AMD Catalyst 8.6 Linux Driver [Archive]

sundown

06-18-2008, 01:59 PM

Btw, Bridgeman, check out this screenshot http://xs128.xs.to/xs128/08253/bbbb7507.jpg.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs128&d=08253&f=bbbb7507.jpg)

This always happens when I play a video file on my 2nd display. Do you notice the corruption around the borders? I have to move my cursor around those to get rid of them. It was always like this no matter what player, distribution... etc.

So don't you guys tell me video play back bettered! Not on my mobility radeon! :eek:

I'll save this post for the official 8.6 thread too, in case he doesn't read it.

linzerd

06-18-2008, 01:59 PM

excuse me, but where is the link to download it... in amd drivers page the newest driver is 8.5...

sundown

06-18-2008, 02:06 PM

excuse me, but where is the link to download it... in amd drivers page the newest driver is 8.5...

You're like excused. This is what you want https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run

hubick

06-18-2008, 02:09 PM

To the dismay of some users, Catalyst 8.6 for Linux doesn't support the Linux 2.6.26 kernel or X.Org 7.4 (X Server 1.5).

Still no Fedora 9 support?!? Come on ATI, it's a major distro! Count me as one of the dismayed!

linzerd

06-18-2008, 02:09 PM

THX!!! On my way to test it...

sundown

06-18-2008, 02:15 PM

Still no Fedora 9 support?!? Come on ATI, it's a major distro! Count me as one of the dismayed!

Sorry, but only Redhat, Novel stuff and Ubuntu are allowed in this high party :)

SavageX

06-18-2008, 02:17 PM

Good release for me so far (Radeon HD 3850 here). Totem has finally nicely scaled video and thanks to

"Clock Gating is now supported and enable under the Linux operating system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35191"

my idle desktop systems is now consuming ~67 Watt instead of ~72 Watt (measured at the wall plug, complete system without monitor). This means that power saving is now as good as on Windows.

edit: Just for those who wonder what system this is:
- Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (65nm, rated with 65W TDP)
- Asus M3A Mainboard (AMD 770 chipset)
- Radeon 3850 256MB
- 4 Gig of RAM
- Ubuntu 8.04 x86_64

NeoBrain

06-18-2008, 02:21 PM

Okay, with the F8 packages not working I used the "normal" installer, and I'm quite surprised. No squeezed screen, no watermark, 3d accel working (not tested on second XServer though), switching VT working, etc!
However, the Wine libGL bug is still not fixed and I still have 2 X processes running. 2D accel hasn't improved much either.

HOWEVER, I now can resize windows while using compiz without lags, so upgrading was good for me this time as this was one thing that really disturbed me!

Great release for me, keep on with the good work AMD!

EDIT: Oh yeah, Got around 10% better FPS on Neverball, too. Ain't too much, especially because Neverball isn't such a high end game, but any improvement is better than none :)

bulletxt

06-18-2008, 02:38 PM

I always love new ati driver releases. it's like going to a casino. you enter without knowing how much money you will have when you go out. (you never know how many bugs they fixed and introduced at the same time :D).

SheeEttin

06-18-2008, 02:40 PM

Zhick

06-18-2008, 02:41 PM

Sounds like a good release. Can't wait for it to hit the Portage-tree.

Kano

06-18-2008, 03:39 PM

That driver has similar problems like the ones before since about a year:

a) no pointsprites in gl2benchmark test 3+4

b) crashes with modelines with Xorg 7.1.1 (Debian 4.0 aka Etch)

c) can not run Track Mania Nations Forever with wine (my Nvidia 8800 GTS 512 can run it fine) using wine 1.0 (2 dll changed + reghack needed)

d) no 2.6.26 support, needed to add patches to my script

Script with 2.6.26 support for 8-5 AND 8-6 with support for Kanotix and Ubuntu (without manual changes, works in Live mode too):

http://kanotix.com/files/install-fglrx-debian.sh

Melcar

06-18-2008, 04:29 PM

I'm stuck using an nvidia card at the moment and won't get my RMA back until next week. Can anyone test game performance and stability with these? Also, try making changes in CCC and then launch a game. I'm interested in knowing if they fixed a major regression with opengl that I was experiencing before.

Torren

06-18-2008, 05:11 PM

Hmm Xv is ok again (it hung the player for me with 8.5). Game performance seems pretty good, better than 8.5. Some 3D applications segfault on exit (mplayer, world of padman). They can be killed without creating further problems, but still quite annoying. This is with RS690 onboard graphics.

webjdm

06-18-2008, 05:55 PM

Hi everybody
With the catalyst 8.6 and my radeon HD3450, I don't have any artefacts in Game (Nexuiz) and any problems with TV display. To conclude, I don't have any problems with the amdcccle (5 seconds refreshing). I'm lucky :D

chrisr

06-18-2008, 06:03 PM

Fenix-TX

06-18-2008, 06:10 PM

I can't install the driver on Kubuntu hardy

==================================================
ATI Technologies Linux Driver Installer/Packager
==================================================
Generating package: Ubuntu/8.04
Resolving build dependencies...
Unable to resolve cannot read packages/Ubuntu/dists/8.04/control. Please manually install and try again.

dmbtech

06-18-2008, 06:14 PM

Wait, so this fixed the issue where when you have multiple users on (with multiple x servers) and you log one off, it doesn't lockup anymore?

mrplow

06-18-2008, 06:14 PM

I can't install the driver on Kubuntu hardy

try Ubuntu/hardy rather than Ubuntu/8.04

Fenix-TX

06-18-2008, 06:19 PM

try Ubuntu/hardy rather than Ubuntu/8.04

Thanks! Working!

