ATI Drivers: Ubuntu vs. Windows

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ATI Drivers: Ubuntu vs. Windows

Yesterday we covered the graphics hardware needed to handle Beryl and on the heels of that article we are taking a quick look at another Linux versus Windows comparison for the official ATI/AMD graphics drivers. NVIDIA's Linux and Windows drivers perform about the same and in some instances the Linux binary driver even running faster, but as we have been sharing now for many months the Linux fglrx driver is handicapped for performance. Has things since improved for ATI? Well, as you'll see in this article by using the official Linux driver from ATI/AMD you can expect your frame-rate to be cut in half compared to the most recent version of the Windows Catalyst driver.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=10022

[grogoreo]

I'm sorry this is off-topic and a bit off of the forum but could someone tell me if there is much difference between ATi drivers for Windows and Mac? The reason for asking is to understand if ATi is really focused just on Windows and if Macs are on the same level as Linux. I'm not trying to make a purchase decision, just out of interest.

Thanks,
Greg

[Michael]

I'm sorry this is off-topic and a bit off of the forum but could someone tell me if there is much difference between ATi drivers for Windows and Mac? The reason for asking is to understand if ATi is really focused just on Windows and if Macs are on the same level as Linux. I'm not trying to make a purchase decision, just out of interest.

Thanks,
Greg

I don't have much first hand experience with ATI on Macs, but I here that the drivers work out pretty well.

[grogoreo]

Thanks Michael, but would you (or anyone else) know if they are on par with Windows. I understand you don't have first hand experience though, but maybe matching benchmarks.

[Svartalf]

I don't have much first hand experience with ATI on Macs, but I here that the drivers work out pretty well.

That's because they're done from a completely different codebase from about pretty much everything else at the ATI division...

And, yes, they do QUITE well, indeed. It's part of why I'm so disappointed in what we've been handed up to this point.

[Svartalf]

Well, as you'll see in this article by using the official Linux driver from ATI/AMD you can expect your frame-rate to be cut in half compared to the most recent version of the Windows Catalyst driver.

This is because they're probably trying to wedge their interrupt handling scheme from the Windows driver into the Linux space- and paying for the behavior differences between the Linux and Windows schedulers at the driver level. It's a common mistake about every company makes when they do drivers for all platforms in this space. I've had to enlighten a few clients about taking that square peg of a Windows interrupt handling solution and put it in the smaller, round hole of the Linux driver problem. So few companies actually sit down and do visual charts of what in the heck their stuff does against the scheduler on both OSes and think around that problem accordingly.

[grogoreo]

Thanks for the info Svartalf