AMD Catalyst 8.12 Linux Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Catalyst 8.12 Linux Driver

This afternoon AMD has released its final Catalyst Linux driver update for the year. It has been a couple months now since there has been anything exciting in one of these Linux driver updates, but what's there in store this time around? Is there X-Video Bitstream Acceleration finally available? Sadly, no. But there is improved video playback support in a composited environment and Hybrid CrossFire support.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13231

[heng]

I just wanted to say how wonderfully pleased I am with the Radeon driver shipped with Intrepid. No flicker, reliable suspend, compiz goodness - wonderful! No longer do I wait with baited breath for ATI driver 8.(n+1).

I feel truly sorry for all those people that have a card unsupported by the open driver.

[BlueKoala]

This is good news to me at least.
Baby steps, baby steps.

One day I will be able to recommend ATI for Linux. For now, I can't recommend much when it comes to graphics. Although my Geforce 6600 works wonderfully well, it falls short on horsepower. I'm really hoping to make my Phenom w/ 4850 my primary system, once it will work adequately that is.

[Tares]

Well, the new driver doesn't bring any fixes for me ;/ its even worse, now i can't even get my GPU temps cause im getting :
ERROR - Could not find library: libatiadlxx.so

although it is located in /usr/lib/

[bulletxt]

in changelog:
"Executing 'Glxgears' may cause the operating system to stop responding"
and lower:
"Executing 'Glxgears' may cause the operating system to stop responding"

ok this is another LOL FGLRX release, now I understand even more what code is inside fglrx.... I'm sure one day it will destroy my GPU XD

[RealNC]

Sadly, another release that sucks.

[NeoBrain]

Wow, that's cool: 8.11 was such a great release that there is no _need_ for me to upgrade to 8.12 anymore...
If you look back how the situation was a year ago when every release was like a christmas present, that's quite a strange feeling ;D

Apart from that, I still think it sucks that the download gets bigger with each release (77 MB ftw?), where does that all come from?

And btw... flickerfree video? Does ATI start to reimplement the graphics stack now, too? ... No objections against that actually, as long as they find a way to implement KMS ;)

[energyman]

in changelog:
"Executing 'Glxgears' may cause the operating system to stop responding"
and lower:
"Executing 'Glxgears' may cause the operating system to stop responding"

ok this is another LOL FGLRX release, now I understand even more what code is inside fglrx.... I'm sure one day it will destroy my GPU XD

are you unable to read? A bit blind?
The 'glxgears may cause...' is under RESOLVED ISSUES

before you start ripping AMD, rip your teachers for not teaching you.

[oneman]

Sadly, another release that sucks.

Yeap, I'll make a bet right now. In one year from today, the ati official driver, will suck. I feel pretty confident about that.

[izual]

I feel truly sorry for all those people that have a card unsupported by the open driver.

Thnk you. I appreciate that. :(

[bugmenot]

no 3870x2 support !

[xeros]

I just wanted to say how wonderfully pleased I am with the Radeon driver shipped with Intrepid. No flicker, reliable suspend, compiz goodness - wonderful! No longer do I wait with baited breath for ATI driver 8.(n+1).

I feel truly sorry for all those people that have a card unsupported by the open driver.

I wanted to say that, too.
With the upgrade from Kubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 I've said goodbye to FGLRX - and I've found the open source Radeon driver is a lot better for people which cards are supported by it. Even if it's framerate in linux games is half of the FGLRX and doesn't have GLSL, it's a lot better for desktop with composite+desktop effects, xvideo, etc. - even in games it doesn't have such awful bugs as FGLRX.

[energyman]

so, I just installed the new driver and I am pleased. flickering with composite got indeed reduced.
No downsides so far. No regressions.

[oyvind]

Video is still a flickering mess with mplayer/xv, a little better with vlc/xv, but all-in-all completely unwatchable in a composited environment. Radeon-driver is currently way ahead in this area. ATI X1400/R500, Ubuntu 8.10 x86.

[PetBB]

R300 support still broken :mad:
FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.27-10-generic/updates/dkms/fglrx.ko): Cannot allocate memory

[ 865.672990] fglrx: module license 'Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY' taints kernel.
[ 865.742869] [fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 927 MBytes.
[ 865.743529] [fglrx:drm_alloc] *ERROR* [driver] Allocating 0 bytes
[ 865.743536] [fglrx:firegl_init_device_list] *ERROR* Out of memory when allocating device heads
[ 865.743541] [fglrx:firegl_init_module] *ERROR* firegl_init_devices failed

[russell_h]

Any updates on video tearing?

[raulromania]

are you unable to read? A bit blind?
The 'glxgears may cause...' is under RESOLVED ISSUES

before you start ripping AMD, rip your teachers for not teaching you.

I've downloaded the release notes and there is writing ...

...
Executing Glxears may cause the operating system to stop responding
...
Executing 'Glxgears' may cause the operating system to stop responding
...

This is under resolved issues, but what the hell is Glxears :D and why a double post? No alcohol @ work guys :)

Furthermore I want to thank the AMD employees for their (maybe?) hard work.

Ubuntu 8.10 with an PowerColor HD 3850 PCS AGP and it works GREAT ... until now :)

[charlie_D]

I just wanted to say how wonderfully pleased I am with the Radeon driver shipped with Intrepid. No flicker, reliable suspend, compiz goodness - wonderful! No longer do I wait with baited breath for ATI driver 8.(n+1).

I feel truly sorry for all those people that have a card unsupported by the open driver.

