Anybody else using Free software DRI drivers with their ATI cards?

[Fragadelic]

Now I'm curious as to how the ati drivers will perform on the system since I only got this card a few days ago. Paid $20 brand new so I thought I'd give it a shot. I also have a 6600GT but it plays kinda funny with the mobo/cpu combo and I have the latest bios installed. It doesn't beat the 9200 by as much as it should so there is definitely something that either the mobo or the video card don't like about the other.

I'm stuck with AGP for now and a very limited budget for a new card.

The ati cards seem to play better with the mobo and I'm not sure why.

[Fragadelic]

I went ahead and installed the fglrx drivers from ati - the 8.28.8 since those are the last to support the 9200 and they are much better than the stock open source ones.

Strangely, the performance of the 9200 with fglrx isn't that far off the 6600GT with nvidia drivers on this system so either the card is going bad or something else is wrong. I'm not worrying about it though since the 9200 works fine with ET for my needs. I might upgrade to something newer in the new year but I feel agp will be like the dinosaurs very soon - extinct - lol.

[colo]

I'm about to get a PCI-E video card supporting hw-accelerated GLX with free software only, is there any specific recommendation you can make? What about a "Radeon X850XT PE"? Is that one known to work with "r300", as the driver used to be called?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

[Michael]

I'm about to get a PCI-E video card supporting hw-accelerated GLX with free software only, is there any specific recommendation you can make? What about a "Radeon X850XT PE"? Is that one known to work with "r300", as the driver used to be called?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

The X850XT PE (R480/R481 Chipset) should be supported by the Radeon r300 driver. However, with the present status of the open-source drivers you may not see any large performance difference between the X800XT PE and other X800 models.

[Fragadelic]

Michael,

Do you know what the current best performing ATI card is in Linux?

How well does a 1600pro stack up?

I tried searching for articles but couldn't find any. If you have a link to one that I may have missed, that would be great.

[Fragadelic]

Forgot to mention - using the fglrx drivers and not the open source ones.

[Michael]

Michael,

Do you know what the current best performing ATI card is in Linux?

How well does a 1600pro stack up?

I tried searching for articles but couldn't find any. If you have a link to one that I may have missed, that would be great.

Well, the best performing ATI card using the 8.31.5 display drivers would be the X1900XTX. However, that soon will change (remember the X1950 series currently doesn't work with the fglrx drivers without falsifying the chip ID).

An article coming out less than 24 hours from now on Phoronix should address some additional performance figures, and you'll be able to see where the X1600PRO performs by the delta between the high-end part and the X1300.

[Fragadelic]

Excellent!

I'm so glad I stumbled upon Phoronix. This is to the linux world what Tom's Hardware is to the windows world.

Keep up the good work!

I usually stay behind the curve on all hardware so the 1600pro or even the 1650pro which doesn't appear to have official fglrx support either would most likely be what I end up with.

[Michael]

I usually stay behind the curve on all hardware so the 1600pro or even the 1650pro which doesn't appear to have official fglrx support either would most likely be what I end up with.

The X1650PRO should work with the fglrx display drivers. It should work with the current display drivers, otherwise I know for certain that the next display drivers will support the: Radeon X1650 Series (RV535 XT (71C1) 71C1), Radeon X1650 Series (RV530 XT2 71C6), and Radeon X1650 Series (RV535 (71C7) 71C7).

[Fragadelic]

That sounds good cause I am stuck with agp for now and the best I can get locally is 1650pro.

I would like to see what the Canadian price for the 1950agp will be but I haven't seen it anywhere.