AMD Catalyst 8.8 Linux Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Catalyst 8.8 Linux Driver

AMD had delivered same-day Linux support when launching the Radeon HD 4800 series this summer. This was a first for AMD when launching a major product revision that there was same-day support considering for the R500 and R600 (and earlier) generations it had taken months for any level of support on Linux. This was great to see and the Radeon HD 4850/4870 performance was terrific thanks to their new OpenGL driver introduced last September. Today AMD has announced another Catalyst driver release for Linux and this is arguably the most significant driver update since last October's release when AIGLX support was added. Catalyst 8.8 delivers CrossFire support on Linux, OverDrive overclocking support, adaptive anti-aliasing support, and other improvements.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=12767

[roberth]

Yay they have actually fixed tearing in normal window rendering, now tearing in x-video needs to be fixed!

[oyvind]

Not available here yet:
http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/l...ux-radeon.html

But this link works:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206...x86.x86_64.run



Most happy to hear about fixes to segfaulting because of Textured Video. Let's see how this release turns out ...

[Michael]

Release notes will likely be @ https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206..._88_linux.html

[kusuriya]

W00t cant wait till its on their site.

[mirak63]

Yay they have actually fixed tearing in normal window rendering, now tearing in x-video needs to be fixed!

the joke of xv video is still continuing ...

[kiwi_kid_aka_bod]

But have they fixed that damned checkerboard corruption in MythTV / Wine / lots of other programs?

Really, if they haven't fixed that after the amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth around here, then someone at AMD ought to be waterboarded.

[Fenix-TX]

Just installed 8.8 and i have the same problems like 8.6 and 8.7. When i open xdtv (apart from that in all versions of fglrx driver when i open a program to watch tv from my tvcard the screen goes to black and i have to switch to a virtual terminal (ctrl+f[1-6]) and back again to desktop (ctrl+f7)) when i try to resize the xdtv window the image changes to interferences, but this only happens if i resize horizontally, if i resize only vertically the image resizes ok. Another problem is with mplayer or other movie plater when i have kde4 effects enabled, the image is flickering.

[Forge]

The problem here, from what I've heard, is that AMD doesn't have a team kicking out a driver every month. I've heard it's actually 3 teams with offset quarterly releases. Therefore when the Checkerboard of Doom was first spotted back in 8.6, it was already too late to fix it in 8.7 or 8.8, but probably will be fixed in 8.9. If it took >2-3 weeks to find the root cause and make a fix, it could be 8.10 or later before we get a proper fix.

In the meantime using Xorg libs instead of ATI ones (forced AIGLX for all) is a workaround for me and some.

Just be happy, RadeonHD is coming.

[Michael]

The problem here, from what I've heard, is that AMD doesn't have a team kicking out a driver every month. I've heard it's actually 3 teams with offset quarterly releases. Therefore when the Checkerboard of Doom was first spotted back in 8.6, it was already too late to fix it in 8.7 or 8.8, but probably will be fixed in 8.9. If it took >2-3 weeks to find the root cause and make a fix, it could be 8.10 or later before we get a proper fix.

For information about their release practices, see The Truth About ATI/AMD & Linux