Kick a guy while he's down, stupid 790GX. Though I suppose I knew what I was getting into, picking up a 'new' board. :p

Thankfully, I came up with a fool proof backup plan for this event -- mainboard swap :D I'll put this board into a less important system until the video tearing is resolved.

[Inkaine]

For me the main concern is: does it support the soon-to-be-released kernel 2.6.28 yet. Anyone tried on an rc?

Great to hear it supports Hybrid CF now. I might give it a try even. But not before April 2009 as I won't see my desktop pc for 3 months from tomorrow. See ya at Catalyst 9.3. :D

[cruiseoveride]

crap still doesnt work.
why do they even bother selling anything. stupid hardware, stupid software. stupid company.

[The_Monkey_King]

Same with me and the 790GX. No Christmas miracle for me here.

I guess I'll just have to give up Linux completely until they are ready with HTPC-level features. Currently I look in on this site and OpenSUSE's radeonhd development list daily but now I wonder if it really is worth it. Maybe once a month...


Kick a guy while he's down, stupid 790GX. Though I suppose I knew what I was getting into, picking up a 'new' board. :p

Thankfully, I came up with a fool proof backup plan for this event -- mainboard swap :D I'll put this board into a less important system until the video tearing is resolved.

[pflynn]

Well, the new driver doesn't bring any fixes for me ;/ its even worse, now i can't even get my GPU temps cause im getting :
ERROR - Could not find library: libatiadlxx.so

although it is located in /usr/lib/

Same thing here. Downgrade back to 8.11 :(

[bulletxt]

ahhaah then people over say I should stop talking bad about AMD drivers. lol I won't even try to update the driver, I already know there is a 70% chance it's gonna mess up my system.

[eddt]

Kick a guy while he's down, stupid 790GX. Though I suppose I knew what I was getting into, picking up a 'new' board. :p

Thankfully, I came up with a fool proof backup plan for this event -- mainboard swap :D I'll put this board into a less important system until the video tearing is resolved.

I also have a 790GX. I had tearing problems on the uppper cm of my display. Using:

----
Driver "fglrx"
Option "AccelMethod" "exa"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
Option "TexturedVideo" "On"
# 0 - basic, 1 - better, 2 compat (for Wine)
Option "UseFastTLS" "1"
# Experimental
Option "Textured2D" "on"
# forced turned off so TextureVideo is used
Option "VideoOverlay" "Off"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "Off"
----
and
----
Section "Extensions"

# enabled disables 3D in some cases
Option "Composite" "On"
Option "RENDER" "On"
Option "XVideo" "On"
EndSection
----

In xorg.conf solved the problem here. Running xorg 7.3 with 8.10 works well, 8.11 on gentoo 64bit is unstable.

Ed

[FunkyRider]

I was going to get an HTPC for living room and was keep looking various 780G motherboards for the past 2 months.

But, after 2 years of disappointment of FGLRX (start with X1900 era) and recent not so great announcements, I went to buy a GeForce 6100 motherboard.

Result:
1. Saved $$$ - Gigabyte 6100: $80 vs Abit 780G $120
2. Saved hassles - nVidia driver works great at everything, fglrx keeps messing up
3. I am overall happier.

Although I have been buying Radeons for the past 2 years, I've always been suffering from the Linux driver issues. My main rig with Radeon 4850 can't even watch video with compiz enabled so I have to keep switching it on, off, on, off, .... If this card doesn't have proper support when it passes its service life, I will indeed go to nvidia and never look back. Sure 9800GTX is slower and GTX260/280 more expensive, but I'd rather having a slower system (is it really slower under Linux?!?!) or spend several more hundred bucks to buy happiness!

[FunkyRider]

One question to Michael:

What do you mean by:


...there is improved video playback support in a composited environment ...

could you explain this clearly? :eek:

[dkasak]

I will of course try when I get home, but does anyone know if the 'no glxfbconfigs' error is fixed with a recent ( ie 1.5.x ) xserver and compiz? The release notes say that only xserver versions up to 1.4 are supported, so I assume not?

Anyway, here's hoping we'll get that r600 code release Christmas present everyone's been crossing their fingers for.

[charlie_D]

I also have a 790GX. I had tearing problems on the uppper cm of my display. Using:

----
Driver "fglrx"
Option "AccelMethod" "exa"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
Option "TexturedVideo" "On"
# 0 - basic, 1 - better, 2 compat (for Wine)
Option "UseFastTLS" "1"
# Experimental
Option "Textured2D" "on"
# forced turned off so TextureVideo is used
Option "VideoOverlay" "Off"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "Off"
----
and
----
Section "Extensions"

# enabled disables 3D in some cases
Option "Composite" "On"
Option "RENDER" "On"
Option "XVideo" "On"
EndSection
----

In xorg.conf solved the problem here. Running xorg 7.3 with 8.10 works well, 8.11 on gentoo 64bit is unstable.

Ed

I'll check my PVR's xorg.conf; when I originally set things I tried a lot of these, but it can't hurt to try again.

I actually get crystal clear 1080p playback with zero tearing using opengl through mplayer, but TV playback is near-useless with all the tearing. I'll post back if any of these work for me, though.

Charlie

[monraaf]

For me the main concern is: does it support the soon-to-be-released kernel 2.6.28 yet. Anyone tried on an rc?


I have got it running 2.6.28-rc7 here. I don't see any difference with 8.11 though.

