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Looks like they answer a lot of Linux questions in the FAQ.

Mike

Are we on the same page? I have been using my ATI Radeon 9000 in Linux with the proprietary ATI Radeon drivers. Full 3D acceleration. Wolfenstein Enemy Territory plays just as good on my Linux partition as it does on my Windows partition. Just because the Radeon drivers say they are for Radeon 8500 (or whatever) doesn't mean they don't work on the newer Radeon's in the 9xxx series.

The new Radeon Catalyst drivers (2.5) have this very interesting note in the change log: "The 3DMark2003 shader optimizations found in previous CATALYST(TM) releases have been removed" Yet Nvidia gets to keep THEIR optimizations... hrm.

Your options are a little more limited, since you only have PCI slots in that machine. However for $129 you can get a PCI Mac version of the Radeon 7000. I'm sure you could find even better deals on eBay.

The reason I don't know what kind of card I have is that, although I purchased a brand new, shrinkwrapped Radeon 9500 Pro retail box, I noticed that the card looked somewhat different from the OEM (I think Sapphire) 9500 Pro I'd used for a few days previously. Didn't think much of this until I started seeing indications in places like the XFree86 log that the card might be a 9700, instead of a 9500 Pro (I do realize the two cards both use the R300 NE chipset). Also, that Antalus flyby score is meaningfully higher than what Tom's Hardware found for 1280x1024x32 on a much faster system than my two-year old Athlon 1.4GHz. Haven't bothered to crack the case open again since, so until I do I'll happily enjoy the illusion that I somehow ended up with a 9700 for the price of a 9500 Pro.

The driver I use is a binary-only one from a German reseller. They appear to be betas of forthcoming versions of ATi's own drivers. As I have XFree86 4.3.0 this has been a great blessing, as ATi's own Web site only has drivers for XFree86 4.1 and 4.2.

http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/linux/radeon-li nux.html?cboOS=LinuxXFree86&cboProducts=RADEON+900 0&eula=&choice=agree&cmdNext=Next

Oh really, so where can I download them? I can't without signing an NDA?

Right here You have to register, but then you also have to register for access to Matrox or AMD documentation and I don't hear anyone whining about that. There is no NDA, there are no fees.

Well, I thought they took paypal, but it looks like they do not. You can snail mail them money orders and such, though. From their subscription page:

Sign up for a TransGaming subscription at $5 per month, with a minimum three-month payment. Once you have created an account and logged in, you will need to choose your subscription period and make your initial payment. We accept most major credit cards, but at this time we do not accept debit cards or American Express. You can also pay by international certified check or money order for subscriptions of twelve months of more (US Dollars only); we will activate your account as soon as we receive it. If you would like to pay by gift certificate, please send the gift certificate number to support@transgaming.com and we will activate your account.

Please be sure that you have read the Installation FAQ list and other documentation on this site to ensure that your hardware and software meet the minimum system requirements for WineX. Also note that WineX is a work in progress and not all Windows games are supported.

That second part is important, too. One of the biggies is your video card has to be supported fully (with 3d) under Linux. I found out that my built-in radeon on my motherboard will not cut it as ATI has not (yet?) given the right info/drivers for it. Last I checked, NVidia cards were supported up to the latest with drivers (I think) from their site, and ATI drivers are available through Radeon 8500. There are open-source Radeon drivers and the Nvidia drivers are closed source (but regularly updated).

Winex is free as in beer if you are willing/able to compile from CVS. I was not able to do this trivially before, but I may have had other problems which are now more apparent under my current Linux Distro. Subscription gives you the right to vote for games you want and gets you easier-to-install binaries. Source-based distributions actually make it easier to compile from cvs, but they are not for everyone. Another option is to purchase one of the distributions which comes with Winex and a subscription.

My current favorite source based distribution is also supposed to make it easier to install the nvidia drivers, though nvidia's instructions for manually doing this seemed straightforward. I have not tried this yet, but it is looking more and more like that is what I will do to alleviate my 3d problem. I had planned to buy a beefy video card anyway.

I would also encourage you to get involved with LUGS in your area both by meeting with them when they have meetings and by participating in their mailing lists. These are excellent sources of information. You can also email me at rifter0x0000 at yahoo dot com if you want more ideas/advice/etc.

