Gaming with Open Source ATI drivers?

[Deagleson]

Edit: The Fedora games spin failed to boot and so i tried running Ubuntu 9.10b with "http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu".
Now i can finally boot up some games and even got WoW 3.2.x to run.
(But its severly corrupted :( )
Thanks to everyone who posted here, i learned allot. :)

Hi, i was wondering how good the drivers for open source ATI drivers are now, when i used Ubuntu 9.04 i was not that impressed but hey, that was some months ago. :)
And its not too long until Ubuntu 9.10 gets released so i was thinking of giving linux a new chance.
(Since ATI moved DirectX 9.0 cards to legacy Windows 7 has not been that good of an experience. :( )

I was thinking of games like World of Warcraft or Counter-Strike 1.6 and if the preformance is good enough maybe even Counter-Strike Source.

My notebooks specs are:

HP Compaq nw8440
Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 @ 2,16 GHz
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256mb
4096mb ram
320gb 5400rpm hdd

Anyone got some tips how to get started, i can isntall and test myself but i may need some help or a simple how to since im not that good with linux yet.
I have managed to set up a Atom / Ion media nettop successfully, but that was purely luck i guess.

Thanks in advance,
Deagleson

[bridgman]

If you want the newest open source driver stack including Kernel Modesetting, GEM/TTM, DRI2, and the highest level of OpenGL support then you might want to try the latest Fedora builds - they have all the new features included and enabled by default.

I'm not sure about whether the current level of support is sufficient for WOW or CS 1.6, maybe someone else can comment on that.

[Zhick]

CS 1.6 is definitly doable. CS:Source I don't know.
I'm also not 100% sure about WoW. I used to be able to run it with wine and radeon, but that was in pre-WotLK times. But performance wasn't so great, and I think the engine has become more advanced since then.

[Deagleson]

Thanks for the quick replies. :)
Maybe il give Fedora a go then.
And if all fails i could try setting up a dual boot solution.

[elanthis]

If you want the newest open source driver stack including Kernel Modesetting, GEM/TTM, DRI2, and the highest level of OpenGL support then you might want to try the latest Fedora builds - they have all the new features included and enabled by default.

I'm not sure about whether the current level of support is sufficient for WOW or CS 1.6, maybe someone else can comment on that.

I'm on Fedora rawhide and I'm not seeing any OpenGL support at all. I get KMS, but no OpenGL support at all. Not on either the HD4770 or HD3200 IGP.

[bridgman]

Not sure if all of the bits for KMS/DRI2/OpenGL on 6xx/7xx are in yet (although I thought they were) but for 5xx/rs6xx and below everything should be in place for sure.

[agd5f]

KMS/DRI2/OpenGL are working on r6xx/r7xx hardware with drm-next and git master of mesa and xf86-video-ati.

[SolidSteel144]

Which Fedora builds in paticular would have most of these features (guessing a snapshot of F12)? Links please.

[pvtcupcakes]

If you want the newest open source driver stack including Kernel Modesetting, GEM/TTM, DRI2, and the highest level of OpenGL support then you might want to try the latest Fedora builds - they have all the new features included and enabled by default.

I'm not sure about whether the current level of support is sufficient for WOW or CS 1.6, maybe someone else can comment on that.

I had CS1.6 running on my 4850, so it should run even better on an R500.

[Erikina]

http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/


Choose between "desktop" (gnome) and "kde". (or just grab the alpha on the site, and yum update)

[nanonyme]

Not sure if all of the bits for KMS/DRI2/OpenGL on 6xx/7xx are in yet (although I thought they were) but for 5xx/rs6xx and below everything should be in place for sure.Afaik Mesa in Fedora Rawhide isn't compiled with r600 driver. You get OpenGL trivially by recompiling Mesa.

[SolidSteel144]

http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/


Choose between "desktop" (gnome) and "kde". (or just grab the alpha on the site, and yum update)
Thanks, by the way which version of the kernel does the latest version have (before I install)?

[Erikina]

Thanks, by the way which version of the kernel does the latest version have (before I install)?

[root@fedz ~]# uname -a
Linux fedz 2.6.31.1-56.fc12.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Sep 29 16:16:22 EDT 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Erikina]

Afaik Mesa in Fedora Rawhide isn't compiled with r600 driver. You get OpenGL trivially by recompiling Mesa.

Much easier:

su -
<enter password>
yum install mesa-dri-drivers-experimental

[SolidSteel144]

How does World of Goo play currently?

[bridgman]

It seems to work fine on my HD3450.

[madbiologist]

Deagleson, how did the WoW go on the X1600 (R500)? You may want to update the table at:

http://wiki.x.org/wiki/RadeonProgram

Edit: changed R400 to R500. Mea culpa.

[Deagleson]

World of Goo in a 2D game so it should run flawless.
And i think nearly all of the ATI gpu's got good 2D accelleration with the open-source drivers.

[whizse]

World of Goo in a 2D game so it should run flawless.
And i think nearly all of the ATI gpu's got good 2D accelleration with the open-source drivers.

No, the game may be in 2D, but it uses OpenGL. Running it without any 3D acceleration will make you very unhappy. ;)

[RahulSundaram]

No, the game may be in 2D, but it uses OpenGL. Running it without any 3D acceleration will make you very unhappy. ;)

True but any games using OpenGL should work fine if you yum install mesa-dri-drivers-experimental in the current Rawhide leading to Fedora 12. Of course, they are still "experimental" drivers. So report any problems in http://bugzilla.redhat.com.

[SolidSteel144]

No, the game may be in 2D, but it uses OpenGL. Running it without any 3D acceleration will make you very unhappy. ;)
Which I found out the hard way on Karmic. :p
Well! Time to reinstall F12 for the 3rd time. It keeps on giving me errors after I install the experimental mesa package.

[Deagleson]

No, the game may be in 2D, but it uses OpenGL. Running it without any 3D acceleration will make you very unhappy. ;)

Sorry for posting that. :(
I dident know World of Goo actually used OpenGL to accelleration.

[bridgman]

Yeah, I think World of Goo was the first game to actually work with the new 6xx/7xx 3D driver.

I was so happy that a Real Game ran that I even bought a copy of WOG.

[pvtcupcakes]

Yeah, I think World of Goo was the first game to actually work with the new 6xx/7xx 3D driver.

I was so happy that a Real Game ran that I even bought a copy of WOG.

I remember when it didn't work so well on my gpu.
It kind of worked, but it flickered and flashed so badly that it wasn't worth playing.

[Boerkel]

It works perfect here on my Ubuntu/HD 2600 with radeon driver.

[Duhorigh73]

While we like the flexibilty and local adaptability of the Icons its too early for open source. It would be too easy to miss the fundamental values of GMS.