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ATI Releases Drivers For X.Org
Amadaeus writes "ATI released its much anticipated drivers for the X.Org 6.8 Window System today. ATI actually went one step further and updated its driver set for XFree86 as well. Those who had to hack and slash their way through the Fedora Core 3 install only to realize that VESA was the only way to get it working in init 5 will find this highly useful."
It's really sad that ATI's support for linux has been so bad in the past that their release
of a new driver is actually newsworthy.
I wonder if they've added support for their HDTV dongle - I don't see it mentioned
in the release notes.
haha no it wasnt.
Shame I can't meta-moderate +1 funny :)
Actually this is quite an impressive release, coming from ATi. It has Xorg 6.8 support, GLSL, and they've also released 64 bit Linux drivers. So contrary to popular belief, the new dev team seems to be actually working, as opposed to the previous assumption that all they did was sit around and play Doom3-linux on nVidia tech...
The new drivers work with x.org, yes. But so did the old drivers. I expected this new x.org approved version to give me accelerated transparency and dropshadows but it doesn't.
If you load the COMPOSITE extension you lose DRI and XDAMAGE just seems to not be supported.
So, like, don't go rush to upgrade if that's what you wanted. The 3D acceleration is at least as good as the old version but I wanted eye candy.
(Though, if you know how to get it all working, please share!)
Here before all but 8486 of you.
ATIs complete indifference to X made me buy an nVidia 5200FX some two years back.
I haven't looked back. It'll be hard for ATI to win me back. First, they'll have to make something as reliable as the nVidia driver installer/compiler.
Does anybody know if the Xorg version of the driver will work with the GATOS modules that are in the current CVS build of Xorg?
And, if not, then WHY ON EARTH NOT?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Who cares about useless binary drivers.
ATI has made some nice graphics chipsets for the PowerPC platform as well. I love the Radeon Mobility in my Powerbook, but my installation of Debian Sarge on another partition would *love* to have some 3d acceleration and support for the nice S-video and DVI outputs. When will they get around to Linux drivers for non-x86 platforms is what I'd like to know.
#!/bin/bash
Not everybody wants to bother with compiling drivers, dude. For some, it's simpler just to have binaries they can install. Not everybody wants to sit through a driver compile just to get the video card working.
One man's selflessness is another man's annoyance.
Those that are going to try using this should read the Rage3D Linux Drivers Forum.
Some of the material there is pretty much required reading to get this stuff working, and includes posts with patches from ATI developers to make the driver work with the latest kernels (2.6.10, etc).
Along with the next x86 drivers on the site is a shiny new set of x86_64 linux drivers. I haven't heard anything about how happy people are with them, but at least they're doing something (yeah, I know you're looking for ppc et al, but 64 bit is a start)
VESA was the only way to get it working? What are you talking about? I downloaded and compiled Xorg 6.8.1 and there were three (ati, radeon, and something else) ATi drivers to choose from depending on your graphics card. OK the performance wasn't brilliant but it worked and the system seemed fairly stable (3 days uptime without an X crash or major bug).
Stick Men
So I still have to go through all that stupid instalation procedure? And I still have to cope with that horrible XF86config file the instalation program generates? Then what's the difference from the previous release??? No doubt about it, I'm selling my notebook and buying a new one with an nVidia card...
Add the following to xorg.conf (Device section):
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
Works fine for my GFORCE2, i get composite AND GLX at the same time, works like a charm.
This doesn't work for Ati's tho.
...OK, I understand that many companies see Red Hat as being "Linux" they have that kind of market share....but there are other distrobutions...could ya maybe also just release a simple tar ball with the install instructions for the individual files.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I just tried the new driver out this morning, and I'm just relieved to finally have 3D acceleration again after going several months without it. They haven't got fglrxconfig quite right yet (it still configures XF86 instead of xorg), but it wasn't too much trouble to merge the configuration with my existing xorg.conf file. Also, the driver seems to cause a kernel panic whenever I kill X, so it is obviously still unpolished. But at least it's usable (as far as I can tell). And not only does it support accelerated 3D, but it also supports proper resolution switching on my LCD screen, unlike the X.org radeon driver (which won't let you specify your own ModeLines).
I'm going to play with it some more after work to see whether it supports rotated displays...
From the Faq:
:(?
Q2: Which ATI graphics cards can use this driver?
A2: The ATI Proprietary Linux driver currently supports RADEON 8500 and later AGP or PCI Express graphics products, as well as FireGL 8700 and later products. We do not currently plan to include support for any products earlier than this. Drivers for earlier products should already be available from the DRI Project or Utah-GLX project.
What I don't understand is if this covers my laptops 340M, an IGP card. The laptop is only 14 months old... so I don't know if its considered an "earlier product"...
problably not, eh
i noticed that these were alot stabler then the last release. I used to have a programming that crashed because of the drive all the time.
X.Org announced version 7.0 of their popular implementation of MIT's X specification.