Ultimately we need more Linux resources on the net to help people, and people who use linux need to be a resource. I also think it is important that Linux users settle for nothing less than total functionality, in other words we should be able to use Linux for everything you would want to use a computer for. That is almost true now, with some caveats, but I want to puzzle out and eliminate the caveats. I think anyone who can code or write documentation should work on this goal as well.

I hope that you have good luck in trying linux. If it does not work for you at first, try try again and seek help. I tried many distributions befor eI settled on one I woudl like for my purposes, and then I changed my mind again :). But remmeber Linux == choice and if you don't like something about it, it is likel

What about ATi?

Ideally it would be nice to have a small Wi-fi notebook to carry around campus. HOWEVER... PCs are often available almost anywhere on a college campus (unless your campus has a long wait line). I'm a senior in college currently, and I've enjoyed having my TV-Card installed in my custom built PC throughout my college years. With that and with a pretty good Soundcard/Speaker set, a student can eliminate the space problem of an often cramped dorm room with this consolidation of the TV,VCR, Stereo, and PC.

>> Aww! How do we expect to get an "early release" of Doom 4 now?

Click here. :)

You know what nVidia's been up to, but apparently not what ATI's been doing.

In addition to consumer graphics products, ATI makes integrated chipsets and mobile graphics chips, as well as TV-tuners and professional products. ATI's chips also power Nintendo's Gamecube console and Triforce arcade system. They even make(made?) modems.

That said, neither company seems all that diversified to me. Diversification would be one of these companies breaking into the fast food market or something similarly distant from computer graphics.

You know what nVidia's been up to, but apparently not what ATI's been doing.

In addition to consumer graphics products, ATI makes integrated chipsets and mobile graphics chips, as well as TV-tuners and professional products. ATI's chips also power Nintendo's Gamecube console and Triforce arcade system. They even make(made?) modems.

That said, neither company seems all that diversified to me. Diversification would be one of these companies breaking into the fast food market or something similarly distant from computer graphics.

You know what nVidia's been up to, but apparently not what ATI's been doing.

In addition to consumer graphics products, ATI makes integrated chipsets and mobile graphics chips, as well as TV-tuners and professional products. ATI's chips also power Nintendo's Gamecube console and Triforce arcade system. They even make(made?) modems.

That said, neither company seems all that diversified to me. Diversification would be one of these companies breaking into the fast food market or something similarly distant from computer graphics.

You know what nVidia's been up to, but apparently not what ATI's been doing.

In addition to consumer graphics products, ATI makes integrated chipsets and mobile graphics chips, as well as TV-tuners and professional products. ATI's chips also power Nintendo's Gamecube console and Triforce arcade system. They even make(made?) modems.

That said, neither company seems all that diversified to me. Diversification would be one of these companies breaking into the fast food market or something similarly distant from computer graphics.

You know what nVidia's been up to, but apparently not what ATI's been doing.

In addition to consumer graphics products, ATI makes integrated chipsets and mobile graphics chips, as well as TV-tuners and professional products. ATI's chips also power Nintendo's Gamecube console and Triforce arcade system. They even make(made?) modems.

That said, neither company seems all that diversified to me. Diversification would be one of these companies breaking into the fast food market or something similarly distant from computer graphics.

You know what nVidia's been up to, but apparently not what ATI's been doing.

In addition to consumer graphics products, ATI makes integrated chipsets and mobile graphics chips, as well as TV-tuners and professional products. ATI's chips also power Nintendo's Gamecube console and Triforce arcade system. They even make(made?) modems.

That said, neither company seems all that diversified to me. Diversification would be one of these companies breaking into the fast food market or something similarly distant from computer graphics.

You mean like: this?

Now, that press release was about two years old, and you can bet that ATI has advanced beyond that point (though I can't provide details).

Also, while not integrating a serious 3D graphics GPU, there's no reason that this can't be done -- except one -- and the same reason that a powerful CPU isn't integrated: heat dissipation.

But, for a "media processor", it sure is sweet.