Melcar

06-18-2008, 07:20 PM

Using OpenGL screensavers locks me out of my session. Under GNOME, if I try to resume my session everything freezes; in KDE I can resume a session, but the login window does not render (I have to type "blind").
I'm also having problems with 3D apps. While they don't seg. fault, performance seems to degrade over time; if I restart everything goes back to normal, but the issues eventually show up again.
I can't run any PTS gaming tests anymore. The first run completes fine, but the whole thing gets stuck while initializing the second one; this does not happen with 8.5.
Overall I can't say I'm thrilled with this release. Screen tearing with Xv and movie playback is still there by the way, but only on my x800gto (the 200M works fine... weird). Oh, and scrolling in FF while using composition engines (Compiz for one) is smooth as butter now, even with Smooth Scrolling on.

aeleneski

06-18-2008, 07:31 PM

Well I seem to be having some big problems here. I tried building with the --buildandinstallpkg, but that had errors. So I tried just the regular --buildpkg Ubuntu/hardy, then dpkg -i to the deb files. This seemed to work, so upon restart I go to run fglrxinfo and I get back

fglrxinfo: ../../src/xcb_io.c:350: _XReply: Assertion `!dpy->xcb->reply_data' failed.
Abort

Vighy

06-18-2008, 07:44 PM

Hey, but clock gating was enabled for all chips!? even M76? by default? or there are options to set it?

and is it somehow related to POWERplay? because powerplay was not enabled for my M76, and i cannot find anywhere that clock gating was enabled....

twolf

06-18-2008, 08:26 PM

Melcar

06-18-2008, 08:42 PM

After about 15 min of using the new release the screen became all pilxelated and unreadable, I couldn't get a screenshot but I will revert back to 8.4 which I could at least see my screen with until the next one comes along and I can be disappointed again. :(

Was it sudden or did you do something, like run a game? For me if I run 3D games the driver eventually craps out; performance goes to the floor. If I change stuff in CCC most of my 3D games segfault. This behavior was not present in 8.5 (that revision was nearly perfect for my uses). 2D and video playback are nearly perfect now with no problems (except for screen tearing on my x800gto), but 3D took a nose dive for some reason. The fact that I can watch videos and game with Compiz on now almost, *almost*, makes this driver a dream come true for me. They fix something but other stuff breaks, which does happen a lot in software programing, so I'm not going to complain too much. Good driver overall, and if it weren't that I game a lot, I would give it a happy face.

twolf

06-18-2008, 08:56 PM

I wasn't playing a game or anything intensive like that, just a web browser and a couple of xterms open.

jeffro-tull

06-18-2008, 11:49 PM

well, I've got an X1300 in my T60. I ran the installer program on Debian Testing and it did absolutely nothing. It didn't tweak xorg.conf and there's no fglrx module to be found.

looks like I need to learn how to work git so I can get the latest, greatest radeonhd stuff working.

yoshi314

06-19-2008, 01:18 AM

looks like developers had enough time to introduce new stuff into the driver, instead of usual maintenance releases. that probably means that there are less and less issues with the driver, and they actually have time for implementing new features.

sundown

06-19-2008, 03:04 AM

When I start games like Nexuiz and I see JUNK on my 2nd display. If I open the lid of the laptop I can perfectly see that the game runs fine there.
Same goes for OpenArena!

Well done :)... I'm going back to 8.5

AMD/ATi hate mobility radeons, I tell you.

sid350

06-19-2008, 03:23 AM

There is no improvements on X200M, only new bugs. Diagonal tearing is everythere.

THANK YOU ATI!

biasquez

06-19-2008, 03:45 AM

Priver installed on ubuntu 8.04 / ati mobility 9700
Problems found:

- X server runs twice
- flickering with Texture Video enable/disable when i have compiz enabled and i'm watching video not fullscreen
- X freeze when i restart gdm or try to switch from text console to desktop and vice versa

Gianfrix

06-19-2008, 03:58 AM

This release solves the logout freeze with AIGLX enabled (tried on Arch Linux)... thank you ATI!!!!

storma

06-19-2008, 04:03 AM

I've had success with installing by just running ./ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run.
It opened up a nice gui and ran fine from there.

I've seen remarkable improvement with the games I play, Tremulous, Sauerbraten and Savage2. I no longer get lockups and I've seen higher fps counts as well.

The only thing that stops me from saying the ati drivers are peachy is the pixelation/distortion that others have mentioned. For me, it is new to this release and only effects mythtv and need for speed through wine.

I came across from being a dedicated nvidia person. I knew the road would be rocky but have enjoyed the journey. ;) Top work fellas.

Asus M3A-H/HDMI
Amd Athlon x2 6000+
4G ram
Using the 3200 IGP for now.

shamooki

06-19-2008, 06:07 AM

On my T60 with Mobility X1300 dual-head now works again, also when driving two screens from the docking station. Cool! I have an asymmetric screen setup, screen 1 with 1680x1050 and screen 2 with 1280x1024, which was causing problems with 8-5. Good to see that fixed!

Now, all I'm missing is full support of XRANDR! It makes the life of a laptop user so much easier, especially when using a projector for presentations (which I do quite often). I need to switch screens and resolutions without rebooting, and aticonfig and amdcccle do a bad job here. Moreover, they're difficult to use, in particular compared to what I'm used from radeonhd (with full XRANDR support). The only reason I do not use radeonhd is that it doesn't have acpi support, and I can't dim the backlight when on battery.

Overall the situation for ati users has improved a lot over the last few months. A big THANK YOU to ati/amd, and an even bigger KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

shamooki

06-19-2008, 06:16 AM

My praise was too quick... about 5 min after sending off the previous post, my screen was corrupted all over when starting up powerpoint through crossover office. :( Looked much like the blocky or pixellated corruption that was reported earlier in this thread.

