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AMD's New Card Supports Linux From the Get-Go
Michael writes "Back in September AMD had announced a new ATI Linux driver as well as opening up their GPU specifications, and today they have taken an additional step to better support the Linux OS. With the just-announced Radeon HD 4850 RV770 they have provided same-day Linux support, and the Linux driver is now shipping alongside the Windows driver on their product CDs. In addition, they are encouraging their AIB partners to showcase Tux on the product packaging as a sign of Linux support. Last but certainly not least, AMD is committed from top-to-bottom product support on Linux and they will be introducing high-end features in their Linux driver such as MultiGPU CrossFire technology. Phoronix has a run-down on AMD's evolutionary leap in Linux support along with information on the open-source support for the RV770 GPU."
I wasn't even aware they supported windows? At least that has been my experience with their horrible drivers.
how many native linux games are there that can utilize it ? nevertheless, it's a start for linux gaming. Hopefully more and more games ported to linux
Somehow I don't see very many linux user's picking these up for their machines. Maybe in 2-3 years when the price-point comes down.
Roughly half my comments are never submitted. You may be reading the better half...
Isn't this one of the first signs of the apocalypse?
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
You're wrong, unless of course your into the whole buy now wait 2 weeks, sell for 101%...
Gaming is HUGE, Linux is gaining every day, as far as I see it they can't go wrong here, because its not like its Linux only, it still supports Windows, they probably hired one or 2 people to code the Linux drivers... so what, no real loss there, and if they created their own little open-source driver thing it would be no loss at all really, and I think its fairly safe to say that Linux isn't going anywhere, and will be increasing the market share consistently for years to come...
They are creating the demand (in part) now we just have to wait for the supply (the game devs)...
will there REALLY be accel HD video support?
hell, even on windows xp nvidia (piss be upon them) has not released accelerated video drivers for their year-old 8series cards!
I was one of the suckers who bought an 8-series thinking the 'hardware accel' onboard would finally solve my HD playback tearing issues. nvidia is infamous for video stutter and tearing unless you use 'magical commercial' dvd playback programs. the regular free ones don't seem to have the magic and the magic is NOT in the xp driver, that's for sure. and there's no way in hell I'm going to convert to vista just to get their new driver support. so basically, I have a 'fast frame buffer' in the 8series card but there's a whole lot of hardware that is sitting idle due to their 'push' to vista and how they want to force the DRM of vista on people.
ATI was worse; but maybe things have changed? I simply want to have glitch-free playback of HD sources on some kind of video card and NOT be locked into vista or commercial players.
but for now, I've settled on the popcorn hour box. it Just Plain Works(tm), is fanless and does NOT care about which OS you use to serve networked files to it.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
People debugging their Linux rivers will often also be helping to debug their Windows drivers too!
Hw vendors should really use OSS more to help them get more eyeballs on the code.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
i don't run a linux system at home. I'm a gamer during the evenings, and an OpenGL programmer and law student during the day time. There has simply been no need for me to. Since term ended I decided to give my beloved KDE ago and try out KDE 4.0 using Kubuntu via the Wubi installer. Fantastic package... it all went swimmingly well
Until... The proprietary nvidia driver decided its automatic screen mode (res and refresh rate) was best, and ignored any attempt to add a modeline to xorg.conf. I had to (gasp) look at the back of my monitor and add the v and h frequencies myself. Sadly the nvidia driver simply ignores my monitors EDID.
I've been a long long proponent of "if it works" proprietary drivers in the kernel, such as nvidia's, providing they are robust and either equally or a more significantly more beneficial component to the system than others more important. But that was back when I accepted the fact there was an amount of tinkering to be done, or there was an amount of work to be done to glue things together. As the linux "system" becomes better at handling things automatically, the flaws in proprietary drivers are becoming less forgiveable because they are a bottleneck. When proprietary pieces of technology can't be glued together because they're at fault, I begin see the issues. In my case the nvidia driver finally became a more significant hindrance to my system, than a graphically accelerated benefit when correctly configured.
It's finally the time to say the bottleneck in Linux on the desktop is edging towards drivers, so very slowly.
Matt
This sounds like a complete about face from a few years ago. I stopped completely using ATI products a few years ago when the fire drivers did funny things with the frame buffer object, and the official line was that there was no plan to have it ever fixed in the Linux drivers. I will have to reconsider my position now.
