Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AMD Radeon Performance Preview On Linux 3.8

Posted by timothy on from the goodwill-trip-justified dept.

skade88 writes "If you are like me, the proud owner of a Radeon card, and feeling left out of the Linux graphics driver revolution that swept Nvidia cards recently, then stay tuned — there might be hope for us seeing better graphics performance in the Linux 3.8 kernel."

112 comments

  1. If you don't yet have one ... by dbscoach · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... never buy tech on a promise.

    1. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I counter.

      I love my ATI and it works with Linux fine (ati 5750), yet it is not perfect. Never buy tech on a promise? I have been burned by Nvidia for years though they have supposedly excellent Linux support. They die, blackscreen, overheat. Maybe it is the PNY brand? Who knows.

      ATI has the best hardware. Nvidia has the best software. Your choice will depend on which you value most? ATI is not perfect as I had some bizaare driver bugs in Windows. I am running a beta driver now because of the erratic frame rate story posted on slashdot. So far so good in that release. I have not experienced a single BSOD, but just stuff like overscan on HDMI not working with some driver versions and youtube videos not scaling up when you click on the button.

      I prefer supperior hardware as I can always revert if I have a crappy driver but do not have the cash to buy another nvidia card when it fails for some reason. I could have just had bad luck with mine and found a rare gem with my asus ati 5750 that came with my system.

      Also I do not game under Linux or run 3d modelling so I do not stress it with my ATI. Just run compiz and videos. I do gaming occasionally on Windows though so I guess if you run Blender on Linux perhaps an NVidia might be worth alook?

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by somersault · · Score: 2

      If you suspect it's the PNY brand, you maybe should have tried another? I've had something like 8 nVidia cards of various brands in personal machines, and supported countless more at work, and they've never had any of the problems you mention.

      If the problems are related to Linux drivers, that's a software issue rather than hardware. Any card is going to die if you run at the wrong clock speeds and/or don't control the fans adequately.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    3. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by Pubstar · · Score: 1

      I typically stick to XFX for ATI cards. I have one of their 7970s (DD Black Edition) running at 1100mhz for about a year with no issue. Their support is amazing for customers with Black Edition cards.

    4. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      My ex bought an nvida chipset gaming laptop from Toshiba. BIG MISTAKE. It blackscreens all the time and we went through 3 boards. Sometimes a BSOD will appear and whine about some driver.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    5. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      If you want to game on a laptop the Liano quad laptops are pretty nice, its not gonna play Crysis cranked out but for most games its fine. Just remember to put the fastest memory it'll take as those APUs are more affected by fast memory then a CPU since both GPU and CPU are accessing the memory. But its really hard to even find a discrete in a laptop anymore since the APUs came out, hardly anybody puts a discrete when the APU is "good enough" for most folks.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    6. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by LingNoi · · Score: 0

      The 5750 is almost 4 years old. If it doesn't work fine by this point then it's a total failure of a product.

    7. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by Blaskowicz · · Score: 2

      It may be the well known industrial failure on geforce 8/9, sometimes referred as "bumpgate". Somewhat related to switching to lead-free soldering I believe. It's terrible but there haven't been something like that since.

    8. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Thats exactly what it was. Sound failed and teh boards are sensitive and Toshiba wont replace it as a recall. Just give anaother defective board. We became an ATI house as a result afterwards and our problems went away.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    9. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

      Runs Wow and SWTOR perfectly fine. Wow can run at 30 fps almost full screen on max settings. True under medium high is more like its settings but it is fine. I bought it on sale for cheap 2 years ago and is perfectly fine. No I would not want to run the latest crysis on it but for Adobe dreamweaver, photoshop, h.264 movies, and a few games it rocks!

      I do plan to upgrade it this spring if finances are in my favor to a 7770 or a 7850. My only issues are I do HDMI only and occasionally some of the drivers assume I have a TV with the annoying black edge underscan. Sometimes the fps drop too in the later driver releases too but it works fine compared to my nvidia cards.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    10. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by somersault · · Score: 1

      Toshiba are hardly a great make either. I experimented with HPs and Toshibas a few years ago, and the Satellites had really flimsy cases and I think it was Bluetooth issues in Windows. After that I just went back to Dell. They build decent quality laptops and are good at fixing stuff promptly when it does go wrong.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    11. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by ifrag · · Score: 1

      Maybe it is the PNY brand? Who knows.

      I'll throw in my one minor data point on this, my current video card is a PNY GTX 680 and I've had no issues with this card so far. Doesn't say anything about their production as a whole, but they are capable of making at least 1 functional card. My first few NVidia cards were BFG, which I did have some minor issues with, then I moved on to ASUS before this recent PNY upgrade and those ASUS were pretty good as well.

      --
      Fear is the mind killer.
    12. Re:If you don't yet have one ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ATI has the best hardware. Nvidia has the best software. Your choice will depend on which you value most?

      Hardware is useless without software to drive it. That pretty well says everything you need to know in the ATI vs NVIDIA debate.

  2. Re:Loser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or one of those losers that only uses intel, or android, or iOS....when can this crap stop?

    A good geek/hacker uses the best tool for the job, or at least the tool they have :)

    The hacker defines the tool, the tool does not define the hacker.