I'll see if I can reproduce it.

shamooki

06-19-2008, 06:24 AM

OK, i reproduced the desktop corruption. Starting powerpoint via Crossover Office (WINE) makes the desktio unusable, restarting the X server fixes the corruption. But I can't finish my presentation :(

For the record, my setup is: Lenovo T60/Mobility X1300
SUSE 10.3
1680x1050+1280x1024 via docking station (one DVI, one VGA)

Going back to 8-4 now, the last revision that worked for me. Hoping that radeonhd will support powersaving and backlight dimming soon.

Mithrandir

06-19-2008, 06:50 AM

There is no improvements on X200M, only new bugs. Diagonal tearing is everythere.

THANK YOU ATI!

Why don't you use open source driver? It works quite well with X200M.

adamk

06-19-2008, 07:13 AM

Why don't you use open source driver? It works quite well with X200M.

That depends on your definition of "quite well" :-) For functional AIGLX support you need a very new version of the driver which requires compiling drm and mesa from source, and quite possibly the xserver if you don't have a new enough version already installed.

Adam

Redeeman

06-19-2008, 07:57 AM

That depends on your definition of "quite well" :-) For functional AIGLX support you need a very new version of the driver which requires compiling drm and mesa from source, and quite possibly the xserver if you don't have a new enough version already installed.

Adam
which kindof equals up to around the same time as installing fglrx when it goes easy, if one has fglrx trouble, its alot easier to compile xserver/mesa/drm....

d2kx

06-19-2008, 08:12 AM

Redeeman

06-19-2008, 08:16 AM

i could probably do the mesa/drm and xserver thing with less manual time spent, than you could do the build-essential, dkms, atiinstaller, aticonfig thing..

naturally compiling itself takes abit of time.. but thats my cpu's task :)

d2kx

06-19-2008, 08:24 AM

Installing build-essential and dkms, installing the driver with the ATI Installer, doing that single aticonfig command doesn't take a minute. Fast enough, I think :)

Where's the PTS benchmark for installing fglrx vs. compiling open source packages? :D

NeoBrain

06-19-2008, 08:50 AM

Hey, icon corruption is gone now. :)
But video playback seems to have broken. :(

In any case, I've updated my installer script for the 'buntus, which can be found here (http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3082777.0;attach=3 651).

EDIT: Yep, looks like it made 3D totally unusable. Tried Sauerbraten, and it does this weird split-screen checkerboard thingy. I can see everything, but it's completely unplayable.

Maybe a problem somewhere with endian-ness? Just a shot in the dark... Screenshots come out normal, so a picture here (http://i27.tinypic.com/of8p5w.jpg). (This happens to everything on-screen until I close Sauerbraten.)
Oh yeah, and the Phoronix article says it doesn't support Xorg 7.4/X server 1.5, which is what I'm running... The last driver worked fine.

No need to wonder about 3D not working as Catalyst REALLY doesn't support Xorg 7.4/XServer 1.5. They introduced a new driver infrastructure which is yet not at all supported in Catalyst.

From what I see in this thread we can (again) say that many people experience success and many experience disappointments.
Lucky that I'm one of the success ones :)

Vighy

06-19-2008, 08:51 AM

Mhh and instead of "ATi rocks! ATi Sux!" and so on... what about this technical question i made?

Hey, but clock gating was enabled for all chips!? even M76? by default? or there are options to set it?

and is it somehow related to POWERplay? because powerplay was not enabled for my M76, and i cannot find anywhere that clock gating was enabled....

Maybe Bridgman knows... :D I say maybe because lately he said:
Hold on Vighy, there's a big difference between "ATI didn't know" and "bridgman didn't know". The second one happens all the time :D

:D :D :D

shinigami

06-19-2008, 10:19 AM

I have a problem with TV using new drivers. Plus is that KDETV is finally working with v4l2/xvideo (and I can run TVTime), but it makes strange things with the image - it is BW covered by moving translucent colour diagonal stripes and it looks like colours are taken from image (scene with forest has green stripes etc). Any idea? I have HD3200, OS 10.3, plain X11 without compizes and so..

Dandel

06-19-2008, 12:23 PM

Yesterday.
Fresh Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit.
Updated.
Installed build-essential & dkms.
Launched ATI-Installer, clicked "next" several times.
Let aticonfig configure my xorg.conf.
Reboot.
Works.

So I can't agree with Redeeman here, but still it was funny to read :)

Your only half right, the driver still has 3 major bugs i notice... i don't use compiz normally, however right nwo i have it enabled due to major bugs with rendering the gnome system monitor with the compiz disabled...

first bug: the installer is half broken on ubuntu...

this command works:
sudo sh ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/hardy

this command does not work:
sudo sh ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/8.04

second bug: see my previously mentioned statement about having compiz disabeld and the rendering of gnome system monitor being unusable... moving the window causes major errors across the screen ( last known to work somewhat properly is 8.4 driver release)

third bug: Xvideo output problems due to compiz...

mplayer ( ubuntu repository) and VLC's xvideo output flickers badly when in windowed mode.

smplayer does not render any video when the video output is set to XV. ( using latest svn release of mplayer )

mplayer does not render video in full screen, but renders windowed properly. (revision 27099 of mplayer)

smplayer does not render video at all when using the revision 27099 of mplayer.

oh and on a quick note, when you have doom 3 running in windowed mode with compiz it tends to flicker a little bit, but not as bad as the video's being played in mplayer and vlc using the xvideo output.

