Choosing a GFX card for new Linux Desktop

[crazycheese]

Crazycheese, I'm not going to respond to all of your posts but I do need to point out periodically that this is simply not true. AMD supplies documentation *and* funds developers working full time on the open source graphics drivers.

Yes, John, and this is what I respond in all my posts(Im not posting for fun, nor I work for *any* gpu company) you provide 3 developers and support Opengl patent clean-up.

The only issue that I have with AMD, is that this is simply not enough. Just what Ryan "icculus" said.

I could formulate everything in shorter way:

If I'm to buy HD6990(and water-cooling it in the end), will I be able to use opensource driver with it out of the box? When may it happen (opengl4 patent troubles excluded)? Is there any sense to use opensource with high-end cards?

If opensource is not the heavy weight for AMD - will I be able to use the same feature matrix with linux catalyst, that I can use with 580? Why is catalyst so big, so underfeatured and supporting such short amount of cards?

There is a category of buyers, that use linux.
At home or privately.
They by hardware for this goal.

If AMD considers delivering products and support for this group, it should:
- for IGP and HTPC(e-350): Add MPEG2, MPEG4 ASP, MPEG4 AVC, VP8 hardware decode and encode acceleration via established standard - va-api, so it reduces running costs by unused hardware cycles.
- for discrete hardware: Give the possibility for normal people to support closedgl4 turn into opengl4 via financial way, market it, so that people are sure that company is serious about opensource drivers and not looks at them as back-up not needed legacy solution.
- decide the situation with catalyst/video-ati - amd proprietary looses to nvidia and opensource is inofficially developed as legacy driver.

[s0rce]

The nvidia 560 is way out of my price range (~$250!). I would rather stay below $100. I don't need to play new fancy games. All I play is UrbanTerror (ioquake3). This runs decently on my nvidia 9300m GS and an old Radeon 300. I would like to get a bit better performance than those old cards and I wanted to find something that was going to work well under linux.

[Kano]

There is also a gtx 550 now, a tiny bit slower than a gtx 460 (when you get it cheap now maybe a good deal). Amd cards with similar (Win) speed are 5770/6770. I have not seen any Linux benchmarks yet. But i usually would prefer Nvidia - especially for gaming or htpc.

[bridgman]

If I'm to buy HD6990(and water-cooling it in the end), will I be able to use opensource driver with it out of the box? When may it happen (opengl4 patent troubles excluded)? Is there any sense to use opensource with high-end cards?

In general, open source drivers are going to be better suited for low end and midrange cards, although there will be exceptions. The issue is not open source per se, but the fact that proprietary drivers can share development costs across multiple operating systems while open source drivers require a separate code base, ie they can not easily share code developed for and justified (funded) by sales into markets using other OSes.

In principle there is no absolute reason why code could not be shared between proprietary drivers for other OSes and open drivers for Linux, but the practical reason is that we do not have rights to expose internal details for other OSes in the same way that we do for Linux, and so most of the shared code has to remain proprietary (or become hugely more expensive to maintain).

If opensource is not the heavy weight for AMD - will I be able to use the same feature matrix with linux catalyst, that I can use with 580?

That is still the goal towards which we are working, with the obvious caveats that the feature sets will always be somewhat different, so "comparable" is probably a better word than "same".

Why is catalyst so big, so underfeatured and supporting such short amount of cards?

Why is the sky green ?

Last time I looked the proprietary drivers were not that different in size. When you say "underfeatured" can you be more specific ? In terms of support, I believe both drivers support roughly the same number of major hardware generations before going to a legacy model, so the differences are driven more by hardware architecture breaks than by fundamental differences in the driver. We are using open source drivers to provide legacy support rather than updating OS version compatibility with a stable version of the proprietary driver - is that what you are talking about ?

[bridgman]

Yes, John, and this is what I respond in all my posts(Im not posting for fun, nor I work for *any* gpu company) you provide 3 developers and support Opengl patent clean-up.

Actually I'm fine with the first part of that statement (although I'm not sure what the second part re: OpenGL patent cleanup means). It's actually less than 3 developers right now but we are working on that.

What I object to each time is the blanket statement you make first :

The real downside is that nvidia does not provide official opensource, but AMD does not do that either - only hardware documentation so that basic functionality works.

It's hard to misinterpret "only hardware documentation" -- that's the part I'm actively disagreeing with, and it sounds as if you disagree with it too

[Kano]

Older ati chips usually work, but when you find the absolutely latest chips in oem pcs you can get into trouble. Then something is always missing, sometimes only a firmware file, without you get nothing, not even a vesa/fb fallback. Happened 2 weeks ago with a hd 6670 card inside a new medion oem pc. No i added the firmware but can not test it anymore.

[evolution]

Well, if you're going to use EXCLUSIVELY Linux as your OS, I'd recommend you to buy a (argh!) nVidia card, because, ATM, their drivers and HTPC capabilities are (somewhat) more mature than Catalyst. But when Catalyst works (if you're lucky, like me), ATI cards work well on Linux, at most cases (ignore some nVidia fanbois there ).

If you're using a dual-boot Windows/Linux solution, stick with ATI (I'd recommend you a HD5770, at least, for better UVD video / 'minimal' gaming performance). ATI has much better video capabilities than nVidia on Windows, and its video quality is significantly better (HQV2 benchmarks prove that).
Also, I personally think ATI doesn't cheat as much as nVidia with their drivers (on Windows)

Those were my 2c.

Cheers

[crazycheese]

It's hard to misinterpret "only hardware documentation" -- that's the part I'm actively disagreeing with, and it sounds as if you disagree with it too

My disagreement with my statement is only 3 people "long".
To develop hardware and a driver and get support, people are paying money.
What they get instead is card that is unusable without the driver, and driver that you both (amd and nvidia) claim as your own and choose yourself which OS gets better support, effectively controlling the market. Is this the reason you disagree to follow the way of real work for money, instead of lying on the haystack?

As someone said, it is not voters that have power, it is those who make the vote counting machines(with closed source guts).

OpenGL has lasted open exactly till 1.3, till garbage came-in and it has not reduced since then. Khronos doesn't give a damn at the situation and Driect X efficiently makes gaming windows-only. Only nvidia and wine sightly compensate that. It is either proprietary and working or opensource and unusable - I already got the message. The difference though is that nvidia proprietary is still a bit more usable.

Guess when you gain feature parity, open sauce will be throttled behind and people will just pay money supporting the whole mess. AMD is just as proprietary as Nvidia, yet a little bit more educational (see Microsoft/Apple love to xBSD).

I wonder how long OpenCL will have "Open" in its name, or will it have same destiny as "Open"GL? (Hello, Q and 64 core quake3 ray-tracing) I feel, like I live in modernized 15 century - castles, secrets, zero choice and unserious stuff.

[s0rce]

There is also a gtx 550 now, a tiny bit slower than a gtx 460 (when you get it cheap now maybe a good deal). Amd cards with similar (Win) speed are 5770/6770. I have not seen any Linux benchmarks yet. But i usually would prefer Nvidia - especially for gaming or htpc.

This is double what I want to spend. I'll probably go with something more along the lines of a GT 440.

[skeetre]

I was going to recommend a 440 until I started reading reviews and benchmarks of it. You get a mixed bag... better drivers and support, but that radon HD 5760 is cheaper and seemed to perform better, as long as the drivers work well under linux. I haven't had an ati card since the days of the 97/9800s.