  3. nice improvements. by Truekaiser · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I like how things are shaping up, without the lockups of course.
    But it still stands that if you want the most out of the card, the official drivers are still the only way to go.

    1. Re:nice improvements. by ifiwereasculptor · · Score: 1

      But it still stands that if you want the most out of the card, the official drivers are still the only way to go.

      And Windows. Fglrx's performance isn't that great when compared to Catalyst for Windows of competing Nvidia products.

  4. Re:Loser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    unless the hacker is a tool

  5. Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are like me, the proud owner of a Radeon card...

    I have several GPUs that I test with. I've never been more proud than when I've fixed my own code to work around a tricky bug in the proprietary Radeon driver, so that some folks with that card could still use my software. That's because I'm proud of myself for my dedication to end users, not because of some name brand on a piece of abandoned hardware... So, no, I'm not like you; Unless you're just proud in general, not in relation to the GPU you own.

    Don't get me wrong, I've had to work around many other GPU vendor driver bugs over the years, from Voodoo to GeForce. My point is this: Who gives a damn if you own a piece of hardware, but don't have access to the full software stack required to operate and maintain it. I swear we were all much better off with software rasterizers. At least then the devs could Actually FIX BUGS, rather than tell users to upgrade a driver or that they're just SoL. Thus, as for being proud of the GPU vendors Intel is the only brand on my list that's (moderately) relevant today.

    1. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2

      OP here. Yeah, I'm gay and proud, so I proudly own a radeon, proudly use linux, and -- most importantly -- proudly suck dick. Last night, I sucked almost 10 dicks and you better believe I was proud of the work I did.

      I know you're just trying to troll, but you're doing pretty bad job at that. I mean, this imaginary person you're pretending to be gets laid TEN TIMES during a single night. Most guys would actually be proud of that. Now you, on the other hand, have most likely come close to another person's genitals only once in your life........and that was during your birth.

    2. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you talk about ATI and say "until they open-source their drivers", I must assume you're talking about ATI's closed source Catalyst driver?

      Have you tried the open source Radeon driver (preferably an up-to-date version) with your card? That driver has made great strides in the last few years, currently supports a long list of cards (likely including a 2 year old card), and is under active development. "nothing has ever changed" does not apply to that driver IMHO.

      Beside that, there may be user-configurable options @ play. For example: I recently had an old Radeon AGP card where the difference between "locks up a few seconds after starting 3D game" and "runs totally stable" was made by forcing the card into AGP 4x mode. Took some time to figure out that was the problem, but once known, it's easy to make that setting in your Linux distro of choice.

    3. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Kjella · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Who gives a damn if you own a piece of hardware, but don't have access to the full software stack required to operate and maintain it. (...) Thus, as for being proud of the GPU vendors Intel is the only brand on my list that's (moderately) relevant today.

      You are aware that this article is about the radeon open source driver improvements, not the proprietary driver right? You have access to the full stack. Of course you could wish that AMD would get fully behind an open source stack, but they're one step down from Intel and a hundred steps over nVidia in open source support. I hope there's more than one company that'll have an interest in a high performance open source graphics stack on Linux. because the reasons you're in a community is mostly sharing of the work.

      Of course I won't forget the people who work on these projects but affiliated with other companies or individual volunteers either, but my ideal end state would be one where Intel, AMD and nVidia all work on that stack to sell their hardware. Much like the Linux kernel isn't dominated by one single company, there's many who each contribute 15% or less. Of course much of this is driver code for their own hardware, but they all contribute to make the common parts stronger. Same with graphics cards, sure there's plenty card specific work but there's also plenty work to do on the common stack.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by newcastlejon · · Score: 1

      You seem to be conflating "guy" (gayness notwithstanding) with "slut". Some guys are sluts, but please don't tar us all with the same brush.

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    5. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know you're just trying to troll, but sucking dick != getting laid. If you believe that, then you've been duped. Moreover, I have a dick you can suck and I can find 9 more willing participates within a quarter hour. So you too can be laid ten times in a single night.

    6. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *BUT* it doesn't support OpenCL. The only support for OpenCL coming in is I believe 5xxx and possibly 6xxx hardware, but if you're like me and have a 4xxx card, you'll find yourself SOL even in another 3+ years which is probably when the OpenCL support will mature to the point of usability.

    7. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by ifiwereasculptor · · Score: 1

      On the plus side, though, in 3+ years, if current progress is maintained, a low-end 10xxx(?) will perform roughly as well as a high-end 4xxx, so it'll probably be cheap to get OpenCL support while maintaining you current computing prowess. Though 5xxx and 6xxx are only the first series to be supported. Personally, I believe they will backtrack at least to 3xxx models later on.

    8. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      4xxx doesn't support a lot of functionality made mandatory in OpenCL 1.1.
      So even if they ever got OpenCL support, it'd be 1.0 only. ... and still slow as hell as 4xxx compute shader dispatch is *horrible*.

    9. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Interesting

      For those that aren't aware there is a REASON why AMD can't get "fully behind the Open Source Drivers" and that is because there is a section of each chip they can't legally allow access to, the HDMI HDCP decoders. Since they have integrated that into the GPU there is simply no way for them to open that up, the code isn't theirs to give. Intel has their HDMI HDCP more separate than AMD does because their chips are all about the CPU and the GPU is simply supposed to be "good enough" for basic video watching and the like. Since AMD has been more about the GPU everything is tightly coupled around that GPU so they just can't give you 100% access, not without ending up blacklisted and unable to play any content that uses HDCP.