2D and 3D work fine but Xv definitively needs improvement. I don't use any fancy 3D desktop effects but when playing a movie I can still see the effects of tearing in scenes with fast motion, not much but very annoying nevertheless.

[Yfrwlf]

I wanted to say that, too.
With the upgrade from Kubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 I've said goodbye to FGLRX - and I've found the open source Radeon driver is a lot better for people which cards are supported by it. Even if it's framerate in linux games is half of the FGLRX and doesn't have GLSL, it's a lot better for desktop with composite+desktop effects, xvideo, etc. - even in games it doesn't have such awful bugs as FGLRX.

Video is still a flickering mess with mplayer/xv, a little better with vlc/xv, but all-in-all completely unwatchable in a composited environment. Radeon-driver is currently way ahead in this area. ATI X1400/R500, Ubuntu 8.10 x86.

Maybe AMD will eventually just start supporting the open RadeonHD driver instead and drop fglrx, though of course fglrx is further ahead in other areas still.

Any updates on video tearing?

Apparently, it still sucks, and more video acceleration standards is kind of silly, I wish they'd just stick to one good open standard if possible and be done with it but oh well. Actually interested in Intel's video efforts for a good HTPC solution (since Intel sucks at 3D still). They were also the ones really "going after" tearing, or so they said, but of course it's one thing to talk about it...

Great to hear it supports Hybrid CF now.

The CPU should always be doing all it can to help out, same with the GPU, the northbridge, and the southbridge. Your whole computer even! So, I'd label this as a gimmick, but whatever, as long as it's an open standard and not just an effort to tie the CPU to the motherboard to the GPU even more. We're already sick enough of different CPU "socket types" (no reason for this, seriously) preventing us from directly comparing CPU performances by swapping them out, we don't need AMD *computers* vs. Intel/Nvidia *computers*. Where did the standards go to allow for competition...oh yeah, they don't like competition.

I was going to get an HTPC for living room and was keep looking various 780G motherboards for the past 2 months.

But, after 2 years of disappointment of FGLRX (start with X1900 era) and recent not so great announcements, I went to buy a GeForce 6100 motherboard.

Result:
1. Saved $$$ - Gigabyte 6100: $80 vs Abit 780G $120
2. Saved hassles - nVidia driver works great at everything, fglrx keeps messing up
3. I am overall happier.

Although I have been buying Radeons for the past 2 years, I've always been suffering from the Linux driver issues. My main rig with Radeon 4850 can't even watch video with compiz enabled so I have to keep switching it on, off, on, off, .... If this card doesn't have proper support when it passes its service life, I will indeed go to nvidia and never look back. Sure 9800GTX is slower and GTX260/280 more expensive, but I'd rather having a slower system (is it really slower under Linux?!?!) or spend several more hundred bucks to buy happiness!

Actually, because of AMD/ATI doing well, at least with Windows drivers and performance (and to some degree Linux performance as well), Nvidia has dropped their prices a lot, I think they're actually cheaper $/performance-wise at the moment from what I could attempt tp piece together. Of course, benchmarks even with games are so biased it's tough to compare fairly, which is what they want. If you can buy out a game studio to optimize their game to run on your video cards, "doing well" in the market comes down to bribery, not engineering. Not done for everything obviously, that'd be impossible, but for some games it has been done. :(

[Death Knight]

If you have:

(EE) module ABI major version (0) doesn't match the server's version (1)
(EE) Failed to load module "dri" (module requirement mismatch, 0)
dlopen: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//fglrx_drv.so: undefined symbol: miZeroLineScreenIndex
(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//fglrx_drv.so
(EE) Failed to load module "fglrx" (loader failed, 7)
(EE) No drivers available.

Install from command line. It solves Xorg ABI problem..

root # ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run --install

[Tares]

Can anyone paste here his amdcccle, cause i think my is a little messed up ;/

Anyway I'm still unable to remove the libatiadlxx.so error. Did the clean install, but the result is the same, but there is a one thing that makes me wonder.
In my /usr/lib/ there is a libatiadlxx.so with size :
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 104232 2008-12-10 22:12 libatiadlxx.so

but when I extract the ati driver, search for that file, the result will guide me to ./arch/x86/usr/X11R6/lib/ and x86_64, since im using 32bits so the file i want looks like this :
-rwxr--r-- 1 tares tares 128766 2008-12-04 23:56 libatiadlxx.so

Can anyone tell me why those two files are different ? Since I've removed anything related to fglrx before installing now driver, I dont have a clue why installing 8.12 it gives me different file.

[susikala]

For me the main concern is: does it support the soon-to-be-released kernel 2.6.28 yet. Anyone tried on an rc?

Great to hear it supports Hybrid CF now. I might give it a try even. But not before April 2009 as I won't see my desktop pc for 3 months from tomorrow. See ya at Catalyst 9.3. :D

I'm running the latest 2.6.28-rc on Ubuntu Jaunty with 8.11, works great for me. Going to upgrade today later on, Jaunty seems to already have 8.561.

By the way, has anyone tested mplayer -vo gl with its several options? Particularly, force-pbo/ati-hack. Maybe that works again.

[Heiko]

I gave it a quick try yesterday evening, after having problems with 8.10 and 8.11 (X failed to start, probably had something to do with my dual head setup with my (analog) TV).