Doom123, Quake123, Mods1..N, this isn't about gameplay

Clearly! But if the excitement is over the graphics, why aren't the Doom/Quake fanboys all frothing at the mouth over the various Radeon 9700/9800 screensavers/demos ATI have made? These are without a doubt the most impressive realtime 3D sequences I've ever seen on a PC. Check out http://mirror.ati.com/developer/demos/r9700.html and have a look at (in particular) Animusic, Car and Rendering with Natural Light. The screensaver featuring ants marching around a Moebius Strip is currently running on my home desktop and even my usually apathetic mother commented on how convincing it was.

Maybe it's just the lack of guns?

It has been said that 99% of all applicants into the industry have no value whatsoever. Good programmers, dedicated testers, artists with demonstratable talents at low-poly modeling, and others with skills committed to disk can get in without more trouble than into any other industry, if not less. People without demonstrated skills have as hard of a time as those lost souls wandering the streets of ventura boulevard desperate to become famous actors and models but who never actually do any acting or modeling.

That being said, this person is trying to get into the hardware side of the industry. That is probably very difficult, as there is maybe six consoles in development at any given time, and a few additional arcade cabinets (though certainly not enough). I have no advice for him, as I have never worked with a hardware guru... but good luck! If you are looking for an in, ATI is hiring...

Render monkey isn't really anything like CG

Just buy a 64Mb version of the 8500 (fairly cheap and falling fast) and one of these things here. And off you go to HDTV PC viewing.

That's not a bad investment next to a $4000 TV.

You want something like this, not a gamers card.

Theres a good article here.

much faster than the ATI Radeon 9000

What's that? The poster must have meant the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, which is much different from the Radeon 9000 Pro AGP card.

much faster than the ATI Radeon 9000

What's that? The poster must have meant the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, which is much different from the Radeon 9000 Pro AGP card.

That's utter Bull. Pure and simple. Often I'm astonished at what rubbish a supposed geek site like /. posts on stuff that should lie within it's 'area of expertise'.
Aside from the fact that this piece is offered by somebody infamous for pushing the envelope in crappy hardware, I seriously doubt that it beats all-time, all-star leading edge GFX hardware like, for instance, the FireGL 4 or the newest Wildcat.
Gawd, I hate these n00by statements...

Now I'm hearing similar things about the GeForceFX vs. ATI's three month old Radeons.

Minor correction, the Radeon 9700 Pro is actually 6 months old, it was released in August 2002. Check the press release from ATI.

[]s Badaro

Please, check out ATi's site to see what can be done on the Radeon 9700 Pro, here.

It's huge (eats a PCI-slot) and noisy

Many workstation-class video cards take up multiple slots:

www.sun.com/desktop/products/graphics/xvr1000/
www.3dlabs.com/product/wildcat4/index.htm
www.3dlabs.com/product/wildcat3/wc3_6210.htm
mirror.ati.com/products/workstation/fireglx1/index .html

I have to wonder, though, how many free PCI slots you have in your case. Do you have one? Two? Three? All of them? With most components integrated, I would expect the average user to have three or more PCI slots free. Yes, some will buy FlexATX or MicroATX boards, but then they're buying for a specific purpose and even then I think it's unlikely they'll use all the slots.

ATI is still the king of crap. Their drivers are a joke. I have a friend who purchased a laptop with the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 w/64MB and he cannot install a single game. If you go to their website it says NOTE - Display drivers and multimedia applications for Laptops and Notebooks are NOT available for download from ATI CustomerCare.

What a crock of shite. I never have any problems with my GeForce 2 Go in my Inspiron or any of my nVidia based cards in Linux, Mac or Windows. ATI is a whole different matter.

Save yourself the trouble and skip ATI altogether.

Heres a hit as well, never spend more than $125-150 on a graphics card. By the time the games need the $300-400 card you just bought you could have bought it for $125-150. A graphics card is the best thing to upgrade in a system to get better gaming performance but wasting your money on a 9700pro or a geforce FX is plain stupid. I didn't need to go from a GeForce 2 to a GeForce 4 until I got neverwinter nights.

But even with the above restraints, another company could make a Radeon 9700 clone much cheaper, and I don't mean a Chinese sweat shop. I mean, say, a company in Canada making an identical clone manufacturing the 9700 for a cheaper cost with the same quality, selling it for half the price, and still make tons of money off it?