      But this should be a perfect test of the FOSS community, to see if they are worth supporting or not. AMD has done EXACTLY what you asked, and opened every bit of code that was theirs to give, so if their sales don't go up because the community goes "LOL use Nvidia proprietary drivers" then the hardware manufacturers will see how pointless it is to support FOSS, as AMD will have done all that work and not gotten any more sales as a result. At the end of the day if you don't support the companies that do as you ask then frankly nobody is gonna bother, after all it costs money to have a lawyer sign off on opening tons of code and docs and if they see no ROI for doing so why bother?

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    10. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a bisexual I gotta say sucking 10 dicks is quite a feat, I'd be proud of that too.

    11. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Okay.

      So, ATI can't whole-heartedly get behind the development of the open source Radeon drivers because its hardware supports HDCP?

      Why does Intel *only* ship an open source Linux driver for its hardware... much of which (the GMA 4500 and newer) supports HDCP?

    12. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      You seem to be conflating "guy" (gayness notwithstanding) with "slut". Some guys are sluts, but please don't tar us all with the same brush.

      Well, I didn't use the word "all" exactly for that reason.

    13. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      Moreover, I have a dick

      Oh, you suffer from delusions, too. I feel sorry for you, man :(

    14. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by celle · · Score: 2

      "... I was proud of the work I did."

          Forget the work, be proud of how much money you made. You did get paid right?

    15. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by DrXym · · Score: 1

      But conversely, Intel dumped support for their graphics on Windows. I have a Intel Core Graphics CPU / GPU which is about 2 years old. Windows 8 ships with a driver which is okay but the OpenGL ES profile is broken. Can I get new drivers from Intel and workaround this? Nope because they've dumped support. Intel Core 2nd and 3rd gen are supported, not 1st gen.

    16. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by renoX · · Score: 1

      As the Anonymous said your post is wrong about HDCP.
      Plus what many would want is the access to the video decoding unit of the GPU, I don't think that this is related to HDMI..

    17. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by gr8_phk · · Score: 1

      I swear we were all much better off with software rasterizers.

      Yay! With many core processors and LLVM-pipe this could be a viable option soon ;-) At least for composite desktops and older 3D apps.

      To be honest, I've seen some commercial CAD packages rendering high complexity models at frame rates lower than what ray tracing can do today. So yes, keep software rendering in mind.

    18. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Might have something to do with Intel owning the patents and codebase for HDCP, it licenses them to other entities through a holding company called 'digital content protection LLC'.

      At the end of the day, it's their patent and their code so they can do whatever the hell they want with it - and yes, that includes restricting what *other people* can do with the same codebase.

    19. Re:Proud "Owners", heh, sure. by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      No it is YOU who are mistaken and here is why: 1.- Intel owns HDCP so they can allow as little or as much as they want of the code for it in their FOSS drivers, AMD doesn't have that luxury as they only license it, 2.- again Intel has their chips built in a MUCH more modular fashion, if you'll look up the design pics of the Intel chips and the AMD chips frankly even with the naked eye its quite easy to see the various components so bypassing HDCP while still having access to the entire GPU is almost trivial for Intel, practically impossible for AMD, and 3.- While Intel baked their HDCP support into a module off in the corner of the chip since AMD has lower IPS than Intel they baked theirs straight into the GPU to let the more powerful GPU do much of the heavy lifting, while this helps them to lower power and cost there is a trade off and that trade off is a section of the GPU which they have no right to hand the code for which then has to be worked around.

      At the end of the day this is still a perfect test of the FOSS community, one which I think they will fail because no matter what you think of the Intel GPUs you have to admit Nvidia has been VERY unfriendly when it comes to opening their code to the point Torvalds gave them the finger in a recent video. AMD went above and beyond what was asked of them, even going so far as to hire several developers to work on the FOSS drivers. So if at the end of the day if the "community" goes "LOL use Nvidia" which so far I've seen every indication that they will then this will be a clear indicator that doing as the FOSS community asks is simply a waste of time, its just not worth the effort. If you truly want companies to do as you ask and open their code then you have to show them that you in turn will buy from companies that support your beliefs but at the end of the day I think the numbers will show that the FOSS community is a bunch of hypocrites and will buy proprietary hardware like Nvidia over their supposed beliefs which makes opening the code stupid and pointless. After all "if AMD didn't gain shit from opening their code why should I?" will be the question many OEMs will ask and the answer is you shouldn't, as obviously the FOSS community will buy proprietary and take what they are given without incurring the extra costs associated with opening the codebase.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  6. Re:Loser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's a figure of speech, you insensitive clod! (That was also a figure of speech, by the way.)

  7. Re:Loser by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Proud owner"? It's a fucking video card, loser boy.

    This is often said facetiously. He could have felt burned. I assume it's for a $400 Radeon, not a $50 Radeon, since it's hardly worth putting much effort into the latter (just buy an Intel).

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  8. Weird. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't feel crap for my video card. So long as it plays the game i want to play i don't give a fuck who made it.

