the XF86 files because most of the applications are still set to use XFree. I think that as long as you copy the config file to the x.org directory you would be fine.

Also, I have heard a lot of people that say that things in Fedora Core 3 don't work worth a crap. I have a friend that is still on FC1 because he thinks that development went straight downhill at a rapid pace.

I am on mandrake. I have to admit that it has come a long way, but I am getting interested in building a workstation with Gentoo. The thing that looks the most appealing is Portage. It sounds similar to how FreeBSD is setup. (The Ports Collection)

My friend is using FC and he had to uninstall the mesa OpenGL to get the ATI drivers to take.

I rated the drivers a 5. I feel that there is a lot of room for improvement. I noticed that UT2004 seemed to run ok for awhile, but then my system would crash for no reason. I looked at the UT2004.ini file and the game did not recognize that my 9800 Pro has 128MB of memory. I had to configure that myself. On the Mandrake box I am running kernel 2.6.3-19 with XF68 v. 4.3.0.1. I am using the latest version of the ATI Linux Drivers.

I am thinking about moving to mandrake 10.1 because it has x.org and seeing how UT2004 works. There are a lot of updated pieces of software on 10.1 as well.

Keep up the good work ATI! Maybe more companies will make games that work in linux.

RIV@NVX · Feb 1, 2005, 08:30 PM

@EcPercy:

No, just copying/renaming the config won't work. X won't start after doing that.

About Fedora Core 3 beeing crap... well I don't agree; I think it's OK. Things don't work here and there, but I didn't notice any big issues with it, except that my ISDN card doesn't work.
And I don't like Mandrake. I tried it many times, last time at ~10.0 or 10.1, and I didn't like it. Well, the good thing about Linux is that you have a choice.
Gentoo seems OK, but I haven't tried it. I'm way too newbish to attempt something that complicated.

*mtippett* · Feb 2, 2005, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIV@NVX

* Bad points:
- Config it generates is only for XFree86 - it has wrong filename, and even if you change it, it won't -work with X.org

This will be fixed in the next release, unfortunately it slipped through.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIV@NVX

- After installing fglrx driver module, I can't change refresh rate anymore with FC3's refresh rate tool - big issue to me

Ensure that DGA is disabled - it's use is mutually exclusinve with the use of randr.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIV@NVX

- To support some more special resolutions, you need to add them manually to xorg.conf - not quite big issue, because they are in XFree86Config, so you can just copy-paste and do some editing

I have in the past let the probe determine what resolutions are available from the EDID information. YMMV.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIV@NVX

- Mesa steals OpenGL from fglrx, and fglrx doesn't steal it back, so games stop working (in FC3 at least)

Please explain? (also Refer to the 'where to get drivers from thread' or do a search on fglrx on livna.org.

Regards,

Matthew

sc3252 · Feb 3, 2005, 07:23 AM

I rated it a 7 becuase no more kernel-source (but kernel headers are needed) needed to compile the drivers and new stuff like amd 64 support

and xorg 6.8 support. But there are still problems with games that did not seem to be addresed. Like the stuttering in ut2004 and some other game problems.

RIV@NVX · Feb 3, 2005, 10:56 AM

Now that's what I call support! Thanks a lot for responding, Matt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mtippett

This will be fixed in the next release, unfortunately it slipped through.

Excellent.

Quote:

Ensure that DGA is disabled - it's use is mutually exclusinve with the use of randr.

Well, I'm not an expert...

can you please give more detailed description of what should I do?

Quote:

I have in the past let the probe determine what resolutions are available from the EDID information. YMMV.

Aren't resoultions/refresh rates generated by GTF and pasted as Modeline in XF86Config4? Because, doing simpe copy-paste to xorg.conf and uncommenting all those modelines works for me if radeon driver module is used instead of fglrx.
(What does EDID any YMMV mean? Apparently I'm way too newbish...

)

Quote:

Please explain? (also Refer to the 'where to get drivers from thread' or do a search on fglrx on livna.org.

I'm using drivers from rpm.livna.org. This is the thread I'm referring to.

One more thing - using rpms from rpm.livna.org gives an error message on every startup, by the end of booting process, but it disappears too fast to read it. If you are interested, I will attempt to write it down.

redsolar · Feb 3, 2005, 03:42 PM

YMMV=Your mileage may vary
EDID in this case I believe is Extended Display Identification Data (VESA standard)

Depending on the distro you are using, you may enter interactive startup and then it will prompt you to run pretty much every daemon, so you can write things down.