Melcar

06-19-2008, 12:40 PM

The flickering video deal is not exactly a bug. It has been explained several times now. Bridgman keeps saying that running apps. in fullscreen should alleviate the problem, but that hasn't worked for me until this driver release. With the 8.6 I can finally game (in fullscreen) and watch videos (in fullscreen) while having Compiz on, as long as I don't have any other windows active. This holds true with Mplayer, Totem, and VLC (using whatever versions are default in Hardy), and for several games (Nexuiz, Alien Arena, Sauerbraten, Doom 3, Precipice of Darkness Ep1, Glest, Warsow, Urban Terror, Teeworlds).
The packaging scripts are indeed semi-broken, but the auto installer works fine.
Only problems I have with the driver are segfaults and horrible in game performance after a prolonged session, which is new for me (8.4 and 8.5 had none of these issues). I still get horizontal tears on screen when using Xv and OpenGL, but everytime it seems to be less apparent (hopefully by the next release it's gone for good).

sundown

06-19-2008, 12:49 PM

but everytime it seems to be less apparent

Are you forcing yourself to believe so? :p

Melcar

06-19-2008, 12:54 PM

Are you forcing yourself to believe so? :p

There is no more tearing on my 200M. The replacement x800 I have on my desktop still shows distortion on the top half of the screen (horizontal line going from left to right).

biasquez

06-19-2008, 01:48 PM

@melcar

like you, if i have compiz enabled and i watch video in fullscreen mode for example with vlc, i don't have problems but if i watch video in window mode, i have flickering.

SledgeHammer_999

06-19-2008, 01:57 PM

I installed these drivers in Ubuntu 8.04 using "--buildandinstallpkg Ubuntu/hardy".

Problems:
1.Horizontal visual tearing when playing videos-->the card spews frames faster than the monitor/TV can finnish displaying.
2.The fan is constantly on and I am forced to use the special version of radeontool.

khakhovich

06-19-2008, 02:59 PM

....looked around at this new driver release, and yet again i am so glad that my new Lenovo laptop is on the way with NVIDIA to my office.

Sorry ATI, thanks for a long painful yet some time fun ride.

Please check this thread
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showpost.php?p=1021008&postcount=135

look at the date, May 28, 2008 nvidia released driver that fully support latest kernel and latest Xorg server.

today is June 19th... and yet nothing from ATI to Fedora. what is the deal with ATI??? move faster or you will be loosing people. and i was waiting... not complaining... but this is way too long.

thanks to all :) enjoy.

PS. don't get me started about % of users with Fedora, or that is a bleeding edge, or anything else. if some companies can do this, others should be able too.

oblivious_maximus

06-19-2008, 03:27 PM

-I can log out(!!) :)
-running "X :1 -layout TV" still results in an unrecoverable black screen lockup :mad:
-Attempts to run "X -layout TV" from a console (without X running already) were foiled by fglrx - after rebooting, before logging in with KDM, I VT-switched to VT1. Then I tried to run "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop" only to get an error message about KDM not stopping. Repeated attempts to stop kdm fail. OK may as well login now right? VT-switching to VT7 results in the cursor on VT1 vanishing and the screen locking where it is (on VT1). Can't VT-switch anywhere, can't enter any more commands, but at least the Magic SysReq key works. :mad:
-still have to edit authatieventsd.sh manually to point to /var/run/xauth - this has been an issue since I started trying to use the ATI cards I've bought, back when 8-3 was current :mad:
-had to link libfglrx_gamma.so.1.0 to libfglrx_gamma.so.1 manually before the packages would build. I read about the fix in an Ubuntu thread which I believe was in reference to 8-4. :mad:

FINAL TALLY:
:) :1
:mad: :4

It's been zero happy smilies since I bought an HD3650, so I guess that's something. But why on earth does everyone who those last two items apply to have to apply those fixes themselves, driver after driver??

Why is it that AMD can produce a perfectly functional, not-completely-insulting driver for Windows but Linux operating systems get this hit or miss BS? fglrx is a joke.

:(

edit:
(on an HD3870)
$ aticonfig --list-powerstates
Error: POWERplay is not supported on your hardware.

$ aticonfig --lsp
Error: POWERplay is not supported on your hardware.

:mad:

yorik

06-19-2008, 03:40 PM

To me it seems that this version brings a small performance gain in OpenGL apps (blender & freecad), on a Xpress200.

- several areas of blender continue as slow as before, mainly everything that is 2d (texts & menus). The file selector screen is terribly slow when navigating in folders full of items. There also seems to be a small "lag" when switching window type.

- but several things are better. Still no dotted lines, but select/deselect has almost normal speed now. UVmapping screen also works at normal speed now.

- still a lot of 3d-related apps do a segfault on exit, including fglrxinfo himself :)

For the rest, I haven't seen any change since 8.5...

sid350

06-19-2008, 06:28 PM

Why don't you use open source driver? It works quite well with X200M.

open source driver works very slow and buggy with my X200M (RC410)
so fglrx is only way, with tearing in 3D but X doesn't crash every minute.

doubledr

06-19-2008, 09:14 PM

"The flickering video deal is not exactly a bug", if so, why doesn't it happen on nvidia's drive? Who can explain to me?

IrradeoActive

06-19-2008, 09:15 PM

Dandel

06-19-2008, 09:46 PM

"The flickering video deal is not exactly a bug", if so, why doesn't it happen on nvidia's drive? Who can explain to me?

The flickering video bug occurs when one has compiz fusion enabled the screen area where the video/3d parts are supposed to be rendered flickers between the image to be rendered and some other color, which is usually black. it looks somewhat like one has a old style TV set with bad reception.

mtippett

06-20-2008, 12:25 AM

The flickering video bug occurs when one has compiz fusion enabled the screen area where the video/3d parts are supposed to be rendered flickers between the image to be rendered and some other color, which is usually black. it looks somewhat like one has a old style TV set with bad reception.