    Altho i feel hatred for the cards i don't use anymore because i got sick of nvidias driver shuffle shit after it wasted so much time and energy and was given the sales pitch for their latest shit when i tried to get support.

    Yes, i'm sure your NEW card won't have that problem nvidia. But i wanted my OLD card to work like what you claimed it would when you sold it to me.
    And when you can't make any current product work as expected... Why would i even want to buy your NEW card.

    Dipshits at nvidias 'support' cost them a customer for life. lol

  9. What driver revolution? by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seriously, I don't know. I don't really use desktop linux, I mostly use it for servers and data forensics. Perhaps somebody could fill me in? And everybody else who doesn't know while they're at it.

    --
    Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    1. Re:What driver revolution? by Dunge · · Score: 1

      Oh, and also nvidia recently released official unix drivers who actually are very close to the performance of the Windows one.

    2. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's probably more to do with Valve producing what appears to be a Linux-based console.

    3. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ATI killed off most of their linux support some years ago. Some people stepped up to write an unofficial driver, but its support is terrible.

      Having used both NVIDIA and ATI video on linux, I will never use ATI video on linux again because of the driver hassles.

      captcha: absence

    4. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why the hell would they drop windows support? no. no one is saying that part, that's stupid ( for now ).

    5. Re:What driver revolution? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Users love their operating systems.

      Cad users and artists occasionally use Linux. Shriek used Linux on Nvidia for all 3 movies with a SGI to put the animations together in one package with renderman.

      Most Linux users are Windows 98 users who have a sworn allegience agaisn't the old MS and hope people will magically wake up and switch and have not touched Windows since unless forced to by work. I used to be one of these users who just wanted to code without a crippled learning edition of visual C++ when the price to develop software went up through the roof! IN 1999 Linux and FreeBSD had thousands of free tools, free compilers, a million WMs for a custom gui and so on. Windows NT just seemed ... well rather dull and plain afterwards.

      In 2012 the situation has changed. You can get free or low cost compilers and the languages of linux (perl, php, python, java) are now free and well supported on Windows. The gui in Linux is HORRIBLE! Mate is an exception but I already gave up. I am older now and need to get my career in kick ass order learning Microsoft products so I can pay my bills and retire. Not play with machines while I have many many more years to be an idealist.

      Windows does seem more dull and frankly like a boring white cuble office. I use VMWare now to run Linux and other operating systems as needed and World of Warcraft, SWTOR, and other things run supperior on Windows. I have some of my tools on Windows and can boot a virtual OS to play with.

      Anyway that is the appeal for many slashdotters and at least for me.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    6. Re:What driver revolution? by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 1

      I don't know about the rest because I'm not really a developer, but I do agree that X is showing its age badly. All of the other major OSes have eliminated the problems of yore like tearing while moving windows, among other things.

      I think Wayland looks interesting. Granted, it has given up the network driven portion of X, but it is far more modern both in terms of providing modern graphics functions as well as having a clean, glitch free rendering system.

      Well said about virtual machines, I use vmware avidly for all sorts of stuff, and it allows guest OS'es to do pretty much anything the bare metal OS can do, unlike older generations.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    7. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Users love their operating systems..

      Bullshit. Putting up with something is not the same as loving it. Windows is tolerated at best. And we're used to the kind of fuckups microsoft pulls.

      Oh... you mean LINUX users love their operating system.. Ok. that i might agree with. they circle jerk hard over the whole *nix thing.
      It's still a small subset of a very tiny minority in the os space tho.

      The rest of the world tho doesn't care so long as its working and does what they want without too much hassle.

    8. Re:What driver revolution? by Stormwatch · · Score: 4, Informative

      A smart developer will not give up on Windows and jump to Linux; a smart developer will make software that can be easily ported to Windows, Linux, Android, OSX, iOS, and whatever else comes around. Tying oneself to proprietary APIs like DirectX, therefore, can be a serious mistake.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    9. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may live 5+ years in the past. AMD has 5 fully employed open source graphics driver developers. I have reported a bug in the kernel driver in a rc some time ago and one of them fixed it in less than a day. That's great support. The open source radeon driver has been working great (HD 6550M) for games like portal 2 in wine (!) for quite some time. It even renders skyrim in wine (!) correctly, but the performance is... not ideal.

    10. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But windows is not Free Software...

      What exactly is so horrible about the "gui" in linux? I use KDE and I think it's ok. It could be better (it could always be better) but it's ok. The trick is to use as less as possible of it. I basically only need the taskbar plasmoid, quicksand, kwin and dolphin. What exactly is so horrible about these?

      And what's your point with the games? They are written against a proprietary operating system with a shitload of proprietary libraries, especially direct3d/directx. Obviously they run better on the operating system the developers designed for. It's extremely amazing what the wine guys managed to do with what they had.

      Go to Microsoft Windows and Visual Studio if you like, but as Richard Stallman would say: Microsoft is solely controlling that software and if you become dependent on that software you're gonna have a bad time.

    11. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But windows is not Free Software...

      And nobody cares, until the actual software itself is as good as proprietary competitors (like say Blender is to MAX/Maya, or Linux in the server space) it won't get mainstream adoption.