So, I was hoping 8.12 would finally work again for me and I was eager even to try Hybrid Crossfire (HD3200 and a HD3450). Turned on Surround view in my Bios (only option looking relevant that I could find in my Asus M3A78-EM bios) and installed the driver. So I used something like:

aticonfig --adapters=0,1 --cfa --cf=on --initial=dual-head -f

Didn't work at once I think (it was the --cfa or --cf=on option that didn't work the first time, so I applied these options running aticonfig a second time). With aticonfig I could also list the crossfire chain, showing both graphics cards. But after a restart of my system, Ati Catalyst was showing three displays (two on the HD3450, that is correct) and one on the HD3200 (not correct, there is none, I want to use it for Crossfire).

When I rebooted my computer this morning I had the same problem as with 8.10 and 8.11 (X did not start). So I immediately went back to 8.9, but later on I though: lets try 8.12 without Hybrid Crossfire. So tried that, restarted a few times, X came up nicely every time.

So I'll give it a few more days, see if X starts correct every time. Maybe give crossfire another go (I assume I did something wrong in the setup). Meanwhile, I have CrossFingers that everything will work...

Actually, yesterday I was this close to typing a huge rant on this forum about the `crap' we get each month (after 1.5 year telling everybody that it gets better, that we see improvements and that it probably will take another half year before the drivers are perfect). Lets hope 8.12 proves to work on my setup properly (with or without Hybrid Crossfire).

[Xtigyro]

AMD/ATI... ATI/AMD... aTi? Amd? Ooooh it is written AMD/ATI Mobility X160... Blah blah blah blah........... Guys, stop writing videocard drivers. It's absolutely pointless.

The only chance 'AMD/ATI' great future to come true some day is with nVIDIA - as the code-maker of amd/ati video drivers. :)

[storma]

The only bad thing for me in this release is that the graphical corruption in Savage2 has gotten worse. :(

[Xtigyro]

A good tester for tear-free driver - http://vbox7.com/play:a8b71ae3

[susikala]

Just upgraded. Well, again, I'm pretty impressed. Some problems I had with heavy h.264 videos on mplayer -vo gl are gone, the videos play with no hiccups. force-pbo doesn't work, but it doesn't matter as long as everything I have plays fine -- I don't even have to use ffmpeg-mt anymore.

I compiled mplayer with xvmc support but as expected, XvBA doesn't work.

Overall, once again kudos to AMD for a good release.

By the way, would anyone be interested in the binary of mplayer-mt or the source code I used to compile it?

[Bigon]

Could someone try with a R300 with an other distro than Ubuntu(or debian) please?

[yodash]

It's a shame!!! xvmc XvBA are they crazy???
And when i try to play a video with compiz?????
It's time to AMD/ATI for wake-up!!! I wait for a decent driver since 2006... i'm discouraged...

Why the radeon OpenSource driver can play Textured Video with Composite, and propretary can't??? AnyOne can clarify it to me, please?

..i'm thinking to buy an nVidia video adapter..... :mad:

[energyman]

yodash, what the hell are you talking about?

[cjr2k3]

Does Kano going to create a script for this driver too??

I wont install FGLRX without Kano scripts anymore, its impressive how everything just goes right with that. :p

But if you do a new script kano please create a proper xorg.conf! (Aticonfig complains a lot about it "Proper device section not found" or something like this)

Anyway this weekend going to give 8.12 a chance.

[BlueKoala]

yodash, what the hell are you talking about?

He wants it to be non-glitchy.

I for one am excited about the progress. I believe that next year, graphics driver will be close to on-par with the windows drivers as far as "it just works" goes. For the amount of implemented features in the last year I'm not disappointed to see the driver being still buggy.

On the other hand, the open drivers are making great progress as well. I speculate that they are probably cleaner and better adapted for the Linux environment than fglrx but also under-optimized. This could very well be very untrue but it's just the feeling that I get from the situation.

Though I can't really blame anyone for not wanting ATI on Linux at the present moment. My Phenom 9500 w/ HD3650 DDR2 is unstable when using OpenGL. I'm replacing the 3650 for a 4850 in January hoping that this will resolve the issue. I really want to play Doom3, Nexuiz, Q4, Savage2, Guild Wars on my 56 inch tv :) Working and intuitive HDMI audio would also be really nice.

I'm not exactly sure if the stability problem is caused by Core3 of my Phenom as it is a common issue. I may also replace the cpu for a Deneb core when they are available at a good consumer price.

Wish me luck :P

[Kano]

@cjr2k3

It is always the same script, of course it is updated too for that driver and it even installs the .cap file which would not be installed with the standard Ubuntu packageing. I don't know how to use it however ;) Also for now the video overrides are disabled by default in the xorg.conf, but you can of course activate em if needed by uncommenting.

[cjr2k3]

@cjr2k3

It is always the same script, of course it is updated too for that driver and it even installs the .cap file which would not be installed with the standard Ubuntu packageing. I don't know how to use it however ;) Also for now the video overrides are disabled by default in the xorg.conf, but you can of course activate em if needed by uncommenting.

Ty for the information. I'll post later (When I get home) what is the error Aticonfig tool gives, since I'm almost sure is not related to video options.

@BlueKoala

My new setup is a phenom X3 with a HD4850 and I have no problems at all. Running Ubuntu 8.10 x64 here. I'm waiting to FGLRX support Crossfire in any OpenGL app so I can put in another HD4850. Still confuses me why is difficult to make Crossfire Generic (I think some optimizations may be made and all, but in non-optimized app just split the frames or one frame for each card?).

[bradrm]

so, I just installed the new driver and I am pleased. flickering with composite got indeed reduced.
No downsides so far. No regressions.