For me, compiz fusion has become really useful. My widescreen notebook has limited vertical screen real estate, so the ability to get rid of the bottom bar and use window scaling to find running apps is great. The ability to fade windows and look underneath them is also great. Up until recently, I have bought nVidia, because while the drivers are non free blobs, they have tended to just work. Now that's changing and this additional step in promoting Linux support means that the next graphics I buy will ATI.
I don't really play games except occasionally and the games that are available for Linux are more than enough. It's the advertised support for desktop effects and apps like blender that has me sold, but maybe the fact that they are pushing for Tux to be included on the box means that the mindshare has increased to the point where more games will follow.
I don't therefore I'm not.
Phoronix already got the Radeon HD 4850 working with the open-source "Radeon" driver too: http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=12503
Everything starts out small. Getting deeply involved in the right thing when it's small and there's little competition is how you become the dominant player in tomorrow's huge, profitable market. Just look at Microsoft.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
It's time finally there is some HW accelerated H.264 on Linux. Intel is def. on it, I read something on FFmpeg mailing list maybe this or around http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2008-February/042269.html post.
My choice in the last 5 years were cards by Nvidia only. The reasons are obvisouly. Their drivers work (on Linux).
I also prefer cards without active cooling and ATI ist known for many cards with passive cooling which consume low power.
So, if the drivers they made are pretty good, especially the OpenGL implementation (i write simple OpenGL programs and i use Blender),
they could be a very good choice for me. But after years of bad experiences with ATI on my Linux-powered notebooks,
i'm sceptic and wait until the responses to their drivers are positive.
I don't want slow, errorneous and CPU-intensive 3D-support through DRI again.
Hauppauge cards are supported to some extent but getting their remote controls to work is a pain in the butt, even on MythTV based distros!
In fact, getting the remote control to work is more of an exercise in frustration than anything else.
From the article:
"AMD's proprietary driver is now on par with NVIDIA's Linux driver"
That's a bold statement my friend. Granted, they've made huge leaps over their pos drivers of not too long ago, but I think it's a little too soon to make a claim like that.
Just look at the known issues with the latest driver:
Moving the mouse or tapping a key may fail to close an OpenGL screen-saver and bring the user back to the x desktop.
Hmm, can't rely on stopping an opengl screensaver... that's not too good.
And looking at what's just fixed in this driver:
Quake 3 Arena (demo): Segmentation faults no longer occur when attempting to play the game.
Quake3: Corruption is no longer noticed when changing the display resolution when the game is running.
Wow, they just got quake3 working. Hey, we all know quake3 pushes opengl to it's limits and this is to be expected.
Don't mean to bash on them as it's great they are doing this. As far as buying an ati card, I've gone from when hell freezes over to cautious optimism.
But as I said, things are looking a lot better and I'll definitely consider ati for my next purchase, I just wouldn't run out and do it tomorrow.
Tux Racer is going to kick so much ass on the new AMD/ATI 4870 card with these new drivers!
http://www.pchdtv.com/
Not sure about your troubles with remotes, but that doesn't have anything to do with the TV card.
Historically nVidia's linux drivers absolutely crushed ATi's, giving nVidia quite a bit of momentum with the part of Linux crowd that would take advantage of greater-than-Intel graphics cards. If AMD starts getting some momentum nVidia may have a reason to even consider doing something more for their Linux consumers. It'll be a while yet.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
After AMD bought ATI and make claims that they were going to go full bore and fully support Linux I said. "When I see it, I will believe it."
Well, today I make the shift from Nvidia to ATI. I stuck with Nvidia because I had didn't have much trouble getting OpenGL apps to work in Linux and I hear horror stories about ATI and Linux.
Yadda yadda yadda...
Please stop playing the FOSS zealot if you don't know what your talking about.
ATI HAS released the specs to their cards unlike nVidia. The new card already runs with the FOSS driver. The FOSS driver is improving daily.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Now I have to eat my hat.
Dude, the card already works with the open-source xf86-driver-ati thanks to the code-sharing and documentation provided by ATI. Pretty soon the R6xx series (The generation I've got) will have 3D hardware acceleration as the R5xx series has now. It's not perfect and complete support, but it's getting there and progress has been excellent. If you really want to support a company that's supporting Linux, you would buy an ATI (Or Intel?) card. NVidia sure as hell isn't talking about any F/OSS drivers.
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
AMD wants in on that stuff.
...are we scared yet?
You need to support it with your buying decisions.