Let's set the record slightly straighter about this bug.

Compiz is a compositor, it tells applications to render offscreen and then composites (blends, combines, whatever) into an image and presents it to the screen. The application is still told where it is on the screen, it is just that most 2D clients render to the offscreen pixmap.

The direct clients of the current driver (OpenGL and Video) render directly to the framebuffer (the screen). Compiz (as an OpenGL application) renders to the framebuffer. The "flickering" that people are talking about is actually two openGL clients rendering to the same part of the screen.

The COMPOSITE extension is an all or nothing option, the compositor assumes that all windows are compositable, and there is no way for the driver to say that the window shouldn't be composited. I am hoping that COMPOSITE can be extended to provide hints to the compositor that for whatever reason (overlay, etc), an application can't render offscreen and so the compositor should provide all the details needed for the rendering to occur properly. Currently we can't do that.

To solve this completely, *ALL* clients must support the COMPOSITE extension fully. The NVidia drivers support this currently, some xV clients support this as well. None of the DRI based 3D drivers support this. DRI2 is adding infrastructure to support COMPOSITE fully (through the so-called Redirected Direct Rendering), but that is at least 6-9 months away from the next XOrg release.

I am not providing a timeline as to when full COMPOSITE support will be added to the driver, but I wanted to allow people to understand what is happening rather than making unfounded comments.

Other compositors (like metacity) do not try to re-render the whole screen with OpenGL, and so the behaviour is a lot less noticable - but you can still see that the OpenGL applications are not given clipping information, so will overwrite windows that pass infront of the application.

Regards,

Matthew

Zhick

06-20-2008, 02:01 AM

I'm still running on 8-5 since 8-6 is not yet in the Portage-tree, but yesterday I installed 8-6 on a friends pc. He's using Kubuntu (7.10 iirc) and the fglrx-Versions in Kubuntus repository didn't work for him (they failed to init dri). So I told him I would fix that and expected manually compiling modules etc...
Since of sheer curiosity I tried out the graphical installer of the 8-6 fglrx (the last time I used that it fucked up things badly) and to my surprise it worked like a charm.
Just thought I'd post this here since I was really surprised. :)

shoofy

06-20-2008, 02:11 AM

For me this release was purely regressions. It reintroduced the bug I had had since 7.11 where the entire system would die if I closed the lid of my laptop with gnome-screensaver running, which was finally fixed in 8.5, but it's back in 8.6. It also caused vlc not to be able to play any video at all (flickering or otherwise) with compiz enabled. I'm back at 8.5 now.

Mobility Radeon X1400, Ubuntu Hardy.

jeffro-tull

06-20-2008, 02:45 AM

hmm, really seems to be hit or miss with this release.

I cleared out the files from the installer, redownloaded, and gave it another go. Same results: GUI installer said everything went fine, but a reboot later and lsmod didn't show fglrx and my xorg.conf was just as I set it up. I ran aticonfg --initial, and it appended it. Left my 'Section "Device"' perfectly intact and added its own afterwards.

Guess which one Lenny feels like ignoring? Yeah, the one the new driver added. Ugh.

Redeeman

06-20-2008, 04:34 AM

X1950pro AGP on PCLinuxOS finally can do video XV and use TVTime! Yay!

But I still get flickering overlays, GL & XV, when using compiz.

And my frame-rates only show ~60 fps in fgl/glxgears? What are they hiding?
they are hiding their bad framerates!!!! oh wait, or you just have opengl set to vsync... :P

ivanovic

06-20-2008, 04:54 AM

I'm still running on 8-5 since 8-6 is not yet in the Portage-tree, but yesterday I installed 8-6 on a friends pc.

It is in the tree now. I had submitted the patch required some hours after the release, so you could just have used this one. Sometimes looking at the bugtracker bugs.gentoo.org helps with finding new/updated ebuilds. ;)

biasquez

06-20-2008, 05:17 AM

one question, i'm using hardy now. if i install xorg 1.5 + dri2 (git version), can i use fglrx and see video without flickering? fglrx support dri2 and xorg 1.5 ?

hehe2

06-20-2008, 05:43 AM

The new amdxmm.so module and the atiode, atiodcli programs aren't being packaged either!

Once installed, the biggest problem I have found so far is that the X server is still crashing when xine reaches the end of a video file. This is related to Xv; there is still some illegal memory access in a memcpy() somewhere in the glesx.so module.

Running the xscreensaver OpenGL hacks from the command line isn't releasing the command prompt when I quit the hack either. Most odd...

Same bug with xine ... plus WoW using cedega ("commercial" version of wine with improved games support) ain't starting anymore, the video init is freezing my X server, I have to CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE :X

I still got the black borders I had with 8.5, even if the "hack" given by a member of this phorum is still working (the little script to set the display origin at 0,0).

To conclude, each version after the other, the performance is decreasing :X

glxgears 8.4 ==> about 18800 fps
glxgears 8.5 ==> about 17800 fps
glxgears 8.6 ==> about 16500 fps :X

well, I can presume the next version will run glxgears at about 15000 fps ...

I really wonder wether I'll buy a nvidia GT280 or not ... I'm tired and frustrated having two ati cards (3870 and 3870X2) and not being able to use them properly ...

Kano

06-20-2008, 06:01 AM

If you have too many ATI cards you can send me one for testing my script ;) My X700SE is still enough to run fglrx but I could not test the latest radeonhd efforts.

mile

06-20-2008, 06:30 AM

best release for me in last year as owner of ATI GPU based laptop (x1600)

tvtime finally works :D

IrradeoActive

06-20-2008, 09:46 AM

Let's set the record slightly straighter about this bug.
...
I am not providing a timeline as to when full COMPOSITE support will be added to the driver, but I wanted to allow people to understand what is happening rather than making unfounded comments.
...
Regards,

Matthew

Thanks so much! The anxiety-component of my grief has been lessened a bit.

