AMD Catalyst 9.8 Preview

[d2kx]

Source: http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=7641

This month we are seeing a massive performance increase with a whole host of games as compared to the ATI Catalyst 9.7 driver. Detailed release notes are available for most of the game optimizations; here are the highlights:

[...]
UnigineTropics OpenGL performance improvements of up to 20%.
[...]

This release of the ATI Catalyst driver provides OpenGL 3.1 extension support. The following is a list of OpenGL 3.1 features and extensions added in ATI Catalyst 9.8:

- Support for OpenGL Shading Language 1.30 and 1.40.
- Instanced rendering with a per-instance counter accessible to vertex shaders (GL ARB draw instanced).
- Data copying between buffer objects (GL EXT copy buffer).
- Primitive restart (NV primitive restart). Because client enable/disable no longer exists in OpenGL 3.1, the PRIMITIVE RESTART state has become server state, unlike the Nvidia extension where it is client state. As a result, the numeric values assigned to PRIMITIVE RESTART and PRIMITIVE RESTART INDEX differ from the NV versions of those tokens. o At least 16 texture image units must be accessible to vertex shaders, in addition to the 16 already guaranteed to be accessible to fragment shaders.
- Texture buffer objects (GL ARB texture buffer object).
- Rectangular textures (GL ARB texture rectangle). o Uniform buffer objects (GL ARB uniform buffer object).
- SNORM texture component formats.

Support for new Linux operating systems
This release of ATI Catalyst driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:

- RHEL 4.8 production support
- Ubuntu 9.04 production support

ATI Catalyst™ Control Center - Linux Edition support for RandR 1.2 This release of the ATI Catalyst driver for Linux introduces ATI Catalyst Control Center - Linux Edition support for the RandR 1.2 extension API. The following new features are now available in the ATI Catalyst Control Center - Linux Edition Display Manager:

- Display rotation
- Multiple display arrangement and desktop sizing

Also, not to forget, Linux 2.6.29/2.6.30 support as announced in last month's news post by Michael.

The driver should be released tomorrow.

[nanonyme]

That note about the primitive restart sounds a bit funky. If that list of extensions actually is getting in as new stuff and they get the support for two new Linux versions, I'd probably be impressed if I still used the closed drivers. :)

[kkkk]

does it support <=r500?

[nanonyme]

does it support <=r500?Those are legacy cards anyway both on Windows and Linux side. Only supported by older closed driver versions... (and open drivers)

[kkkk]

Those are legacy cards anyway both on Windows and Linux side. Only supported by older closed driver versions... (and open drivers)

yeah, but there should be a release every 3-4 months, if I remember correctly

[nanonyme]

yeah, but there should be a release every 3-4 months, if I remember correctlyI haven't heard of that, sounds interesting. Where'd you read it?

[d2kx]

yeah, but there should be a release every 3-4 months, if I remember correctly

They planned to release a new one every 3 or 4th month but only for Windows. There was one releases, Catalyst 9.3.1, but they decided to stop those too.

[nanonyme]

They planned to release a new one every 3 or 4th month but only for Windows. There was one releases, Catalyst 9.3.1, but they decided to stop those too.Well, I'd expect they weren't planning to add support for new Windows graphical API's either... Low-effort legacy releases (as in, only bug fixes) would be pretty much useless for Linux users but neat for Windows users, really. ^^

[RealNC]

2.6.29/30 at last. Of course when 31 comes out, we'll start complaining all over again :P

[d2kx]

2.6.29/30 at last. Of course when 31 comes out, we'll start complaining all over again :P

Remember it's only two months until Ubuntu 9.10 which uses Linux 2.6.31 and they'll want to support that from the beginning.

[RealNC]

Hopefully.

Btw, the Windows 9.8 drivers are already up on akamai.net and downloadable (for over a day now), even though there's no official announcement yet. I hope that:

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-9-8-x86.x86_64.run

will become active soon too :D

[ObiWan]

Remember it's only two months until Ubuntu 9.10 which uses Linux 2.6.31 and they'll want to support that from the beginning.