ATI is a Canadian company.

How many is a few? Do you know how many people will return boards because of this? I doubt its more than 2-3. Maybe a few hundreds, possibly thousands. ATI's current profits are around 4 million (taken from their Q1 2003 report (PDF). Call it a 1,000 boards at $100 per chip. Sounds good to me. That's 2.5% of their total profits. Is that really so insignificant?

I have a TiVo. I use a TiVo instead of piping my cable through my computer for a reason. Its the same reason I have a football games on my GameCube. Some things are just better without the PC. Why would I use awkward PVR abilities of my PC (requiring me to sit in a specific spot, and use a mouse) when I can plop down on my couch and pick up the TiVo remote?

Did you not read the article and decide to comment anyway (like this guy, who at least made a valid point)? Or are you Reading Comprehension Challenged? Either way, surely you've noticed the variety of remote control hardware and software available for PC's now? Not to mention that the XP MCE PC reviewed comes with a (preinstalled even!) remote? And, there's always ATI's Remote Wonder to work with your AIW card, so you can sit on your couch and control your PC in another room. And of course, the XP MCE (as mentioned in the article, is targeted towards being either in your living room or your TV and PC combined (for smaller spaces)p>

There's a reason speciliazed components sell better than PC software geared to do the same thing.

Yeah, but I always thought it was a matter of stability and ease of setup, and sometimes even quality...but maybe it's more consumer ignorance, which you might want to look into becoming the poster child of.

On and Off since September I've been trying to send video from an ATI 8500dv with an ATI dongle apparatus to a Sony HDTV without much success.

5% of the perimeter of the display is overscanned. Basically, this makes it useless.

No real fix and I haven't found anyone that is happy with the ATI product in this capacity.

Do I feel cheated...YES

On and Off since September I've been trying to send video from an ATI 8500dv with an ATI dongle apparatus to a Sony HDTV without much success.

5% of the perimeter of the display is overscanned. Basically, this makes it useless.

No real fix and I haven't found anyone that is happy with the ATI product in this capacity.

Do I feel cheated...YES

"The R300 is an ideal rendering target for the DOOM engine, it can do both our highly complex pixel shaders for light surface interactions and can very rapidly render all the stencil shadow volumes which deal with all our dynamic masking of way light operations"

"3D accelerators are all about performance, quality and flexibility and the R300 breaks new ground over anything thats come before it in all three areas."

Keep in mind the All in Wonder has additional features added to it. In the United States, it retails for about $50 more with the All in Wonder features added. Take a look at this for marketing speak on what it adds.

I do agree though that it is a lot of money to put down on a graphics card. Look into the Radeon 9500 Pro or just a normal 9700 (not built by ATI) Both are powerful cards that will perform quite well with newer games.

There are quite a few laptops offering the Mobility Radeon 9000 now. ATI has list of systems that use it. You can get a Dell Inspirion 8200 etc. Of course you are going to be getting a bigger, heavier laptop if you go with one of the PC vendors.

Also of note, and I pointed this out in another comment. The Alienware Area51-M doesn't use a mobile processor which is of debateable value in a laptop.

Download the latest drivers, then download the demos. They're nothing short of incredible. The Animusic one is spectacular.

Download the latest drivers, then download the demos. They're nothing short of incredible. The Animusic one is spectacular.

Note that ATI has also released its Catalyst 3.0 drivers with full DX9 support for those cards which can handle it. Those demos look sweet.

There already are drivers for the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro and the WinTV PVR 250 on the manufacturers' web sites. Try Google.

My PVR has lots of storage.

did you guys noticed whats the channel count on those tuners? i checked out Haupage and All beautiful spanky new radeon. i it found very disturbing that the actual channel count on the tuners is only 125 channels! everyone who has cable knows that theres way more bullshit channels than that!

The ATI All-In-Wonder suite (hardware and software). Yes it is Windows only, but its really the most feature rich and simple alternative to TiVO.
I honestly don't know why more people haven't heard of it.