I've been trying to enable composite extensions with my fglrx -- do you know a good web page that explains how to do so? I have it enabled in my xorg.conf but every time I try to start it up (now) using System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects I get the message "The composite extension is not available."

Thanks for any help. At the moment I am happy with the default desktop so it's not a big rush.

[energyman]

that happens when the driver did not get installed correctly.
Are you using gentoo?
if yes:
shutdown X completly
eselect opengl set xorg-x11
emerge -C ati-drivers
hunt for broken symlinks in /usr/lib64/xorg and opengl
emerge ati-drivers
eselect opengl set ati

the problem is, with an update from earlier drivers some symlinks easily break - and eselect is too stupid to deal with broken symlinks - it just stops working. So you get a half complete installation.

[RealNC]

I don't understand the people who post that it works great with compiz or any other compositing system. Maximizing a window or opening a menu takes half a second. Is THAT your idea of great?

[oyvind]

Sigh, 4-5 suspend-cycles with fglrx 8.12 and welcome to black-screen resume. Promptly uninstalled the crap and put radeon GIT snapshot back to work. Suspend is again fast and excellent.

[charlie_D]

Well, the one thing this release did is make the fullscreen mythfrontend not garbled garbage, while still being able to load gnome-panel and such. So at least I have a more convenient desktop back there again ;)

My main problem is that the system is on the main TV. I'd love to wait for the 7xx to have Xv video acceleration that didn't tear, and access to AMD's video acceleration for that matter. The issue is, how long will the wait be? We don't have any real idea. My solution is to replace the board until that time; it can go into my son's system, since the onboard video works fine for everything he'd be doing (mostly Tux paint and Same GNOME, that coloured ball game.... he goes nuts for that game).

Here's hoping the next driver delivers one or both :)

[Kano]

Why do you think I currently only put in an ATI card for optimizing my fglrx script? The card is so bad that now even in vesa mode it begins to show bad letters. And that's already the 2nd PCI-E card with RV410 that dies here... Sooner or later I run out of test cards.

[energyman]

I don't understand the people who post that it works great with compiz or any other compositing system. Maximizing a window or opening a menu takes half a second. Is THAT your idea of great?

not here, but I don't use broken compiz, but kwin 4.1.82

[Boerkel]

First: Hello and thanks for the drivers and all the hard work, which was put in it!

But: 8.12 fails totally on my system. I updated it from 8.11 and first everything worked perfectly. But then i made a great mistake: i activated the "xinerama"-option in the control center
Until then i couldn't get any fglrx-version working anymore. I'm trying since 2 hours put i haven't had any success. Ubuntu boots normal, but when it comes a certain point the PC just freezes and i must do a hard reboot on the system. :( I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the driver, but i don't have any success.
My GPU is a Mobility Radeon HD 2600 and I'm working with Ubuntu 8.04.1. I hope i can get this problem fixed, because the open source driver doesn't work like i want it to... (for example: my second monitor just turns off one or two seconds, when i'm working with dualhead just every now and then...)

[rebeldevel]

Installed 8.12 (no helper scripts, just plain ATI driver installation) on Ubuntu 8.10 amd64, working fine. I have a HD2600 XT.

[Kano]

@Boerkel

Boot with

text

as additional option, that disables gdm. Then you can do

/usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh
rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf*
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

and reboot, that resets it to standard driver. If you used a script with debian packageing, use this:

dpkg --purge $(dpkg -l|cut -f3 -d' '|grep -e fglrx -e libamdxvba)

to uninstall the driver.

[Tares]

If anyone have problems with libatiadlxx.so I recommend to clean the system or make clean install ;-)

[mancunian]

I don't get it: there is absolutely no improvement with Composite (xorg 1.5, KWin 4.1.3). Google Earth still flickers like hell, and kaffeine's the same with videos. Are there any special settings in xorg.conf I should be aware of???

Radeonhd on the other hand works fine with composite, no flickering at all.

[liels]

Can anyone suggest something to help?

After running the

Catalyst 8.12 setup then
touch /etc/X11/xorg.conf then
aticonfig --initial then
reboot

I get this screen

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9657786@N06/3103896676/

Hitting ctrl+alt+'+' a few times gives me a zoomed version of the same corruption

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9657786@N06/3103067513/

Ctrl+alt+F2 gets me the VT; nothing obvious (to me) shows up in Xorg.0.log


I've got a Radeon 4650 (passive as if that mattered) and I installed . It's on the intel G45 motherboard (the G45 works well under F10 btw).

[Kano]

You could try 8-11 instead or buy nvidia ;)

[Odur]

You could try 8-11 instead or buy nvidia ;)
I'm starting to seriously think about buying a Nvidia to replace my HD3870. I still cannot start another X-session (e.g switch user) without a total and unrecoverable freeze of the system. This is bad!

Can anyone recommend me a Nvidia card thats about the same as my HD3870 and that is fanless? I have a PowerColor HD3870 SCS3 now.

[Kano]

I don't think that fanless is important. A huge cooler is not so loud and makes the system usually more stable - otherwise you need more system fans ;)

[Tares]

I don't think that fanless is important. A huge cooler is not so loud and makes the system usually more stable - otherwise you need more system fans ;)

Yup, or you can always put WC on it ;-) just like I did on my HD4850... cool and quiet :)

[jarekl]

I'm starting to seriously think about buying a Nvidia to replace my HD3870. I still cannot start another X-session (e.g switch user) without a total and unrecoverable freeze of the system. This is bad!