Ubuntu just needs to use a patched kernel that still exports find_task_by_vpid

[nanonyme]

Ubuntu just needs to use a patched kernel that still exports find_task_by_vpidMaybe... Doing that would give an interesting sign to the rest of the community though. As in, that distro maintainers can override kernel developers' decisions on kernel development. (strictly speaking this already happened at least once, eg Debian vs radeon microcode)

[BlackStar]

Maybe... Doing that would give an interesting sign to the rest of the community though. As in, that distro maintainers can override kernel developers' decisions on kernel development. (strictly speaking this already happened at least once, eg Debian vs radeon microcode)

What? Distro maintainers have been patching and modifying the kernel forever - that's their job!

[nanonyme]

What? Distro maintainers have been patching and modifying the kernel forever - that's their job!It most definitely isn't the job of distro maintainers to have an opinion on where kernel development should head. If it was, they should be kernel developers. Fixing bugs is one thing to but re-exporting symbols means they disagree with where Linux kernel developers think the kernel should be going. I'm not sure I consider that a very good sign.

[BlackStar]

It most definitely isn't the job of distro maintainers to have an opinion on where kernel development should head. If it was, they should be kernel developers. Fixing bugs is one thing to but re-exporting symbols means they disagree with where Linux kernel developers think the kernel should be going. I'm not sure I consider that a very good sign.

In a perfect world, this makes sense. However, we don't live in a perfect world and no distro maintainer will let a significant number of systems break if he can help it.

It's the maintainer's job to smooth things over and make sure the distro will work for the largest amount of users. This might involve mean patching the kernel (all distros); it might involve pulling out-of-tree branches (Fedora, I'm looking at you); it most certainly doesn't mean sitting back and enjoying the carnage when widely-used software stops working for one reason or another.

I don't see this as a bad thing. The maintainer frees the kernel devs from the burden of supporting legacy software. Sooner or later, the legacy software will either be upgraded or it will become too costly to maintain and will be dropped (see Arch and fglrx).

[RealNC]

It most definitely isn't the job of distro maintainers to have an opinion on where kernel development should head. If it was, they should be kernel developers. Fixing bugs is one thing to but re-exporting symbols means they disagree with where Linux kernel developers think the kernel should be going. I'm not sure I consider that a very good sign.

I remember reading on lkml the developers themselves say that distros are encouraged to change the kernel however they see fit. Upstream kernel does not deal with distro issues when it can avoid it. It's the distro's job to modify it and produce their own flair of the kernel. And they consider this a "Good Thing". Upstream is the "vanilla" flavor and it's not intended to be suitable for every one.

[Dinth]

its already downloadable, but still not announced

[mirv]

That note about the primitive restart sounds a bit funky. If that list of extensions actually is getting in as new stuff and they get the support for two new Linux versions, I'd probably be impressed if I still used the closed drivers. :)

Not really - it's probably something that won't concern most people (in other words, that bit on primitive restart isn't very funky), and actually might make things cleaner elsewhere. It's just a natural progression away from the whole client state enable/disable.

I'll definitely be looking forward to the glsl 1.40 support.

[Loris]

its already downloadable, but still not announced

Wut? Vherr? :)

[Ant P.]

Top of page 2.

[Heiko]

Great, downloading right now!

[AdrenalineJunky]

got in installed - 2.6.30 and xorg 1.6.3 and no patches - thats more like it.

definately noticed performance improvemnts with nexiuz and saurbraten.

glxgears now gives me higher fps with compositing enabled than without... for some odd reason.

[nanonyme]

Not really - it's probably something that won't concern most people (in other words, that bit on primitive restart isn't very funky), and actually might make things cleaner elsewhere. It's just a natural progression away from the whole client state enable/disable.My definition of funky was that it's quite a bit different than what nVidia did even though it's originally nVidia's extension.

[mirv]

My definition of funky was that it's quite a bit different than what nVidia did even though it's originally nVidia's extension.

Ah, gotchya.
(btw, I'm damned tired as of writing this, but can't sleep until tried out new drivers!)
I suspect ati would have done somthing similar if the opengl spec hadn't had some fairly drastic changes in that area. In any case, now that it's part of the standard, I'll be using primitive restarts in my terrain renderer.

In other areas, no complaints about 9.8 so far. Still can't start amdcccle (something in my system really doesn't like that program), but otherwise it's all fine.

