Goodbye ATI

[BlackStar]

@BlackStar

In my own tests: flash 11.2 (beta) has got acc rendering and decode, but 11.1 does only use acc decode. Are you really sure you talk about 11.2? But i do not really like acc rendering as this results in some "bad" lines at the button of a video, i prefer usually 11.1. On win you have got always acc rendering+decode (you can disable both but not one of it) and the same rendering problems - using dxva2 on ati as well i think. Best is to watch some of the 1080p movies like elephants dream or sintel and look at the lowest 16 lines or so.

Ah, right, I was talking about 11.1, not 11.2. (I no longer use flash, so excuse me for not following it's versions closely :-) )

[ack006]

this is one of the biggest problem with the catalyst: no user side regression testing with GIT-Bisect.

How so?

$ cd /
$ sudo git init
$ sudo <install driver>
$ sudo git add <...>
$ sudo git commit
...
$ sudo <update driver>
$ sudo git commit -a
...
$ sudo git bisect <whatever>

E-zy.

Git doesn't care what files are in your repository, whether they are satellite images of a secret military base (you would be surprised at how easy and fast it is to use git-bisect to find out when exactly that mysterious spy plane first appeared on the base), your Master's thesis or your personal copy of Wikipedia. It just keeps track of the state of your repository over time.
Now, if you are looking for an actual source code repository (which you're not supposed to have unless you signed an NDA) with meaningful commit history (keep on dreaming...), that's an entirely different matter.

Note:

[hal2k1]

this is one of the biggest problem with the catalyst: no user side regression testing with GIT-Bisect.

because of this its hopeless to hope for an stable catalyst driver.

if the radeon driver starts to run openCL +openGL3.3 then the catalyst is obsolete for all users who wants a "stable" not "fast" driver.

By the time openCL +openGL3.3 lands in the radeon open source driver, performance improvements such as 2D colour tiling, HiZ and others will also have landed. Given this, then the catalyst wiil become obsolete for all users who want a "stable" driver, or a "fast" driver, or both stable and fast. i.e. everybody.

[Qaridarium]

By the time openCL +openGL3.3 lands in the radeon open source driver, performance improvements such as 2D colour tiling, HiZ and others will also have landed. Given this, then the catalyst wiil become obsolete for all users who want a "stable" driver, or a "fast" driver, or both stable and fast. i.e. everybody.

yes! you are right! catalyst is just a useless crap!

its magic back in time i use the catalyst my system was never stable and every catalyst update brings new problems.

right now i use unstable Git versions of the radeon driver and all is "stable"

if AMD was my company i would cut all money from the catalyst and i would turned the catalyst into a DRM/Copyprotection module for the radeon driver and if this is not posible i would drop it completely.

[Qaridarium]

(which you're not supposed to have unless you signed an NDA) with meaningful commit history (keep on dreaming...), that's an entirely different matter.

Note:

LOL this means its hopeless to get a usefull catalyst.

catalyst is for dreamers with the need for an assfuck--->DRM/Copyprotection.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

The very annoying lag you get with Catalyst when you enable VSync is gone completely. It seems NVidia has an implementation of desktop VSync that is actually usable.

In my opinion it's unusable because it's doesn't give tear-free experience like Catalyst, R300g/R600g and Intel drivers (with some issues in Intel case).

The "radeon" open source driver also didn't suffer from this problem, but it had another one: it would drop a frame or two every second.

Is there bugreport for that?

Xv works perfectly, both in windowed as well in fullscreen mode. It is tear-free

In windowed mode with enabled compositing too?

PhysX yey!!

Why you so happy about PhysX? There is just few games that really benefit from PhysX but all this games is single-player.

[RealNC]

In my opinion it's unusable because it's doesn't give tear-free experience like Catalyst, R300g/R600g and Intel drivers

It's usable here and works perfectly. Catalyst didn't have proper VSync; it caused annoying lag. VSync with NVidia is smooth and lag-free.

The "radeon" open source driver also didn't suffer from this problem, but it had another one: it would drop a frame or two every second.

Is there bugreport for that?

Do I care if there is or isn't?

Xv works perfectly, both in windowed as well in fullscreen mode. It is tear-free

In windowed mode with enabled compositing too?

Yes.

Why you so happy about PhysX? There is just few games that really benefit from PhysX but all this games is single-player.

I don't play multiplayer games. Except chess.

I like my PC much better now with the NVidia card.

[karmakoma]

I've also switched to nvidia (GTX 560). Solved problems (using closed nvidia driver):

• games under wine work,
• accelerated video decoding without problems (more formats supported),
• hibernation/sleep problems solved (under flgrx it usually worked),
• vsync works,
• KDE works without screen problems (seems like uninitialized video memory)

Before I used HD4870, this card is great but only under Windows (it is almost as powerful as my current nvidia card). Using fglrx wasn't so bad, problem was that there were many many small issues that made the overall experience quite hard.

[crazycheese]

I've also switched to nvidia (GTX 560). Solved problems (using closed nvidia driver):
....
Before I used HD4870, this card is great but only under Windows (it is almost as powerful as my current nvidia card). Using fglrx wasn't so bad, problem was that there were many many small issues that made the overall experience quite hard.

HD4870 = GTX260

GTX560 = 2x4870 (at minimum)

[RealNC]

HD4870 = GTX260

GTX560 = 2x4870 (at minimum)

No, not by that much. The 560 is usually about 60-70% faster than a 4870 and the 560 Ti is about 70-80% faster. It's very, very rare to see a 2x performance difference.

Here are benches of the 560 Ti vs the 4870. Note that they don't have benches of the plain 560 (non-Ti):

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/304?vs=330