RIV@NVX · Feb 3, 2005, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redsolar

YMMV=Your mileage may vary
EDID in this case I believe is Extended Display Identification Data (VESA standard)

Depending on the distro you are using, you may enter interactive startup and then it will prompt you to run pretty much every daemon, so you can write things down.

Thanks, I will try that.

Jan 31, 2005, 04:24 PM	#1
redsolar Off duty Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Las Vegas, USA Posts: 1,242 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Rate ATI Proprietary Linux Driver This is something we have not done yet, but we hope it will become a tradition, just as we have it happening with Windows Catalyst driver. On the scale of 1 to 10, 1 being worst and 10 being best, please rate ATI Proprietary Linux driver If you have any comments to post, don't forget to add your distro, kernel version, XFree86 or X.org version you are using/trying to use these drivers on. __________________ Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space_Bar Main rig: Intel Core i7 930 @ 4.0 Ghz \| Corsair H50 Push/Pull \| 12GB OCZ DDR3 \| ASUS Radeon HD 5850 \| 3x 1TB Samsung F3 RAID5 on Dell PERC 5i SAS + 1TB Hitachi \| MSI X58 Pro-e \| 850W Antec Truepower Quattro \| RocketFish by Lian Li Full Tower Case \| Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD \| Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD \| Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD \| Logitech Z-5500 Speakers \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Laptop: Samsung x360-34P \| Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz \| 4GB DDR3 \| 128GB Samsung SSD \| Intel 4500M w/ HDMI \| WiFi \| Bluetooth \| 13.3" WLED 1280x800 \| Windows 7 Professional x64 Last edited by redsolar; Jan 31, 2005 at 04:44 PM.

Jan 31, 2005, 05:41 PM	Thread Starter #2
redsolar Off duty Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Las Vegas, USA Posts: 1,242 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I personally gave them a 6. I have so far had good (or to be more correct "successful") experience installing them on SuSE 9.1. Simply followed instructions, and it all worked like a charm. Even made Doom 3 work (about half the FPS I get in Windows, but still). Surprisingly, Quake 3 worked very fast (about 5% speed difference Linux vs Windows), but then its engine is a lot more mature, and Linux-tested. Note, Doom 3 only works with the latest drivers, the previous ones had rendering issues, and usually crashed a few minutes into the game (machine unresponsive ) __________________ Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space_Bar Main rig: Intel Core i7 930 @ 4.0 Ghz \| Corsair H50 Push/Pull \| 12GB OCZ DDR3 \| ASUS Radeon HD 5850 \| 3x 1TB Samsung F3 RAID5 on Dell PERC 5i SAS + 1TB Hitachi \| MSI X58 Pro-e \| 850W Antec Truepower Quattro \| RocketFish by Lian Li Full Tower Case \| Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD \| Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD \| Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD \| Logitech Z-5500 Speakers \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Laptop: Samsung x360-34P \| Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz \| 4GB DDR3 \| 128GB Samsung SSD \| Intel 4500M w/ HDMI \| WiFi \| Bluetooth \| 13.3" WLED 1280x800 \| Windows 7 Professional x64

Jan 31, 2005, 06:16 PM	Thread Starter #4
redsolar Off duty Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Las Vegas, USA Posts: 1,242 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	go1dfish, thanks for sharing. In my experience, latest drivers fixed the kaleidoscope effect in Doom 3. No apparent speed improvement. I am yet to get around to try Cedega and play some games with it, but it certainly looks promising. As to the title - I realized that I made a mistake, and tried to fix it, but it looks like the title is attached to the pole, and I have not found a way to edit it yet, and will definitely do so if there is a way. __________________ Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space_Bar Main rig: Intel Core i7 930 @ 4.0 Ghz \| Corsair H50 Push/Pull \| 12GB OCZ DDR3 \| ASUS Radeon HD 5850 \| 3x 1TB Samsung F3 RAID5 on Dell PERC 5i SAS + 1TB Hitachi \| MSI X58 Pro-e \| 850W Antec Truepower Quattro \| RocketFish by Lian Li Full Tower Case \| Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD \| Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD \| Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD \| Logitech Z-5500 Speakers \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Laptop: Samsung x360-34P \| Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz \| 4GB DDR3 \| 128GB Samsung SSD \| Intel 4500M w/ HDMI \| WiFi \| Bluetooth \| 13.3" WLED 1280x800 \| Windows 7 Professional x64