Can anyone recommend me a Nvidia card thats about the same as my HD3870 and that is fanless? I have a PowerColor HD3870 SCS3 now.

If it is any consolation, I haven't been able to run anything after 8.9 on any version of ubuntu (8.04, 8.10) or recent Fedora. I've been waiting with my processor purchase for AMD to release the 45nm line because the combination with 780G and AMD seemed sweet but now? To add insult to injury, Nvidia has made substantial improvement in accelerated video support on Linux (the only thing I care about) while with ATI it all up there in the big cloud called future release, if ever.

[susikala]

Can anyone suggest something to help?

After running the

Catalyst 8.12 setup then
touch /etc/X11/xorg.conf then
aticonfig --initial then
reboot

I get this screen

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9657786@N06/3103896676/

Hitting ctrl+alt+'+' a few times gives me a zoomed version of the same corruption

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9657786@N06/3103067513/

Ctrl+alt+F2 gets me the VT; nothing obvious (to me) shows up in Xorg.0.log


I've got a Radeon 4650 (passive as if that mattered) and I installed . It's on the intel G45 motherboard (the G45 works well under F10 btw).

I thought aticonfig --initial only already patches a properly configured xorg.conf, maybe I'm wrong. Have you tried to get a working xorg.conf without doing aticonfig --initial first?

[nivel]

is there any chance that catalyst will support M780G chipset ?
because 8.12 give me bios initialize error

for example laptop with this chpiset
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220349

thanks

[biasquez]

ati 8.12 doesn't work on radeon 9700. why AMD doesn't fix this problem or why doesn't report on release note "r300 support dropped"? :@

[SorinN]

On HD 2600 pro (Intrepid) no any drawback, no regressions, everything is more fluid.
Flag Up, hat down.

BTW - this time I don't create and install deb's because official support for Ubuntu 8.10 announcement, I just plain install the .run file 'sudo ./*****.run'. It just works (I checked versions before and after).

So no more 'blacklisting / whitelisting' and other hacks.

[liels]

You could try 8-11 instead or buy nvidia ;)

Alas, the 8.11 release notes list the 4800 series as supported but not the 4600.

As to Nvidia, I use 6 and 7-series in my mythboxen, but the G45 might be there. I love the performance in linux and the VDPAU is really fantastic. The lack of any apparent path to a (fully) functional open source driver and the apparently defective design of the 8 & 9 series is a real problem for me right now

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/751/1045751/nvidia-55nm-parts-bad

Intel chips don't have the horses for what I want, AMD chips tear under linux, and Nvidia chips may well be defective and will be a nasty blob in the kernel indefinitely.

>.<

[Extreme Coder]

I tried this on my ATI Xpress 1100, seemed to work fine, but then I ran KWin's compositing effects, tried to run glxgears, system crashed :/

[Xtigyro]

Flickering again. No Compiz, no 3D effects turned on and yet again lots of flickering.
Just watch this clip - http://vbox7.com/play:a8b71ae3 and be patient, of course. The combination of black on white is very significant.
Card - Mobility X1600

The good news is that i'm changing my HP nx9420 T7200 Laptop in February.




nVIDIA - GO, GO, GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

[energyman]

I waited 5minutes for the first 30 seconds. The video is dead slow. And for some reason I am watching flash videos every day and use tvtime which must use xv - and don't get any flickering with effects turned off.

[PiOuP]

No flicker with vlc and X11 video output but the cpu up to 40% and the video is very slow.
With opengl or xv video output the video always flicker.

[Arceliar]

On a 2600 Pro, while using a composited desktop, I can play video using xv with no flickering if every other window is minimized. Far from ideal, but definitely an improvement. I'll still probably turn off compositing, though, since video is all I really care about.

[PiOuP]

Maybe there is an option in the xorg.conf to optimize the video with xv and compiz enabled ?

[mityukov]

Maybe there is an option in the xorg.conf to optimize the video with xv and compiz enabled ?

The same question. Maybe it's in Composite manager (Compiz) itself - I don't know. At least, I no longer see Video flickering, after upgrading to KDE 4.1.3.

Here's my system:
- Kubuntu 8.10;
- radeon (as it was with Intrepid by default);
- Composite effects ON;
- Players: VLC/MPlayer; Video driver -- Xv everywhere.

It seems to me, the guys from KWin4 team applied some "workaround" to this issue (because I never updated the radeon, but only updated KDE, and the flickering was gone after I upgraded KDE).

Maybe, I'm missing anything.. Can somebody explain why there isn't any flickering with using Xv, although there is no DRI2 yet?

[angus77]

I get the same problem I've had with all the previous drivers---everything seems dandy at first, and then at some seemingly-random time (could be minutes, could be a whole day) the screen starts to go to garbage and then quickly becomes entirely unusable. I have no idea what sets it off, and I have no idea what useful information I could send as a bug report.

Radeon x1300 pro on Intrepid amd64.

[BlackStar]

Flickering again. No Compiz, no 3D effects turned on and yet again lots of flickering.
Just watch this clip - http://vbox7.com/play:a8b71ae3 and be patient, of course. The combination of black on white is very significant.
Card - Mobility X1600

The good news is that i'm changing my HP nx9420 T7200 Laptop in February.




nVIDIA - GO, GO, GO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

No flickering at all here (Ati 4850, catalyst 8.12, native x64 flash alpha, Compiz enabled). I used to have a lot of flickering with flash videos, but either catalyst 8.12 or the native flash plugin cured that.