IrradeoActive

06-20-2008, 09:50 AM

they are hiding their bad framerates!!!! oh wait, or you just have opengl set to vsync... :P

Yep. Turned it off and the framerates came back.

aniruddha

06-20-2008, 10:20 AM

After about 15 min of using the new release the screen became all pilxelated and unreadable, I couldn't get a screenshot but I will revert back to 8.4 which I could at least see my screen with until the next one comes along and I can be disappointed again. :(

Same problem here. For me it happens when I start wine (even a simple winecfg).

Update:
Look for more info and screenshots here:
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10940

seanbarman

06-20-2008, 01:05 PM

I am really fed up waiting for a decent driver, each month there are more bugs than fixes, I can tell amd really wan't to keep there customer's. I gave them a chance as they were down and started to support linux, but enough is enough 6 months have passed and drivers are still crap.To add insult to injury the new cards are out before they even got the last ones working(3870) this is only going to slow them down even more.
People keep saying about the compiz bug, but nvidia or intel users do not have it. my old fx5900 runs better than hd3870 and has quarter of the ram.
Goodluck AMD your need it.

aniruddha

06-20-2008, 01:59 PM

doubledr

06-20-2008, 04:06 PM

Let's set the record slightly straighter about this bug.

Compiz is a compositor, it tells applications to render offscreen and then composites (blends, combines, whatever) into an image and presents it to the screen. The application is still told where it is on the screen, it is just that most 2D clients render to the offscreen pixmap.

The direct clients of the current driver (OpenGL and Video) render directly to the framebuffer (the screen). Compiz (as an OpenGL application) renders to the framebuffer. The "flickering" that people are talking about is actually two openGL clients rendering to the same part of the screen.

The COMPOSITE extension is an all or nothing option, the compositor assumes that all windows are compositable, and there is no way for the driver to say that the window shouldn't be composited. I am hoping that COMPOSITE can be extended to provide hints to the compositor that for whatever reason (overlay, etc), an application can't render offscreen and so the compositor should provide all the details needed for the rendering to occur properly. Currently we can't do that.

To solve this completely, *ALL* clients must support the COMPOSITE extension fully. The NVidia drivers support this currently, some xV clients support this as well. None of the DRI based 3D drivers support this. DRI2 is adding infrastructure to support COMPOSITE fully (through the so-called Redirected Direct Rendering), but that is at least 6-9 months away from the next XOrg release.

I am not providing a timeline as to when full COMPOSITE support will be added to the driver, but I wanted to allow people to understand what is happening rather than making unfounded comments.

Other compositors (like metacity) do not try to re-render the whole screen with OpenGL, and so the behaviour is a lot less noticable - but you can still see that the OpenGL applications are not given clipping information, so will overwrite windows that pass infront of the application.

Regards,

Matthew

Thanks for clarifying. Hopefully we won't need to wait long for the full COMPOSITE support:D

hmmm

06-21-2008, 01:23 AM

is it just me or does playback of 1080p lag with cat 8.6 (hd3870)? i gave big buck bunny a whirl n there was initially no sync between sound n video then it just froze... grrr

Fenix-TX

06-21-2008, 05:46 AM

I'm not using compiz and nothing similar, and i can't resize a window of programs used to see TV, like xdtv, because when i resize the window i can't see the image, i only see like interferences. This not happens on 8.5 driver.

This is the worst driver that i've installed! My X broken when i open Mplayer!!! I'm back to 8.5 ¬¬

marcobrancalion

06-21-2008, 06:47 AM

Dell Inspiron 9400 with Ati X1400 videocard here.

I tried to upgrade from 8.5 to 8.6 drivers, and after some hours of various use, mainly in the office, i noticed some unacceptable things like:

- hanging when exiting from 3d accelerated screensavers (had to kill the apps through ssh connection from another machine)
- problems on video playback (mplayer worked, vlc and xine and kaffeine didn't work)

I reverted to 8.5 drivers, which had not these problems.

Now, i always respect other people's work. Anyway, i'm really starting to be really FULL about the way linux users of Ati cards are regarded, by Ati company.
I love this laptop, i love the fact it has a subwoofer (never heard another laptop sound like this model.....)
But if things go on like this, i'll HAVE TO start thinking about another laptop, obviously with an NVIDIA card.

At work i use another desktop pc, with an integrated video card. At home, i have an ancient desktop pc with a Celeron, and an old Nvidia card.
They work, for what i've seen, wonderfully. Never a problem, like these shitty problems i have since when i bought this laptop with the Ati X1400 card.

So, in the end: i'll watch this website only for solutions or reviews on the new releases of Ati drivers, but, I HOPE, only for little time.
For me: Ati no more. Never.

rob2687

06-22-2008, 12:31 PM

I am getting a lot of graphics corruption with this version. The screen will fill up randomly with the circular scroll icon when using middle click in Firefox. This started happening in 8.5.
Now I am also getting that doubled screen mess that some one posted a picture of earlier.

oblivious_maximus

06-22-2008, 02:19 PM

Dell Inspiron 9400 with Ati X1400 videocard here.
...
i'll HAVE TO start thinking about another laptop, obviously with an NVIDIA card.
...
So, in the end: i'll watch this website only for solutions or reviews on the new releases of Ati drivers, but, I HOPE, only for little time.
For me: Ati no more. Never.Have you tried the xf86-video-ati driver? It might already be a viable replacement for fglrx with your GPU. I suspect there's still some kinks/quirks (3d support is still initial on r500 I believe), but at this rate it shouldn't be long before either (or both) the ati or radeonhd drivers will be far more usable than fglrx for you.