[Fran]

I said I would forget about fglrx, but since this time it seems to support recent kernels and I've heard that Oblivion will be playable in wine with this version, I'm giving it a try. It seems to work ok with 2.6.31-rc6 (after re-exporting find_task_by_vpid). The performance is also good, but compositing is broken, as always (maximizing a window takes forever). And xv is also broken, as always (fucking washed colors).

I'll try to play Oblivion. (edit) Nope, it doesn't work. In fact it RESETS MY COMPUTER after the game menu (it doesn't hang it, it resets it). Oh well. Back to the OS drivers.

[Ant P.]

I tried it, got "undefined symbol resVGAShared" or something like that.

I think I'll stick with the better-written xorg drivers.

[AdrenalineJunky]

I said I would forget about fglrx, but since this time it seems to support recent kernels and I've heard that Oblivion will be playable in wine with this version, I'm giving it a try. It seems to work ok with 2.6.31-rc6 (after re-exporting find_task_by_vpid). The performance is also good, but compositing is broken, as always (maximizing a window takes forever). And xv is also broken, as always (fucking washed colors).

I'll try to play Oblivion.

there is a patched xserver floating around that takes care of the maximizing/resizing problem.

[ObiWan]

I'll try to play Oblivion. (edit) Nope, it doesn't work. In fact it RESETS MY COMPUTER after the game menu (it doesn't hang it, it resets it). Oh well. Back to the OS drivers.

Did you set the OffscreenRenderingMode to backbuffer in the registry?
Oblivion doesn't work with the standard fbo mode

[Death Knight]

Waaawaaawuuuu! I think ATI makes first rock solid driver for linux. All head aches gone. XV video does not distort picture. OpenGL works better under compiz. Even I can use OpenGL Video render under AIGLX now. Superb!

[Fran]

Did you set the OffscreenRenderingMode to backbuffer in the registry?
Oblivion doesn't work with the standard fbo mode
It shouldn't reset the computer either. I mean, what kind of craptastic driver makes the computer reboot by trying to run a game?

Anyway, maybe tomorrow I'll try with the usual registry tricks.

[Qaridarium]

I said I would forget about fglrx, but since this time it seems to support recent kernels and I've heard that Oblivion will be playable in wine with this version, I'm giving it a try. It seems to work ok with 2.6.31-rc6 (after re-exporting find_task_by_vpid). The performance is also good, but compositing is broken, as always (maximizing a window takes forever). And xv is also broken, as always (fucking washed colors).

I'll try to play Oblivion. (edit) Nope, it doesn't work. In fact it RESETS MY COMPUTER after the game menu (it doesn't hang it, it resets it). Oh well. Back to the OS drivers.

Oblivion works! in the past i put some screenshots up with the 9-7 catalyst 9-8 work better faster and some grafic bugs fixed...

if you want i can test this again with the release 9-8 driver (not my faforid betas) and i can also make some screenshots. if you want with open amdcccl and version number and so on..

[Qaridarium]

Did you set the OffscreenRenderingMode to backbuffer in the registry?
Oblivion doesn't work with the standard fbo mode

in my point of view and in the past i always use FBO !

[Qaridarium]

It shouldn't reset the computer either. I mean, what kind of craptastic driver makes the computer reboot by trying to run a game?

Anyway, maybe tomorrow I'll try with the usual registry tricks.

http://ug6.kwick.de/ug/0451/4478/88667364_full,r,470x470.jpg

Oblivion works! witout any trick!

[RealNC]

Grats. You've just got a game released in 2006 to work 3 and a half years later :P

[nanonyme]

Grats. You've just got a game released in 2006 to work 3 and a half years later :PThink of it this way: if you play games three years late, you get to buy them at a marginal cost compared to buying them new. :3

[RealNC]

Good point :P

[Qaridarium]

Grats. You've just got a game released in 2006 to work 3 and a half years later :P

thats right.. but! i can't do nothing abaut that fakt.

if openGL3.2 will come in the driver the situation will be better.

[Fran]

http://ug6.kwick.de/ug/0451/4478/88667364_full,r,470x470.jpg

Oblivion works! witout any trick!