AMD is without equal in the x86 space right now in terms of openness. They release specs, and they write and release code. All the Family 10 support in coreboot (a.k.a. Linuxbios) was written by AMD employees. We saw this open approach earlier with the K8, then Hypertransport, then the Geode CPUs used in the One Laptop Per Child, now we see the same trend in graphics. AMD is on a roll right now with openness.
I just, yesterday, downloaded the "BIOS programmers guide" for the AMD FAM10. This is the kind of information that few vendors release.
If you care about having this kind of access to hardware specs, you need to vote -- with your purchasing $$$. AMD has taken a huge gamble on openness. Keep that in mind next time you need a machine.
Ron Minnich (who forgot his password)
Anandtech
Tech Report
1. Make it easier for people who are running to find a retail upgrade (wanna see what I mean? Try finding a Linux supported scanner at a retail shop)
2. Increase exposure for the "brand" - That bored sales rep will notice the new logo (nothing to do on those long spans when the store is dead but check out the merchandise boxes). Next time someone opens up with "Hey I'm looking for product x for Linux" the consumer will get a response other than "Can't help you".
3. Encourage more manufacturers to support Linux out of the box (hey if it helps sales...)
Lastly people will start asking about the cute penguin on the box! It's a huge win!
Well, I am one of the Linux users who has been avoiding ATI as well, mostly due to the horror stories. I have live some myself (thx Atheros wireless), and now I do check how well is the support of the hardware in Linux before make a purchase.
Until now, at least the NVidia drivers works fairly well, so NVidia has been my choice.
But, if ATI is really opening up like this, and NVidia doesn't open up, most likely ATI will be my next graphic card when I get a new comp in the next months.
Why the requirement for the maker to be in the consumer sector? Even given that restriction, I'd argue that both Via and Intel have increased their market penetration in the low-end market by supporting Linux for their integrated graphics cards (yes, I know that Chrome sucks). They basically created the opportunity for the EeePC to exist. Most other low-end linux appliances use integrated graphics, too.
Other notables... Nvidia has had a lock on the Linux market for years because of their support. The WRT line with Linux support made that router long outlive its normal market time.
Is that enough for you? No? Then take away the silly consumer sector requirement and I'll add fifty more.
Finally, there's no way to "partner" with Linux. Either you support it (at some level) or you don't. Who would you partner with?
Put identity in the browser.
It's been said before that treating Linux users nicely has a cascading effect, since they are the people that Joe and Grandma ask for help when buying a new computer. So that number may not be HUGE but it's definitely not small, as I have probably caused NVIDIA many, many purchases by now. The ROI is probably pretty good, in fact, for the little they have to spend for Linux drivers.
What I don't get are these crazies who say they're ready to jump ship to AMD/ATI already - over a BINARY driver. But that just goes to show that this "Linux initiative" is paying off.
The first graphics card manufacturer to have open source, quality drivers is going to win big. My guess is NVIDIA is already prepared to release theirs, but they're waiting while AMD plays catch-up.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Just skimming the summary, it seems that the open specs have nothing to do with the story in question, and are just about how ATI is good. And yeah, that's great, but...
All these new features are very likely being added to ATI's binary driver, and will be a long time coming in the FOSS driver. And while nVidia's driver isn't great, it has (in my experience) been much better than ATI's. Keep in mind that the nVidia driver has had most of these things (SLI, etc) for a very long time.
However, both ATI and nVidia's binary drivers suck giant donkey balls, unless something has changed with ATI since I last owned one of their cards. Intel's drivers have been better in every respect. If Intel's Larabee is what's promised...
I don't think this is so much about FOSS being better than proprietary. I think it's got at least as much to do with the moving target of the Linux kernel -- the most reliable way to get a working driver on Linux is to open the source and work with the kernel devs. This is almost certainly not true on other platforms, but it is on Linux.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Its....sniff.......ahem....beautiful man.....sniff....just ...just beautiful.
Oh God anyone got a hanky?
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Bork bork bork!
Don't forget Savage, worth a mention as they've been supporting Linux for years. They're Indy too, no DRM bullshit, just good games.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
Do you get HD acceleration offloading computation from the CPU? If so is it supported by the likes of ffmpeg etc.?
Lots of folks using the XBMC Linux port have had NOTHING but problems with ATI, meanwhile NVIDIA is damn near PnP using ENVY to load their drivers. Frankly I do not care wo's card I buy, I want it to properly support my HTPC setup and right now that is NVIDIA even though it's not got hardware acceleration working - I've got the CPU to decode it instead.
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