      And what's your point with the games? They are written against a proprietary operating system with a shitload of proprietary libraries, especially direct3d/directx.

      'written against a proprietary operating system'? You mean they were written to run on it, there is rarely a need for platform-specific code, this usually exists within the engine which defines interfaces for platform-specific implementations allowing an abstraction from things like directx and opengl. Porting from Windows is not difficult, just look at all the games that have versions for PS3, XBox, Wii, Mac and PC, it's just virtually fruitless to port to Linux...at least for now.

      Go to Microsoft Windows and Visual Studio if you like, but as Richard Stallman would say: Microsoft is solely controlling that software and if you become dependent on that software you're gonna have a bad time.

      "Gonna have a bad time"? No, the place where you're gonna have a bad time is on linux where the most crucial component to games, the hardware accelerated graphics, barely works. If Windows does one day go to shit and Linux flourishes how am i going to "have a bad time"? How would it be any different to supporting Mac, PS3, XBox, Wii, etc?

    12. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For now is really the key. Valve isn't planning on dropping Windows support, but they are planning for the possibility that some change to Windows will make their position hard to maintain. Adding support makes sense in that it allows them to have another platform available if need be. It also allows them to get a few more sales from Linux users.

      Ultimately, if the performance proves to be better than on Windows, MS will either have to do something about it or you'll see gamers switching over to Linux. Not sure that's going to happen, but it is probably possible.

    13. Re:What driver revolution? by deek · · Score: 1

      Apparently it will be possible to achieve network transparency with Wayland, through a program external to the core of the system.

      I disagree that X is showing its age badly. I think it is showing its age gracefully. Through its extensible design, it has been able to step up and cope with the demands of the modern desktop. Wayland will be more efficient, of that there is no doubt. I wonder if Wayland will cope with future demands anywhere near as well as what X has.

    14. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A revolution would be if one needed no proprietary firmware to fully use AMD video cards. Just look at all those Radeon blobs http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/firmware-linux-nonfree

      It is possible however to use most such cards in basic 2D operations without those blobs...

    15. Re:What driver revolution? by Subjective · · Score: 1

      firmware != binary blob
      Your BIOS is not open source. Your NIC's microcode is not open source. None of this stops you from running an open software stack.
      The discussion here is about Radeon's open source drivers. Sure, the microcode is closed. So are the masks.

      --
      My other .sig is also this bad
    16. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think by "smart" you mean one for which wide spread sales is the objective. For those of us for whom freedom to tinker, learn, and improve are a much large motivation, proprietary environments hold little attraction.

    17. Re:What driver revolution? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Dunno, I like Gnome 3 and Windows irritates me for being so terrible and lacking the "Activities" view. Don't like Gnome 3's alt-tab behavior though, wish it was per-window instead of per-application.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    18. Re:What driver revolution? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Mostly Wayland is an inefficient, ineffective attempt to get away from "old" stuff like X onto "modern" stuff like Windows. In the end it won't work any better; if it turns out even worse than X (probably will turn out less featureful but not actually slower; you never know how APIs will turn out, and I could see some level of eclecticism churning out something that's even harder to code for), people (Ubuntu) will push it and claim bullet-point technical superiority while avoiding real-world failings.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    19. Re:What driver revolution? by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

      Yes, I meant "business-smart", in the sense that the Microsoft monoculture is dwindling and it is wise to develop for multiple platforms if you want to reach a sizable audience.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    20. Re:What driver revolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they hacked around to stop Unity from eating frames; everyone else was having top notch performance since forever. Performance wise it's basically that same btween Windows and Linux since nVidia uses one driver for both. That's also the reason why only nVidia provides working and fast OpenGL (and the newest profile, too) for Windows - they already wrote the code for Linux.

  10. What do I need it for ? by Alain+Williams · · Score: 0

    As long as I can view a video on YouTube/BBC/... I don't really care; and I have been able to do that for many years. I'm not interested in playing games and don't care about fancy desktop effects - is there something else that I should care about ?

    I am annoyed that Ubuntu running in a VM (qemu-kvm under CentOS 6.3) is very slow at desktop operations like moving to a new workspace, it probably works nicely with a real graphics card but is slow running under VNC. I wish it would go for simplicity/speed rather than eye candy effects.

    1. Re:What do I need it for ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better performance for nearly everything you do, lower energy use (especially for laptops) which automatically mean your hardware doesn't get as warm thus a good chance on longer lifespan.

      Unless you are talking about why do I need that graphic card and not why does my carn need better drivers.

    2. Re:What do I need it for ? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Issue is flash is outdated and filled with holes on Linux with no hardware acceleration. Even Mac was a second class citizen until last year in that regard which is shocking considering how many Adobe users are hardcore Mac users.

      I have come to the conclusion that if you need to do anything with multimedia then Windows is a better solution. Or a Mac if you have more money and like Unix but want usability and more commercial apps.

      Also have you tried VMWare or Virtualbox? VMWare workstation is competitively prices and has decent graphics support with its VMWare tools. Virtualbox has its tools too but I have not tried them on Linux. VNC is slow.