Jan 31, 2005, 08:47 PM	#5
UberLord A Legend in Underwear Join Date: May 2002 Location: Unknown Posts: 5,255 Rep Power: 0	I gave them an 8 because 1) They finally worked with my old ASUS motherboard 2) They finally worked on my new AMD64 (abit mobo) 3) They managed to get the GLSL stuff in Installation in Gentoo was a snap once the official Gentoo ebuild got into portage - so from the Gentoo side, installation cannot really be simpler! I'm hoping that the speed concerns compared to the Windows driver are addressed slowly but surely - more important imo is OpenGL 2.0 support which is something the Windows driver lacks. Importantly, all my games now work - almost flawlessly! Good work ATI __________________ Gentoo Linux - Developer (baselayout) Read my blog "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Stephen Roberts

Jan 31, 2005, 10:07 PM	#6
Kombatant DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Athens, Hellas Posts: 644 Rep Power: 62	I will give them a 7. Not because I don't find them to be a much needed step in the right direction, but because we are talking about ATI here. And I don't know about you guys, but I have large expectations from a company that is leading the 3D industry right now. So kudos where it's due, and please, keep up the good work! __________________ There is no spoon... Kombatant's Lair

Jan 31, 2005, 06:08 PM	#3
go1dfish DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Raleigh, NC Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	I'll have to also give them a 6 for the latest release. (A note maybe you should change the thread title, ive never heard this linux driver release called that, ive always seen it designated 8.8.25 I havent tried a large ammount of gaming on them, just some hl2 and world of warcraft under cedega, not the best performance in the world, and shaders still do not work correctly in hl2, but those are likely at least in part due to cedega. I did not notice any performance increase in any games. The biggest improvement I have noticed with this release, is that running two simultaneus X servers does not immediately freeze the entire system, in fact it is working quite well (Ratpoison on :0, gnome on :1) though I have had a couple of lockups switching between servers. Currently the ati page says this still does not work at all so I suppose I am lucky that it works as well as it does. One of the bigger changes in this release is support for Xorg 6.8 (previously with 6.8 any opengl call would kill the xserve or hardlock the system). However some of the neater features that 6.8 introduced (true window transparancy, drop shadows) do not seem to function correctly with the new drivers yet. I have not tried the special effects myself, as they really arent my type of thing (X exists for the sole purpose of providing faster higher resolution terminals), but my roomate who is running a 9800pro under gentoo tried enabling it on his dual head setup, and got some VERY strange artifacts on secondary monitor, and monstrously slow performance, so he disabled it. One thing I am curious about is if ati has once and for all fixed what I like to call the kaleidescope bug. In the older drivers, any intensive 3d work (doom3 under cedega before the linux release, and ut2004 native) would occasionally cause the driver to just completely break down in regards to 3d rendering, and just spew a large number of aparantly random polygons seeming to originate from the center of the screen and move outward. I could never really get a good performance estimate of the old drivers as compared to windows, because whenever I would turn up the graphics options in ut, it would break in the kaledescope fashion within seconds. Up until recently I had sworn that I would never buy another ati product again, but the new drivers are beginning to make me reconsider that assertion. I guess ill wait and see if they continue to improve. I saw on another thread here that ATI may be interested in some beta testers for their linux drivers, I would be very willing to do so. I am currently running a 9800pro under gentoo (2800+ xp processor) with xorg 6.8

Jan 31, 2005, 11:20 PM	#7
shaman9876 HardwareHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: USA, WI Posts: 80 Rep Power: 62 System Specs	I gave them a 6 due to the fact I had to manualy edit the xorg.conf file in order to get the monitor to config right and the fact that the keyboard line should of said "kbd" Also it change my mouse config and I had to edit that back in. It also made a xfree86 config file instead of a xorg.conf file. This was running the xorg RPM. I did try the livina RPM and it would only give me mesa and no direct 3d rendering. I am running fedora Core 3 stock kernel. (I had the updated kernel when trying the livina rpm but I just could not get it to work.) good job so far. Since I could not use the earlier driver at all.