If you buy a new laptop with an Nvidia GPU, by this time next year you'll be so jealous of all the people happily running the open drivers while you have to deal with Nvidia's bugs (which from my experience probably won't be as horrible as ATI's, and won't keep you from using your computer, but they'll be irritating nonetheless, and the irritation will just keep growing because they'll never go away).

Appologies if I have failed to notice an eariler post of yours where you say the open driver(s) don't work for you. If I have missed such a post, then if my post so far hasn't made this obvious, I think you should hang in there a bit longer.

---
obligatory frustration-expression paragraph omitted. I've expressed enough frustration recently.

mirak63

06-23-2008, 04:14 PM

sundown

06-23-2008, 04:35 PM

I have huge tearing when playing videos as well on my hd4850

Don't you worry, next driver release will have improved video playback :mad::p:D:o:rolleyes::cool:

kiwi_kid_aka_bod

06-23-2008, 05:51 PM

For those of you experiencing screen corruption/splitting:

Check what resolution the corrupt application is launching. I had this issue with mythtv (fullscreen or windowed) on my X1400 driven 1680x1050 laptop screen. By forcing mythtv to 1680x1024 or 1680x1080 the corruption cleared up! This is again some wacky thing about the 1050 lines resolution.

And I registered to bring you this... ain't I nice ;-)

This is a dup. of what I posted in another thread, but people may not be watching both, and this seems to be being seen by people in both threads.

mirak63

06-24-2008, 04:43 AM

Don't you worry, next driver release will have improved video playback :mad::p:D:o:rolleyes::cool:

yes but I can't use previous drivers because hd4850 isn't supported on them, again the best solution is to plug back a nvidia 6600GT.
I don't see how phoronix can claim that hd4850 are supported immediately by amd on linux while the only driver is badly broken, and can't even display properly a video, movies are unwatchable, that is a huge regression, at least for me coming from a 6600GT :(

so the 8450 and 8470 will be available, and we will just have many users saying "it doesn't work, as usual on linux"

I don't see how it's possible to pull out such bugs in the drivers.
I mean the black borders bug itself, or huge tearing in video, how can a developper not test that ?

Wise Ferret

06-24-2008, 07:23 AM

I use mobility x1600 with 32-bit ubuntu hardy.
In about 50% of the sessions, attempting to use Xv crashes the hosting app (restarting X does not help) or the entire Xorg process (throwing me to command line while Xorg is stuck, un-killable, on 100% cpu). This happens with or without compiz. It never happened with the former driver. On the other 50% of the sessions Xv works fine.

Here, for example, is the output of vlc trying to play Xv file:

[00000295] a52 decoder: A/52 channels:6 samplerate:48000 bitrate:448000
[00000300] main private error: option glx-shm does not exist
[00000297] pulse audio output error: Failed to connect to server: Connection refused
[00000297] pulse audio output error: Pulse initialization failed
libGL error: drmGetMagic failed
libGL error: reverting to (slow) indirect rendering
X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
Major opcode of failed request: 163 (GLX)
Minor opcode of failed request: 5 (X_GLXMakeCurrent)
Serial number of failed request: 57
Current serial number in output stream: 57

Is there a solution for this? If there is not, how can I help debugging it further?

bridgman

06-24-2008, 09:47 AM

I mean the black borders bug itself, or huge tearing in video, how can a developper not test that ?

Mirak, are you still seeing the black borders or did the aticonfig commands get rid of them ? My understanding is that with HDMI TVs we set an 8% underscan by default since so many TVs are set to overscan (zoom in) and this is the only way to ensure that the user can find important things like menus.

re: the tearing, can you pls try to post a screen snap ? We have not seen this in our testing AFAIK.

mirak63

06-24-2008, 10:26 AM

Mirak, are you still seeing the black borders or did the aticonfig commands get rid of them ? My understanding is that with HDMI TVs we set an 8% underscan by default since so many TVs are set to overscan (zoom in) and this is the only way to ensure that the user can find important things like menus.

re: the tearing, can you pls try to post a screen snap ? We have not seen this in our testing AFAIK.

hi,
about underscan it's ok that's it the default, like in windows drivers, however here the settings are not kept, so if I change the resolution or just reboot the computer the settings are lost, so I created a script that I run manually, but well I shouldn't have, like in windows.

about tearing there is a big tear at the 2/3 bottom of the screen, I don't know if a screenshot can take that since it's overlay, I will try later.
I have a P5Q pro with a Q9300

I have seen a topic here where people complain about tearing on 8.5 and 8.6 not only with hd4850

bridgman

06-24-2008, 11:11 AM

about underscan it's ok that's it the default, like in windows drivers, however here the settings are not kept, so if I change the resolution or just reboot the computer the settings are lost, so I created a script that I run manually, but well I shouldn't have, like in windows.

Agreed. We're trying to work up instructions to give you a persistent setting.

about tearing there is a big tear at the 2/3 bottom of the screen, I don't know if a screenshot can take that since it's overlay, I will try later.

We actually shifted from using overlay to using textured video beginning with the 5xx family (X1xxx) so the video should show up in a screen capture.

I have seen a topic here where people complain about tearing on 8.5 and 8.6 not only with hd4850

The problem here is that "tearing" is used to describe a whole heap of different symptoms, each with a completely different root cause, some fixable via configuration and others not :

- edge tearing when moving windows around
- discontinuities within a video window during fast motion
- actual distortion/garbling within the video related to refresh

It's a bit hard to distinguish between the last two because the impact of unsynced redraw is hugely content dependent, but screen caps should help.

mirak63

06-24-2008, 12:00 PM

Agreed. We're trying to work up instructions to give you a persistent setting.