      If you PC is old consider buying a new with hardware virtualization. You will not know how you lived without htem unless you use one. A cheap AMD has virtualization for even its cheapest piledriver cpu and chipset. qemu is not the best.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  11. Eh? What change? by rueger · · Score: 3, Informative

    I admit to not really knowing or caring about graphics cards (not a gamer), but skimming through TFA's charts, it looks like almost every test had more or less the same performance out of 3.7 and 3.8.

    Am I missing something?

    --
    Three Squirrels
    1. Re:Eh? What change? by Nutria · · Score: 1

      Am I missing something?

      No, you're not.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:Eh? What change? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One of the charts has a 10x increase in FPS, the rest is all about the same with a couple of regressions even.

      Its Phoronix though, they'd have posted it for the traffic even if there was completely no difference.

    3. Re:Eh? What change? by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      you're also not missing the benchmarks comparing the performance to a Windows box running the same benchmarks (where applicable) or the benchmarks showing the proprietary driver's performance.

  12. Re:Loser by jgrahn · · Score: 2

    He could have felt burned. I assume it's for a $400 Radeon, not a $50 Radeon, since it's hardly worth putting much effort into the latter (just buy an Intel).

    Can you buy Intel cards? All the web shops have hundreds of ATI and nVidia-based cards, and nothing else (well, possibly a weird new Matrox thing for $700). Personally I use a Matrox card from back when they were good (G450 or something) but it's an AGP card and I'm screwed if I buy a new motherboard ...

  13. Way to go airlied :D by popoutman · · Score: 1
    It's been a long road to the current state of play with the original limited release of the specs for the older ATI cards through to the current state with near-parity with the Windows drivers. It's really good to see this right now as I am in the market again for an improvement to my current graphics card. My number one option was the Nvidia 660, but if this set of code makes things that much better then I may go for one of the AMD 79xx cards instead.

    I was in college in the University of Limerick with the Irish developer behind the drm-next tree, and he's a really great guy. He was a member of Skynet, (the UL Computer Society) along with some other people that have gone on to be fairly visible members of the wordlwide Linux community, including the likes of:
    Mel Gorman, kernel memory hacker;
    Dave Airlie. AMD graphics developer,
    Caolan McNamara, who did the first MSWord converter.

    Irish Linux hackers FTW :D

    --
    - This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
    1. Re:Way to go airlied :D by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AMD 79xx

      You should be aware that glamor is the only supported X acceleration for SI and that glamor still doesn't work on X.org 1.13: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/glamor/2012-November/000287.html

      So you would have to use X.org 1.12 until they fix X.

  14. Re:Loser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least that'd be better than being a 'tard that goes around the internet with a superiority complex like yours, letting everyone else know they're wrong.

  15. Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bullshit.
    I use both nVidia and ATI. What do I prefer? Actually, ATI looks more stable for me on Linux. Globally- I don't care, I'm tired of that.

    Are you mad about AMD?

    Hey Intel guy, please, tell me, how much do you pay for your Intel CPU that can be better (or maybe worse?) than 16-core 6300 Opteron?
    4500 USD (10-core Intel Xeon) vs 1000 USD (16-core AMD Opteron 6300)
    And btw, I've got even more - two modules per core for AMD, not just hyperthreading, possibility to use different types of RAM, NUMA, power efficiency, multiple CPU states.
    What about upgrades? Even on desktop, Intel is overpriced and bound to changing sockets. Bought AM3+, started with AMD64, now have Opteron, how many motherboards have you bought? How much did you pay for your upgrades?

    I can run 64 native cores with AMD in 1U for 6000 USD, You can't run even 10 cores with your flagship Xeon for that price!
    TCO? :)

    1. Re:Bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could just make a dual xeon setup with dual 8 cores for less for 32 thread support and actually be faster.

    2. Re:Bullshit by GioMac · · Score: 1

      Which will use two socket, will eat >200 watts and cost USD 1900? And later you will upgrade it to 10-core on same socket? :D
      +100 USD and you will get 32 native cores and 64 threads on Opteron 6300.

      --
      "It feels like I'm at the Zoo when reading this thread - I'm frightened, but it's interesting" (c)
  16. Doubters coming up.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ones who thought that graphics were forever a domain of windows and nvidia.. You know who you are.
    Accept this development!

  17. So what to buy now...? by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

    I'm in the market for a new desktop PC. Currently have an old nVidia card, and haven't had any serious problems.

    I don't do gaming, but love my 3D desktop effects. The new machine's for Android development. My old one doesn't run eclipse very well, and the latest Android emulators are downright painfully slow on it. But other than that, the box has served me well for 8 years, and it was a cheapo AMD box back then (have since added the cheap nVidia card and some memory). So, I think I'm looking for a fairly cheap desktop today. Fast intel or amd processor, but nothing fancy. Most of the cheap boxes these days seem to come with AMD/ATI combos, but I've been afraid to go ATI based on the driver horror stories. Not too many cheap boxes seem to come with nVidea cards any more - but I also hear good things about the intel video drivers.

    Suggestions...?

    --
    Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    1. Re:So what to buy now...? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Flame war right here :-)

      I have never had instability. But there are a few quirks. My via soundchip with my AMD board is crap so I switched to HDMI and that is where I had a few glitches where the drivers assume I own a TV and not a LCD screen. It zooms out and creates a black edge as TVs overscan and include this black edge for some strange reason that is hidden and zoomed back in when you watch TV so you never know.

