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ATI Releases New Linux Drivers

Posted by michael on 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)."

13 of 431 comments (clear)

  1. Here's hoping by lazyl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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  2. Goodbye Forever, Windows by RailGunner · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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.

  3. PPC? by *xpenguin* · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone know if this will work on PPC with Gentoo or Debian such as those Powerbooks that come with the mobility radeon 9000?

  4. Forgive my skepticism... by GeckoFood · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...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.

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  5. benchmarks by pyr0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

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    Project Steve
  6. Re:Wonderful for Competition by 13Echo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  7. Uh... by puppetman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  8. All-In-Wonder support, anyone? by Fafhrd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

  9. open source? by richard.kilgore · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Are these drivers open source, or do they include pre-compiled object files that cannot be re-compiled?

  10. The Other Question? by 1stflight · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

    --
    3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
  11. Re:hmmm by cayenne8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

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  12. No source RPM by gukin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  13. ... Not As Much Anymore by GeekDork · · Score: 2, Interesting

    OK, after fiddling with the config, it actually got somewhat better. If you create a XF86Config using the fglrxconfig tool and then copy some stuff from there to your real XF86Config (omitting the BusID and Screen entries), XVideo works and the overlay problems seem to be gone. My system still restarts X when switching to a text console though and 2D feels a little slower than with the DRI drivers.

    On an unrealted note: does anyone here know how to get the "two screens, one framebuffer" behaviour under Windows?

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