Key features include

- the ability to save to VCD or DVD format

- a cool RF remote control that lets you control your desktop as well

- Auto download TV listings from GemStar

- Can zoom in and choose your own close-up

- Hot Words - real-time notification when selected words are detected in programming e.g
select baseball and when the word is uttered on any channel it will let you know, allowing you to record anything baseball related - Crazy eh?

- And my favorite - Picture in Picture on crack -
view like 30 channels at the same time each in their own litte windows tiled on your desktop. Major info overload!

And a bunch of other stuff like bundled video editing etc

Check it out here or here

The ATI All-In-Wonder suite (hardware and software). Yes it is Windows only, but its really the most feature rich and simple alternative to TiVO.
I honestly don't know why more people haven't heard of it.

Key features include

- the ability to save to VCD or DVD format

- a cool RF remote control that lets you control your desktop as well

- Auto download TV listings from GemStar

- Can zoom in and choose your own close-up

- Hot Words - real-time notification when selected words are detected in programming e.g
select baseball and when the word is uttered on any channel it will let you know, allowing you to record anything baseball related - Crazy eh?

- And my favorite - Picture in Picture on crack -
view like 30 channels at the same time each in their own litte windows tiled on your desktop. Major info overload!

And a bunch of other stuff like bundled video editing etc

Check it out here or here

You're right, I forgot to mention both here and in my weblog that I have the Mobility Radeon 9000. Thanks for pointing that out.

Feel free to read the link again; there is no DRI support yet for my hardware.

There are also, to the best of my knowledge, no open specifications for this hardware. Please feel free to set me straight if I've just overlooked them.

I have an ATI card. I'm running Linux. I'd like to combine the two.

Feel free to read the link again; there is no DRI support yet for my hardware.

There are also, to the best of my knowledge, no open specifications for this hardware. Please feel free to set me straight if I've just overlooked them.

I have an ATI card. I'm running Linux. I'd like to combine the two.

They are not drivers for the ATI Card itself, they are drivers for the ATI CHIPSET

Really - I don't read it that way at all. Looking at the notes about LINUX and XFree86 support It just refers to product families.

Now granted that ATI tends to sell a "RADEON 8500" and so there is confusion between the chipset and the product. But nowhere can I see and assertion that the drivers in question are either for or not for ATI Chipsets.

Now if they were released (to the public, reference drivers are almost always released to OEMs under NDAs) as reference drivers then that is a different thing. Reference drivers are for the chipset, if the OEM has correctly implemented the hardware, they will work, these drivers are used for reference, hence the name. The downside is that these may not use all the optional features of the chipset. Remember that one chipset can support a number of functions, and some of these are dependant on the OEM fitting the right support chips, the right speed memmory, the right connectors. If they differentiate in price the may choose not to do this.

If it doesn't say reference driver, then its not. Its made some assumptions about the hardware above and beyond the chipset. Depending on how close this is to the original reference drivers it might work, it might be flakey, it might just lock up.

So if you want performance you will need to look for a driver for the specific hardware, if you want stability then you should try and obtain reference drivers - thats why NVidia stuff is reasonably stable.

Remember the OEM manufactures the card for its own reasons - if it doesn't say 'supported by ' when you buy it you have no right to expect it to. Many cars are powered by Ford engines, I would not expect Ford to be able to fix the crash damage on my non-Ford car, but I would expect them to be able to service the engine. If you buy a Sapphire card for your Linux system, then make sure Sapphire provide the driver you need.

At what level does company X have an obligation to support its product sold through the OEM channel - after all you choose it, your supplier sold it, the distributer shipped it - all of these people all 'added value' to the supply chain. Many video card memory chips are made by Samsung, but clearly they will not be expected to provide a driver.

Yes the ATI logo is used - but it says 'Powered by ATI' - it does not say 'Compatible with ATI' although that is the assumption many consumers will make. Perhaps the fault there is shared.

Now be clear I'm not defending ATI here - this discussion is applicable to any hardware drivers. ATI is at fault here for the whole confusion about what this driver does and doesn't do, and what its logos do and don't mean. NVidia are much clearer, and feel it better to provide wider ranging support.

But it is important to understand that just becase hardware X uses chipset Y, then its not reasonable to expect a driver for Y to work with X - there is more differences between hardware than the name on the front of the box.