      One driver version did have that fps bug where if you spun around in a game the fps were good but it would appear jerky. The latest beta drivers solved that. Other than that I had no problems whatsoever. I am just cautious upgrading the drivers as some releases slow down games a little and some speed them up.

      If you run VMWare and lots of things in parrellel get AMD. Best multitasking and virtualization. Especially in Windows it is fine. If you run Linux and love your 3d effects get nvidia but be careful where you buy the card from and make sure you have a decent PSU. One of my nvidia cards destroyed itself and the PSU! They are a little louder too but if you all you do is watch movies and write software and do not game then who cares. Intel can do basic 3d effects unless my knowledge is outdated and HD 4000 is not supported?

      My 3d effects ran fine with my ATI radaen but who knows with the latest versions.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    2. Re:So what to buy now...? by guises · · Score: 2

      I just recently ordered a 650 Ti, because that's the newest thing, but if you're not planning on playing any games then yes - Intel is the way to go for cheapness and reliability and power efficiency.

    3. Re:So what to buy now...? by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 1, Informative

      The AMD APU desktop combos are a fantastic deal with great results (from a happy, cheap owner).

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    4. Re:So what to buy now...? by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

      I assume you run Linux - otherwise, your comment isn't relevant. So do you use the closed or open source ATI driver?

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    5. Re:So what to buy now...? by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 1

      I run Windows 7, and play my games just fine with the latest Catalyst driver. I use it for coding and Diablo 3

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    6. Re:So what to buy now...? by smash · · Score: 1

      Onboard intel GPU will do you fine. Drivers are open source too.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    7. Re:So what to buy now...? by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Here ya go, 6 core AMD for $230 after MIR all you got to do is add the hard drive. the HD4350 that comes with it is far enough behind the curve that they should have the bugs worked out and if you don't like it? At this price you can just sell the card and slap an Nvidia in there no problem. I have one of the X6 CPUs and I can tell ya they are great,turbocore makes short work of jobs that only need a couple of fast cores and with 6 cores to share the load you can multitask all day long with no problem. it comes with 8gb of RAM and a DVD burner, just pick whatever SSD or HDD suits your fancy and bob's your uncle.

      At this price you can afford to take a chance and it shouldn't be hard to sell the graphics card if it doesn't do to suit you.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re:So what to buy now...? by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      I got an 8 core piledriver for $180, and it wasnt any particular kind of deal. Just go to newegg.

    9. Re:So what to buy now...? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      He mentioned Linux so I am not too sure. My ati 5750 ran fine but that was Fedore 13 (2010 - March 2011 before I quit Linux again) and Ubuntu 10.4 ... I think?!

      I do not know if it would run today and this user is mentioning Linux. In such a case never go with AMD/ATI as they fired their last Linux driver developer if I recall properly?! Or perhaps he was the chipset or AMD cpu driver/optimizer guy for the Linux kernel?

      If you are running Windows then ATI would be a better bet. Android SDK runs on Mac, Windows, or Linux so it doesnt matter what your host OS is, but many slashdotters are convinced it will run better on a real OS similiar to the phone. What most do not realize is it is emulated in a VM anyway.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
    10. Re:So what to buy now...? by Stalks · · Score: 1

      I too had the overscan problem on an ATi card when using HDMI.

      However I found in the Catalyst Control Center options to adjust the scan and have it perfect. Went from being a problem to not a problem.

    11. Re:So what to buy now...? by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      GP post linked to a HDD-less bundle, not just a CPU.

    12. Re:So what to buy now...? by semi-extrinsic · · Score: 1

      I have an AMD APU (E-350) on my netbook running Linux. Went with the open source driver, since the only benefit of the closed one was video acceleration. (Videos I watch on my media senter with 50" screen, not my 12"screen).

      --
      for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
    13. Re:So what to buy now...? by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      If you go to Phoronix and look up the FOSS drivers they are IIRC up to the 6xxx chips as far as support and there is of course also the Catalyst drivers so there ya go. As I said at just $230 for the whole shebang with a price that low he can always try it and if he doesn't like the AMD GPU he can sell it on CL and grab an Nvidia, he'll still have 6 cores of processing power, a nice board, 8GB of RAM and a burner all wrapped up in a nice case so at the end of the day he's still ahead of the curve.

      But you are right about the SDK running in a VM so it honestly doesn't matter which OS you use and one of the nice things about AMD is all the chips have VT support unlike Intel which you really have to watch because they "pre-cripple" a bunch of chips to try to force people to higher tiers.

      I can tell you I have built several systems with the Hexa here at the shop and I was impressed enough both me and my oldest boy are running AMD hexacores, what makes them so great is turbocore basically gives you two CPUs in one. When you are doing lightly threaded loads like many games and programs are it'll automatically turbo the chip so you have a nice fast triple core and when you have a heavily threaded load it gives you 6 cores to spread out the load. The nice thing is you have to do nothing, its completely automatic and hands off so you don't need to think about the load as it'll give you the best choice without you doing squat.