We actually shifted from using overlay to using textured video beginning with the 5xx family (X1xxx) so the video should show up in a screen capture.

I didn't noticed tearing on glxgears when vertical sync was activated
don't know if this can help you

the tearing in the videos is like the vertical synchronisation is done to early
this happen not matter the refresh rate, in 24hz 50hz or 60hz
at worst I should see judering
the Q9300 have no problem playing videos in 720p or 1080p

it's like if only 2/3 of the video is drawed in the buffer and that the video device try to display it
or maybe the buffer is filed to late :D

maybe there is an option to sync on textured video that I didn't saw in aticonfig

NeoBrain

06-24-2008, 12:11 PM

Oh yeah, just wanted to share yet another AGP problem with you:
Whenever I start a second X server on VT 9 (i.e. startx -- :2), I get no 3d accel on that server, though it works perfectly fine on the first one:
Xorg.log says:
(II) fglrx(0): [pci] find AGP GART
(II) fglrx(0): [agp] Mode=0x1f004e1b bridge: 0x1039/0x0746
(II) fglrx(0): [agp] AGP v1/2 disable mask 0x00000000
(II) fglrx(0): [agp] AGP v3 disable mask 0x00000000
(II) fglrx(0): [agp] enabling AGP with mode=0x1f004f1a
(II) fglrx(0): [agp] Remapping MC AGP space (new MCAGPBase = 0x3489660928)
(EE) fglrx(0): [agp] Failed to set AGP mode!
(EE) fglrx(0): cannot init AGP
(II) fglrx(0): [drm] DRM buffer queue setup: nbufs = 100 bufsize = 65536

and later of course fails initing DRI because of that.
IIRC this was introduced in 8.5 and is still existant in 8.6.

This is on Fedora 8 (kernel 2.6.24) using a Sapphire X1600 AGP 512.

Hope this gets fixed for 8.7 :(

mirak63

06-24-2008, 03:33 PM

I didn't noticed tearing on glxgears when vertical sync was activated
don't know if this can help you

the tearing in the videos is like the vertical synchronisation is done to early
this happen not matter the refresh rate, in 24hz 50hz or 60hz
at worst I should see judering
the Q9300 have no problem playing videos in 720p or 1080p

it's like if only 2/3 of the video is drawed in the buffer and that the video device try to display it
or maybe the buffer is filed to late :D

maybe there is an option to sync on textured video that I didn't saw in aticonfig

I am on windows right now, and I have also this bad tearing on catalyst 8.6
I have took screenshot on linux the tearing is visible, it's in fact even worse on the screenshot than when video is played, because almost all the image is garbeled on high movements like hancock trailer in 1080p.

bridgman

06-24-2008, 04:32 PM

I am on windows right now, and I have also this bad tearing on catalyst 8.6
I have took screenshot on linux the tearing is visible, it's in fact even worse on the screenshot than when video is played, because almost all the image is garbeled on high movements like hancock trailer in 1080p.

Any chance you could post the screenshot ? Maybe tack it onto bug report 1085 along with card & driver info ?

http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1085

mirak63

06-24-2008, 05:38 PM

Any chance you could post the screenshot ? Maybe tack it onto bug report 1085 along with card & driver info ?

http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1085

the screenshot is done, but it's on the linux side, I didn't uploaded it yet somewhere

JarrettV

06-24-2008, 11:22 PM

here is a screenshot (note, this captured multiple tears when there is usually only one tear at a time)

http://jvance.com/img/forum/LinuxVlcTear.sm.jpg (http://jvance.com/img/forum/LinuxVlcTear.jpg)

The white line should be solid as it moves from right to left.
Here is a video you can use to test with: TearTest.ts (http://jvance.com/img/forum/TearTest.ts) (6MB, 1080i)

With XVideo renderer, the tearing moves from bottom to top. With GL renderer, the tearing always occurs near the top of the screen in the same place.

ubuntu/hardy, latest 8.6 drivers, with compiz off

Heiko

06-25-2008, 04:08 AM

I tried 8.6 yesterday, but after logging of in Ubuntu (7.04), I got screen corruption. The second time I tried, the screen went even black on logging of. My system:

Ati Radeon 9500pro (agp)
tyan tiger MP
dual Athlon 1Ghz
1.5 Gb memory
Ubuntu 7.04 (all updates installed)
using a dual screen setup (having two separate X screens for one user)

Another thing I noticed: glxinfo didn't stop running, last line was something ending in Ncon, but the program was still running after that last line.

Unfortunately for me this release was a step back (in the otherwise very promising direction), so I went back to 8.5 which worked fine for me. And off course I hope for a good working 8.7 release, especially since I want to buy a new 4870 AMD graphics card around that time (yes, you notice it: I am confident that the AMD drivers will one day be excellent).

ZedDB

06-26-2008, 02:36 PM

Doesn't look as bad as this. But it is really noticeable when you watch movies. Offen happens when the picture is slowly scrolling from left to right or right to left. Mplayer 1.0_rc2_p26753, XV output, FGLRX 8.6, Gentoo X86_64, Xorg 7.2.
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/9076/skrmbild2wj0.png
Paused:
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/272/skrmbildstilluq5.png

Vighy

06-26-2008, 06:20 PM

Now that Bridgman re-appeared I want to ask him a quick and technical question:

Hey, but clock gating was enabled for all chips!? even M76? by default? or there are options to set it?

and is it somehow related to POWERplay? because powerplay was not enabled for my M76, and i cannot find anywhere that clock gating was enabled....

as of today I'm not sure my M76 is taking advantage of clock gating :) and I would like it to be taking advantage of it! Since there's no powerplay as of today for my M76 (shame on you ATi :p:D )

So Bridgman please please tell me! :D