Drivers for linux are rubbish

[pingufunkybeat]

Perhaps this differs depending on where you are.

In Germany, any big electronics retailer will take things back if you say that it doesn't work satisfactorily, no questions asked. I gave back a camera after being appalled by the image quality, and got my money back 5 minutes later.

A local computer shop happily let me test laptop memory on my computer before buying.

But hey, my card is working fine.

[WildcatWhiz]

I've been following this thread for a couple of days now and I thought I'd give my $0.02...

Coming from someone who recently switched from an 8800GT to (an arguably much more powerful) 5770, I have to say that I agree with the OP--the Ati drivers for Linux are "rubbish" when compared to Nvidia drivers.

Tearing with compositing enabled, no video acceleration, slow minimizing/maximizing/resizing...

Yes, many of these problems are solved with patches (backclear), workarounds (mplayer with GL), etc...As much as I hate to say it (I happen to like AMD by the way), my Nvidia card had none of these problems.

I'm looking forward to progress with fglrx, but it just isn't there yet.

[Hans]

Buying a card to test is not viable for everybody. Not everybody has access to some kind of big box store, and even then I don't know any store that would take something back simply because "you don't like it".

Well fortunately thats a law in my country. If the thing you have bought doesn't comply with what you expected, you have 14 days to return it and get all your money back by law.

[Hans]

The papers i looked were from universities, some communications and math projects. That plp are not ati or nvidia fans XD but they marked that cuda 3.0 was better. Obviously openCL is the future because is open, and continously improved. But nowadays in the performance / easy implemaentation cuda 3.0 seems to win. If i don't remember bad, openCL has some memory management problems which makes worse the performance, and to partially avoid these problems you have to program very hard!.

Yeah that might be true. I am not a CUDA or OpenCL expert. But it surprises me though, because as far as I remember nvidia just translates your OpenCL code into CUDA. Which lead me to think they have similar performance? But I might be wrong on that one.

Regarding the memory management. Isn't that just an issue with the implementation of OpenCL and not the API? Is that an issue with both vendors?

[mirv]

Well fortunately thats a law in my country. If the thing you have bought doesn't comply with what you expected, you have 14 days to return it and get all your money back by law.

Sadly I've tried it (not with video cards mind you) and they didn't take it back because it did "what was stated, not what was expected". I don't see many boxes with tux on it, and even then I use gentoo, so I kind of expect such stores to try screw me around.

[Hans]

Sadly I've tried it (not with video cards mind you) and they didn't take it back because it did "what was stated, not what was expected". I don't see many boxes with tux on it, and even then I use gentoo, so I kind of expect such stores to try screw me around.

Well in my country, if the customer wants to return it withing the 14 days, he has the right to do so. Even if the item bought, works as expected.

If the item has been damaged though, they can reject the return and you are not able to get any money back of course.

[mirv]

Well in my country, if the customer wants to return it withing the 14 days, he has the right to do so. Even if the item bought, works as expected.

If the item has been damaged though, they can reject the return and you are not able to get any money back of course.

Well, countries can be different. So can stores.
My original point was that it's not a feasible option for everybody, which is why it's kind of important to have proper reviews by people using actual cards with different drivers.
That's half the reason I try to correct some of the misconceptions about AMD's drivers. By the same token, I can't have a go at anything from nvidia - I only have a little nettop with an ion on board, and that's soley used for watching movies.

[mugginz]

¿?

I don't consider stating problems with ATI's fglrx is bashing. If you were to announce a problem with iTunes on Windows would you consider that bashing Apple?

If however you don't want to hear about fglrx's weaknesses then I can understand you wanting anyone with anything bad to say about it to leave.

I enumerated you ati mainly problems. I recognize them. What hesitates me is that a non ati user learns about others problems using this forum, and then use other problems as a rule for ati bashing with no direct knowledge of fglrx functionality.

Are you saying that problems reported by ATI users and which are acknowledged by bridgman himself don't really exist?

This is a forum about Linux and graphics and stuff

No, this is "Technical support and discussion of the ATI/AMD proprietary Linux driver."

And what better place for that than on a site dedicated to the issues that surround desktop Linux.

[mugginz]

Sure, but all we're getting here is anecdotes, which has nothing to do with the ration of good vs. bad experiences.

Adam

So are you saying that fglrx is more functional and reliable than nVidia's blob?

[adamk]

So are you saying that fglrx is more functional and reliable than nVidia's blob?

For me, absolutely. I would guess the same is true for other's as well.

Adam