      So if you want a crazy powerful system Billy just keep an eye on the sales, I've seen the Hexa bundles going for as low as $199 and having that many cores really does help when it comes to heavy multitasking. And as I said at prices THAT low? Even if he don't care for the AMD GPU he has saved enough he can simply buy an Nvidia GPU and still get a great system for dirt cheap.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  18. Re:Loser by smash · · Score: 3, Funny

    Your matrox card will be outperformed by a factor of probably 5-10 by the integrated intel GPU these days.

    --
    I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
  19. Performance doesn't matter when they are F*** you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What I want is access to the COMPLETE source my device depends on. Not just half of it. Until NVIDIA and ATI go that route I'll sick with my trusted Intel graphics. Which at the rate Intel's going with improvements I don't really feel any need for something better anyway. The last few generations have been more than adequate and even dare I say better than NVIDA/ATI in some areas.

  20. Agreed. Intel is the way to go. NVIDIA/ATI suck. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It has nothing to do with the performance. There is more to a system than performance. I want my stuff working well. I've stopped buying this crap hardware in favor of stuff that works better. The stuff that works best with Linux is free software. I'm not even *trying* hard though. ThinkPenguin's got a policy of shipping only free software friendly hardware so that is where I've been getting all my new computers, accessories, etc.

    It's well worth the price if your time is worth something. Plus they are funding development (Linux Mint, Trisquel, the FSF) and working to free various chipsets.

  21. Re:Performance doesn't matter when they are F*** y by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And we could have free and open linux boxes with FOSS games connected to our TVs and as our desktop gaming systems! But of course even though we could have that it would suck and comparatively nobody cares about FOSS which is why the space is dominated by playstation, xbox, wii, iOS, and Windows with nVidia and ATi. I'm sure the apologist in you will blame the competition or blame the user but the fact is the FOSS products for this application suck and that's why nobody uses them, nobody wants cares about the source, nobody wants to care about the source, nor should they have to, they care about if the product is good or not, the FOSS products are not.

  22. What a waste of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There has been no Nvidia "Linux graphics driver revolution" and Linux 3.7/3.8 Radeon performance is pretty much the same. Great to know!

  23. Eyefinity by dballanc · · Score: 1

    I've run nvidia cards on linux since before the turn of the century but recently switched to an ATI for the eyefinity capability. Trying to do triple head (or more) with Nvidia just blows. I picked up a cheap Saphire Flex 6540 for less than $70 and it runs (3) 1920x1080 screens with one card and no real issues. I even get composite support for window previews. I know gaming is out, but that's fine for my purposes. For some more bucks I could run 6 screens off one card. I would prefer nvidia, but short of dropping thousands on a video card they just don't have any offerings that I've found. All in all I have to give ATI credit for putting something on the market at a reasonable price that is exactly what I needed, and something that no other vendors seem to care much about.

  24. Re:Loser by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And probably 30-40 by something that's actually good.

  25. Performance Improvement? by ShoulderOfOrion · · Score: 1

    OK, I admit it, I read TFA. Except for one or two games, I'm not seeing any performance improvement from those graphs. In fact, as the proud owner of a HD6570, the new DRM seems to be a regression. Since I don't game I don't really care anyway, but WTF is this story about again? Slow news Sunday?

  26. Re:WOOT! I PISSED OFF THE FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The trick is to make your message look like it's well reasoned and written by some gentleman, instead of that "communist linsux fucktard" foam-mouthed stuff. Then you get to say the same things but not get downmodded.

  27. want Blender Cycles? go NVidia by amirishere · · Score: 0

    Radeon is still not working with Blender Cycles, not even in Windows. I bought a HD 7750 with the intention of using it with Blender. Now 9 month has passed and no cigar. They guys at AMD provide a sad excuse that the graphics kernel is too large to compile.

  28. Re:Loser by robthebloke · · Score: 1

    The quadro FX5800 in my work PC has 4GB, the matrox has 32MB. I'd say 30-40 is a bit of a low ball (which is why the parent is marked funny.....)

  29. Re:Loser by smash · · Score: 1

    Heh. I was actually just trying to be conservative. I should have put "at least" in there I guess - i couldn't be bothered working it out exactly or looking up benchmarks. Either way. Worrying about AGP slots so you can use your old-as-dirt 3D card from 1999 when integrated 3d is many times faster and has later version OpenGL and DIrectX support is mildly retarded.

    --
    I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
  30. Re:WOOT! I PISSED OFF THE FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Got modded down because you post like a 3-year old with brain damage.

  31. AMD & RADEON by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    gosgog:
    I'm not a geek, to old to be smart enuf',....I live in an Asian Country, where now everyone has a cell phn, access to a computer & MSN has as much of a hold as Catholicism. Outside of the "Major CITY"...INTERNET sucks....! However, I'm a maverick, got sick of Windows, went Ubuntu & currently my CPU's all Linux O.S.. The motherboard (INTEL) went south, video was major failure and in the old system even my DVD gave problems. SO, I'm now A NEW AMD & RADEON....its GREAT so's Mint XFCE 13. But the net....well not enuf' real competition!
    Years back when I left the U.S., for good, I had 'em build me a desktop & choice between Intel & AMD back then saved me a whole bunch...so I've been an AMD fan ever since, tho' this last MBoard was Intel & lasted 4 years. I didn't bother about the difference this time just always was impressed with the AMD. folks. Radeon's doing great and let me download Debian & Mint!