Feb 1, 2005, 09:41 AM	#8
RIV@NVX Freedom is a feature. Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Croatia, Rijeka Posts: 4,476 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Well, there are obviously good and bad points: * Good points: - It installs and it claims to support X.org (apparently does, since UberLord got it working nicely) - Apparently games work, if you get it working * Bad points: - Config it generates is only for XFree86 - it has wrong filename, and even if you change it, it won't -work with X.org - After installing fglrx driver module, I can't change refresh rate anymore with FC3's refresh rate tool - big issue to me - To support some more special resolutions, you need to add them manually to xorg.conf - not quite big issue, because they are in XFree86Config, so you can just copy-paste and do some editing - Mesa steals OpenGL from fglrx, and fglrx doesn't steal it back, so games stop working (in FC3 at least) I give it 5, but I'm certain this will improve in the future. __________________ -- Vedran Last edited by RIV@NVX; Feb 1, 2005 at 09:55 AM.

Feb 1, 2005, 03:39 PM	#9
EcPercy HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Iraq Posts: 1,535 Rep Power: 0	Well x.org still has to have a symbolic link to the XF86 files because most of the applications are still set to use XFree. I think that as long as you copy the config file to the x.org directory you would be fine. Also, I have heard a lot of people that say that things in Fedora Core 3 don't work worth a crap. I have a friend that is still on FC1 because he thinks that development went straight downhill at a rapid pace. I am on mandrake. I have to admit that it has come a long way, but I am getting interested in building a workstation with Gentoo. The thing that looks the most appealing is Portage. It sounds similar to how FreeBSD is setup. (The Ports Collection) My friend is using FC and he had to uninstall the mesa OpenGL to get the ATI drivers to take. I rated the drivers a 5. I feel that there is a lot of room for improvement. I noticed that UT2004 seemed to run ok for awhile, but then my system would crash for no reason. I looked at the UT2004.ini file and the game did not recognize that my 9800 Pro has 128MB of memory. I had to configure that myself. On the Mandrake box I am running kernel 2.6.3-19 with XF68 v. 4.3.0.1. I am using the latest version of the ATI Linux Drivers. I am thinking about moving to mandrake 10.1 because it has x.org and seeing how UT2004 works. There are a lot of updated pieces of software on 10.1 as well. Keep up the good work ATI! Maybe more companies will make games that work in linux. Last edited by EcPercy; Feb 1, 2005 at 03:44 PM.

Feb 1, 2005, 08:30 PM	#10
RIV@NVX Freedom is a feature. Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Croatia, Rijeka Posts: 4,476 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	@EcPercy: No, just copying/renaming the config won't work. X won't start after doing that. About Fedora Core 3 beeing crap... well I don't agree; I think it's OK. Things don't work here and there, but I didn't notice any big issues with it, except that my ISDN card doesn't work. And I don't like Mandrake. I tried it many times, last time at ~10.0 or 10.1, and I didn't like it. Well, the good thing about Linux is that you have a choice. Gentoo seems OK, but I haven't tried it. I'm way too newbish to attempt something that complicated. __________________ -- Vedran

Feb 3, 2005, 07:23 AM	#12
sc3252 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 10 Rep Power: 0	I rated it a 7 becuase no more kernel-source (but kernel headers are needed) needed to compile the drivers and new stuff like amd 64 support and xorg 6.8 support. But there are still problems with games that did not seem to be addresed. Like the stuttering in ut2004 and some other game problems. __________________ amd 3000+ ati 9800 7683200 Debian linux Testing.

Feb 3, 2005, 03:42 PM	Thread Starter #14
redsolar Off duty Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Las Vegas, USA Posts: 1,242 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	YMMV=Your mileage may vary EDID in this case I believe is Extended Display Identification Data (VESA standard) Depending on the distro you are using, you may enter interactive startup and then it will prompt you to run pretty much every daemon, so you can write things down. __________________ Real_Men_Do_Not_Use_Space_Bar Main rig: Intel Core i7 930 @ 4.0 Ghz \| Corsair H50 Push/Pull \| 12GB OCZ DDR3 \| ASUS Radeon HD 5850 \| 3x 1TB Samsung F3 RAID5 on Dell PERC 5i SAS + 1TB Hitachi \| MSI X58 Pro-e \| 850W Antec Truepower Quattro \| RocketFish by Lian Li Full Tower Case \| Gateway XHD3000 30" LCD \| Dell 2408WFP 24" LCD \| Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD \| Logitech Z-5500 Speakers \| Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Laptop: Samsung x360-34P \| Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4 GHz \| 4GB DDR3 \| 128GB Samsung SSD \| Intel 4500M w/ HDMI \| WiFi \| Bluetooth \| 13.3" WLED 1280x800 \| Windows 7 Professional x64