Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Interview with ATI's soon-to-be CEO Dave Orton

Posted by michael on from the purty-pictures dept.

wolfgang writes "Tom's Hardware has published an interview with Dave Orton, who will become ATI's next CEO in June. Orton talks about the transformation of the company within the last three years, the current competition with Nvidia and what can be expected from graphic chipsets in the near future. Orton believes that ATI can grab more than 50 percent market share in the desktop market in the short term."

11 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Bishop,+Martin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What they really need to do is release better Linux drivers, and care more about Linux support in general.

    --
    Setec Astronomy
    1. Re:Well... by kidlinux · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How about more sales, and a greater share of the market?

      It seems ATI has only recently begun to release Linux drivers (no they're not open source, but there's no reason everything has to be.) Whereas NVidia has been supporting Linux for much longer. Recently my ATI card toasted, and I can't get it covered under warantee so I'm looking for a fairly decent but inexpensive card - and this time I want it well supported under Linux. NVidia seems like the only choice for me, since only ATI's most recent line of products (ie: expensive products) are supported.

      Anyhow, the Linux marketshare is obviously expanding, and if ATI wants a piece of it, they'll have to do as the parent suggested - support it. It would be nice, because I prefer ATI products for their design, innovation, and the fact that they're Canadian.

      --
      -kidlinux.
    2. Re:Well... by lspd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      NVidia seems like the only choice for me, since only ATI's most recent line of products (ie: expensive products) are supported.

      DRI covers virtually all of the ATI chips up to the 9200.
      FGLRX covers everything from the Radeon 8500 to 9800.

      The only remaining problem is that some commercial developers just assume Nvidia is the standard. DRI in particular has come a long way. I've been using a Radeon 8500 with Michael Daenzer's DRI packages for Debian with few problems. Out of 30 commercial Linux games I have, 3 don't work properly: Descent 3, Savage and Heavy Gear 2. Savage's problem is trivial to fix, the others I'm not sure about.

      I'd rather see ATI release the 3D specs on the R300 chips than see further improvements in the FGLRX driver.

    3. Re:Well... by aquabat · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I already spent a mod point on this article, but I can't leave this one alone. So here goes...

      What annoys me most about both ATi and NVidia is not poor quality in their linux XFree drivers, and it's not a lack of resources dedicated to solving Joe Average's problems getting hardware acceleration working on his new Linspire box from WalMart.

      What really annoys me about these guys and other hardware manufacturers is that they are willing to sell me a piece of programmable hardware, but they are unwilling to tell me how to program the damn thing!

      What annoys me is their shortsightedness in assuming that keeping this programming information secret gives them a competitive advantage.

      What annoys me is their arrogance in assuming that their programmers can write a better driver for their hardware than I ever could.

      There is an implicit assumption in their approach that says the user is buying not a video card, but rather an extension to XFree86.

      Well, I don't want an extension to XFree86! And I don't want an extension to the Linux framebuffer driver instead! What I want is a piece of hardware, and a GODDAMN MANUAL to go with it, so I can do whatever I GODDAMN want to with it!

      --
      A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
    4. Re:Well... by jejones · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is there any way I can get both 3D acceleration and support for the TV tuner on my AIW Radeon? My Gentoo box is limping along with ati-gatos and an xfree build (xfree-4.3.0-r6) that makes Mozilla and other browsers crash at the drop of a hat.

      OTOH, wait, maybe I don't want the 3D... when I used those drivers for ATI cards, I'd randomly wake up in the morning to find my or my wife's computer crashed hard in the midst of running one of the spiffy acceleratophilic screensavers.

      Can anyone out there recommend a graphics card with decent performance and Open Source drivers?

    5. Re:Well... by TarpaKungs · · Score: 2, Interesting
      OTOH, wait, maybe I don't want the 3D... when I used those drivers for ATI cards, I'd randomly wake up in the morning to find my or my wife's computer crashed hard in the midst of running one of the spiffy acceleratophilic screensavers.

      I'm running an NVidia GeForce FX 5700 under linux 2.4.25 with the NVidia drivers (build 1.0-5336) and I have exactly the same problem. I'm not sure whether you meant that "those drivers" were ATI's binary ones, but I am finding NVidia's drivers unstable as of late. Also, they were late out with 2.6 support. Who knows if they will support 2.8?
      Now that ATI's gone down the same route with binary drivers, I'll be buying Radeon 9200's for my next two computers, being the last card with opensource support for 3D. I'm not a hardcore gamer, so that's plenty of power for my needs.
      --
      Why can't women be like Hedy Lamarr - beautiful, talented and inventors of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum techn
    6. Re:Well... by ShecoDu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Do you happend to know what's the status for the IGP adapters? (I have an IGP345, chipset R250 if I recall correctly)

      So far I can get 2D acceleration, but not 3D, I've found some links (ATI IGP 320, Linux on a Compaq Presario 900US to name a few) but DRI is disabled (I use debian sid, and the dri-trunk-sid packages by the way)

      I can't get a working radeon framebuffer, all i get is a garbled screen mode and I can't seem to fix it (I've even installed a kernel patch)

      All I'd want is a working 3D acceleration, the framebuffer is not important to me.

  2. I agree by kneecarrot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ATI does look well poised to capture the majority of the desktop graphics card business. They have had excellent competitors since the 9700 and their newest generation gives superior performance to nVidia cards with less cooling and power requirements.

    --

    I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.

  3. Re:Exactly. by Zooks! · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Close but Linux is really poised to take off in embedded devices and if ATI is in those devices you can be sure they wil have a reason to make good drivers.

    Besides, I don't think games are going to come to the Linux market yet because Linux doesn't have enough of the desktop market.

    --

    --

    "I'm too old to use Emacs." -- Rod MacDonald

  4. Re:Exactly. by incom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Even if that were to happen tommorow, most of the linux users would buy nvidia cards, creating an uphill battle for ATI to gain marketshare. No, I think that ATI is counting on linux not being a gaming market, cause they'd lose out if it became one. If they cared about even a potential, or future linxu market they'd be playing nice right now, it wouldn't even cost much to improve thier linux drivers.

    --
    True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
  5. Why my next Card will likely be a Retail ATI card. by guidryp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I generally shift like the wind when buying tech. The best bang for the buck in current reviews is what I look for. About 3 years ago I bought a Retail ATI 8500. Decent card but, in hindsight, my system crashed quite a bit more than it should have. People were point finger at my Antec 350W PS. Finally I started getting consistent crashes in a game I wanted to play (NWN). This lead me to an exhaustive diagnostic process that eventually proved my card was at fault. AT this point my Card was 2.5 years old. I sent it back to ATI. They replaced it with a 9700 Pro free of charge. Now that is what I call customer service. The kind of move that wins customer loyalty. That ATI warranty is worth a premium to me. I fully realize you are not often likely to get that kind of free upgrade, but a nice long warranty with fast replacement is much appreciated. I realize a lot of people here are complaining about past grief with ATI product, but they have made dramatic strides in the last 2 years. Now releasing drivers monthly. Performance, Image quality and reliability are all top notch. They lag in Open GL a bit, and moreso on Linux though. So I can see lots of folks here passing them by. One last point is I like buying my card from the company that also made the chip.