Edit: catalyst 8.12 actually fixed scrolling in Opera/Firefox to the point where I can leave Compiz enabled all the time. It's not perfect (after 14 months since compiz support was introduced), but every release keeps getting better!

[Kano]

I don't think that the 64 bit flash uses opengl accel yet. That's 32 bit only.

[BlackStar]

I don't think that the 64 bit flash uses opengl accel yet. That's 32 bit only.

I don't think I'd like flash to interact with my video card at all. :)

That said, the latest version available from the archlinux user repos has the "Enable hardware acceleration" tickbox enabled. This probably uses XRender instead of OpenGL (and I have no idea if it works in practice), but it's there.

[jcrockett70]

I had a working fgrlx 8.11 dual head setup installed on my Ubuntu 8.10 on Thinkpad T60p. The first boot today with 8.12 on it my dual head behavior has changed. I used to be able to maximize a window and it would maximize it to fill the particular screen it belonged to. I use a script with xrandr to setup the dual head. Now it's maximizing to fill BOTH monitors. Exactly what I do NOT want. I do not like my windows to be part on one or the other monitor. They are best independant. A long time ago I used to be able to have dual head with completely independent screens, and I could move stuff between them, and I could have independant virtual workspaces. fglrx seemed to destroy the independant virtual workspace thing a long time ago, and I've given up hope of getting that back, but I hope there is a way to fix this 8.12 issue of maximizing a window to fill both my monitors at once. I may have to sick with 8.11 until 2010 when I get a new work laptop and can hopefully avoid fglrx forever.

-Jonathan

[Janusz11]

I'm starting to seriously think about buying a Nvidia to replace my HD3870. I still cannot start another X-session (e.g switch user) without a total and unrecoverable freeze of the system. This is bad!

Can anyone recommend me a Nvidia card thats about the same as my HD3870 and that is fanless? I have a PowerColor HD3870 SCS3 now.

Well, I can't recommend you a fanless video card but wanted to say that I just did that: I've replaced my PowerColor Radeon HD4870 with a BFG GeForce GTX260 OC Maxcore- and, boy, I'm so glad I did! All my problems are gone!

Installing the latest driver was as easy as pie. No freakin' error messages, no editing of files, no nothin'. Just run the script and that's it. Finally, I can use modelines again in xorg.conf and easily chose my favourite resolution. The picture is way more stable, no flickering in console mode that hurts the eyes. This card is also more quiet than the Radeon but at the same time doesn't even get close as hot as the latter. And its a fantastic performer! The terminal pops up in a blink of an eye with full compiz-effects enabled! Everything is smooth as glass. But the best thing is: I can finally watch movies on my box again! No flickering, no picture corruptions, no slow downs, no stutter, no programs that freeze anymore when switching to full screen- it simply w o r k s!

(plus: I get BSD support)

I'm all settled now and one thing is for sure: for me it will be always nVidia in the future now.

[energyman]

strange, I can logout just fine with ctrl-alt-delete without any freeze.

[LenS]

I'm starting to seriously think about buying a Nvidia to replace my HD3870. I still cannot start another X-session (e.g switch user) without a total and unrecoverable freeze of the system. This is bad!

Can anyone recommend me a Nvidia card thats about the same as my HD3870 and that is fanless? I have a PowerColor HD3870 SCS3 now.

Hi, Odur,

Tom's Hardware has the best comparisons I've seen. Check out:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,1987-6.html

There's several cards equilivant to or close to your 3870. The specials on Newegg and others would be one way to pick one.

Len

[energyman]

never ever trust tomshardware.
before they start a test, the 'victor' is set in stone. And then they tweak everything to fit.

btw, with nvidias severe problems at the moment, I wouldn't buy nvidia...

[LenS]

never ever trust tomshardware.
before they start a test, the 'victor' is set in stone. And then they tweak everything to fit.

btw, with nvidias severe problems at the moment, I wouldn't buy nvidia...

Interesting. I've never heard that before. Occasional complaints about test parameters, but mostly compliments, and they do post all the components and test methodology. They do pretty extensive tests too. If you know of any other comparisons I'd like to check them out too. What kind of tweaking do they do to bias the tests?

As far as their chip failure problems go, that is a serious consideration. From what I've read it seems to be a problem with the materials used in making the chips and is most apparent in laptops. The constant thermal cycling with being turned on, off, hibernate to save battery power also heats and cools the chips repeatedly. This repeated thermal expansion several times a day is causing the high failure rate. Desktops which are usually left on all day and even days or weeks at a time do not have the same failure rate and their chips last much longer. All their newly manufactured chips have been redesigned with different materials and do not have that problem.

Unfortunately they didn't recall any defective chips, so if you buy one now you have no way of knowing if it's a new fabrication or not. Odur has several hundred dollars invested in a computer which doesn't do what he wants it to. If he can fix that with a $50 to $75 video card that should last a year or more in a desktop that's a choice he has to make.

[RealNC]

never ever trust tomshardware.
before they start a test, the 'victor' is set in stone. And then they tweak everything to fit.

I don't see how we should "trust" tom's anyway since they only test Windows drivers.

btw, with nvidias severe problems at the moment, I wouldn't buy nvidia...
What problems? In the drivers? They work nice and are superior to Catalyst. That's what I call a good product. Catalyst is a bad product.