So you didn't do anything? Nothing in the registry, nothing regarding directx dlls? I have a 3850, what's your card?

The first time I ran the game the menu worked ok and the intro (something that I had never managed to see) was perfect, but the character selection was incredibly slow, and the background was all grey. I decided to quit the game, and suddenly I got a lot of corruption, the screen went into power saving mode, and... the computer restarted. After that, not even the menu worked ok (flickering).

BTW, it may be a 3 year old game, but it's fantastic :P

[Heiko]

Think of it this way: if you play games three years late, you get to buy them at a marginal cost compared to buying them new. :3

Reminds me of this xkcd webcomic:
http://xkcd.com/606/

[Qaridarium]

So you didn't do anything? Nothing in the registry, nothing regarding directx dlls? I have a 3850, what's your card?

The first time I ran the game the menu worked ok and the intro (something that I had never managed to see) was perfect, but the character selection was incredibly slow, and the background was all grey. I decided to quit the game, and suddenly I got a lot of corruption, the screen went into power saving mode, and... the computer restarted. After that, not even the menu worked ok (flickering).

BTW, it may be a 3 year old game, but it's fantastic :P

my cart is an 4670 but sorry my system is a bit old installed i can not be sure abaut realy do nothing in wine.

witch wine do you use? don't use 1.01!

wine needs version 1.1.27 für ATI support !!!!!!!!!

older versions do not have an good rederpfadh für fglrx.

start winecfg and check the version.

check the wineqh and wineappdb for oblivion becourse of the .dlls you need.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=7870

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=7506

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=5777

[Nille]

Denglish is everytime funny ^^.

[Fran]

check the wineqh and wineappdb for oblivion
Ok, so you MAY have used some tricks to make it work. That makes more sense.

Anyway, I tried with the fbo thingy in the registry, with the dx9 dll included in the game, and nothing. Still a lot of corruption, random segfaults, very low performance, etc.

Meh, as I said, back to the open drivers.

[Qaridarium]

Ok, so you MAY have used some tricks to make it work. That makes more sense.

Anyway, I tried with the fbo thingy in the registry, with the dx9 dll included in the game, and nothing. Still a lot of corruption, random segfaults, very low performance, etc.

Meh, as I said, back to the open drivers.

in my point of view the leaket driver 8.650 was a 9.9 alpfa..

the 9-8 hase some broken openGL extansions effektet in wine.

the 9.9beta is faster and has less grafic errors becourse of the fixed openGL exstansion.

on 9.8 oblivion works but 9.9 works much better.


FBO works for me in the 9.9 and 9.8 but yes you need some dx9 dll files

[RealNC]

Qaridarium, please please use this (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3497) xD

[Qaridarium]

Qaridarium, please please use this (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3497) xD

realy... thank you :-)

[poofyyoda]

Hey Qaridarium,

Out of curiosity, does the 9.9 beta, or later fix the system freeze when a new X display is killed?

It's basically the only thing preventing me from enjoying these new drivers.


To test: edit
/etc/X11/Xwrapper.config

and change

allowed_users=console
to
allowed_users=anybody


then start the server
X :3 -ac -terminate & DISPLAY=:3 [a/program]
when
You'll probably crash your system once you kill that server...
9.7 and 9.8 have really killed the experience for me.
Switching between the VTs works fine, but when I kill the new one while using it... crash. I hope things will improve in the next few releases...


If you don't want to test it (or if it works), a PM with a link would be nice:)

[Qaridarium]

Hey Qaridarium,

Out of curiosity, does the 9.9 beta, or later fix the system freeze when a new X display is killed?

If you don't want to test it (or if it works), a PM with a link would be nice:)

hi the last one i have access is 8.650 aka 8.65.2

this one is an very very pre alpfa 9-9

there is an final version of 9-9 but you need an NDA accress to the beta driver programm.

the only diverend i can say is that the 8.65.2 has better wine support faster and less graficerrors.

but i think the real final 9.9 driver has more fixes !

talk to an linux user in the beta programm to test the newest beta on your problem.

for an exampel "bridgman" or "energyman" there are many many in this forum i the beta programm only the NDA stops them to talk free PM them and you will get answers.