[LenS]

I don't see how we should "trust" tom's anyway since they only test Windows drivers.


What problems? In the drivers? They work nice and are superior to Catalyst. That's what I call a good product. Catalyst is a bad product.

You're right Tom's only tests windows drivers, but the question here is comparative chip capabilities (frame rates, etc.). If anything, given the superiority of Nvidia Linux drivers a Nvidia chip with slightly lower ratings with windows drivers might prove faster than an ATI chip when both are using linux drivers.

I'm surprised you haven't heard about Nvidia's problems. It been all over the tech news. The Inquirer broke the story last summer I believe, though many others have contributed. This is part one of 3 part story about what they discovered with links to 2 & 3: :eek:

Source: Why Nvidia's chips are defective- The Inquirer
Address : <http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/378/1004378/why-nvidia-chips-defective>Why Nvidia's chips are defective
Part One A long and complex story

[energyman]

the story continues:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/052/1050052/nvidia-chips-show-underfill-problems

leave it to nvidia to fix a problem in the worst possible way.

[RealNC]

I have an ATI, but all NVidia cards of my friends are living a long and happy life. Not a single one has "bumped" out (ah ah ah).

[russell_h]

Has anyone written a utility to make nvidia cards fail? Something that puts them at high load on and off repeatedly. Want to make sure this one fails before the warranty runs out on my laptop.

[energyman]

no tool. just let it run hot, cool it down (shut off), run hot, shut down .... after a while either your PSU fails or the card ;)

[RealNC]

You can just stick something in the GPU's fan to stop it and then boot Vista. It will explode in no time.

Note: Works with all chips, not just NVidia :D

[makomk]

Apparently, it still sucks, and more video acceleration standards is kind of silly, I wish they'd just stick to one good open standard if possible and be done with it but oh well. Actually interested in Intel's video efforts for a good HTPC solution (since Intel sucks at 3D still). They were also the ones really "going after" tearing, or so they said, but of course it's one thing to talk about it...

Actually, I've been looking at the XvBA libraries, and it looks like it's intended to be a reasonably sensible extension to XvMC, loosely based on Microsoft's DXVA. I'm guessing, from glancing over the disassembled code, the idea is that you create an XvMC context with XvMCCreateContext and surfaces with XvMCCreateSurface as usual, then use XvBA. More specifically, XvBAStartDecodePicture, XvBADecodePicture, and XvBAEndDecodePicture appear to be roughly equivalent to IDirectXVideoDecoder::BeginFrame, Execute, and EndFrame under Windows, but with XvMC surfaces. (Not sure where XvBACreateDecodeBuffers and XvBADestroyDecodeBuffers fit in.)

Of course, I can't really test this - aside from the lack of headers, my Radeon HD 2600 XT only supports UVD 1. (MPlayer won't even try, and when I attempt to call XvMCCreateContext my test app segfaults.) Should hopefully be fairly easy to use once the headers are out, though.

Also, you've got to remember that when it was created, VAAPI was essentially vaporware (it still is) and VDAPU hadn't been released yet. This probably made the most sense at the time.

Edit: Hmmm... looks like this changed in 8.12, which seems to seperate XvBA and XvMC. (Oh, and removes XvMC from libXvBAW.so.) I wonder when they'll actually finalise the spec?

[RealNC]

Btw, 8.12 is still slow as molasses with ANY compositing manager (Compiz, KWin, xfwm, just anything.)

I get the feeling they're never going to fix that one.

[pedepy]

well this is just a bad driver ... you could never sell a single ati card with that kind of performance.

every release seems to break something that once worked to 'introduce' a shaky 'new feature'.. That much constant breakage is a sure sign of an *utterly* bad coding style.

And at least with open source projects, when it breaks, you usually know why and what to expect. fglrx is just retarded..

[Yfrwlf]

And at least with open source projects, when it breaks, you usually know why and what to expect. fglrx is just retarded..

If they really wanted to work with the community, they'd abandon it or open source it, but of course both are "difficult" to do from a CEO's perspective. :P

Oh well, let the competition continue, but still, them along with Intel, are more "open source friendly" than Nvidia, but that may largely be because of competition, and this open sourcing effort is to try to get community help so they can hopefully catch up to them. It's a smart card to play for that reason, as well as all the other basic advantages of open source of course.

It's an effort they've helped convince me to support even if their documents haven't really created any super capable open source driver yet and even though they don't seem to be really interested in working on the actual open source code. Why would they when they still have their closed driver around?

[PuckPoltergeist]

If they really wanted to work with the community, they'd abandon it or open source it, but of course both are "difficult" to do from a CEO's perspective. :P


As long as the closed source drivers shows the better performance, supports more features (OpenGL > 1.4, powermanagement) and supports the existing cards better, abandoning would be a really bad decision. And opening isn't a opionon cause of IP reasons, I believe.

[cruiseoveride]

what IP? AMD is worth nothing now, they might as well start selling pizzas.

[cruiseoveride]

wait... second that.. if AMD sold pizzas it would be red, look really good, taste like crap, and need 14.345mm long by 7.23mm wide, 3 prong forks, otherwise you cant eat it at all.

ATi should just come suck my balls.

[PuckPoltergeist]

wait... second that.. if AMD sold pizzas it would be red, look really good, taste like crap, and need 14.345mm long by 7.23mm wide, 3 prong forks, otherwise you cant eat it at all.

ATi should just come suck my balls.

No one forces you to buy ATI-Hardware. So don't whine here cause you bought 'crap'.