People incorrectly assume that AMD drivers suck. They don't.

[ChrisXY]

I have a HD 6550M and it wouldn't wake up correctly with fglrx for several months.

There were different results when waking up:
1. nothing worked. Even the hard disk wouldn't spin up. And yes, it was fglrx because when booting with "nopat" fglrx used some own pat implementation and 1. didn't ever happen with nopat.
2. Just the graphical output being completely frozen and fglrx would write "ASIC hang happened" to the log.
3. X hanging with 100% CPU in R+ state with no error message.

Since I switched to the open source driver the notebook wakes up correctly about every time.

The xrandr compatibility was also kind of broken back when I used it: You need to have a X config with a Virtual Screen size big enough if you want to attach a second screen in before, otherwise you need to restart X (!!!) in order to attach a screen with its native resolution.
I also thought xrandr output like this was impossible until fglrx managed to report two preferred resolutions (even in wrong order):

CRT1 connected 1400x1050+1600+12 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 433mm x 271mm
   1400x1050      60.0*+
   1680x1050      60.0 +
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1440x900       60.0  
   1280x960       75.0     60.0  
   1280x800       75.0     60.0  
   1152x864       60.0     75.0  
   1280x768       75.0     60.0  
   1280x720       75.0     60.0  
   1024x768       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   1024x600       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3  
   800x480        72.2     75.0     60.3  
   640x480        75.0     72.8     67.0     59.9  
   640x350        60.0     70.1

That said the topic was more about OpenGL compliance/performance.

There are some more topics one could discuss when it comes to sucking drivers. I am going to buy a notebook with a HD 7970M with AMD's optimus-like "Enduro". I'm not sure if this is a good idea but with GPU offloading already working it at least has a pretty good chance working in the not so far future if the proprietary AMD drivers fail. It will also be very interesting to see if the windows driver in a windows vm succeeds in using the dedicated card with vt-d and pci passthrough.

[nej_simon]

"Doesn't work properly" is a pretty vague statement though, don't you think? Also that's partly what the quoted text in the first post refers to: that people get the impression the drivers don't work properly, although it's due to sloppy programming in the target application.

I don't think it's a vague statement. With "doesn't work" I mean that the driver causes crashes, graphic corruption or is really slow ie. things that make the computer unusable. I had two Intel-based laptops before the AMD-based one. Also sometimes I use another laptop with a geforce, and my desktop computer has one too. Neither of them have any issues like this. So yes, this does give me the impression that the fglrx driver is faulty. At this point I don't care if fglrx follows specifications better than Intel's or Nvidia's drivers, I just want my computer to not crash. Perhaps the kernel, compiz or Unity is buggy and fglrx is actually a great driver but since Intel and Nvidia is able to handle this then so should fglrx.

[the-me]

@Dandel

It is impossible that fglrx 12-6 runs with debian wheezy without libpciaccess hack.

Wrong, see: http://www.linux-dev.org/2012/08/deb...-fglrx-driver/

[Panix]

I am tired of listening to all this suspend-doesnt-work-so-amd-sucks! remarks. Could you please elaborate ?

Doesnt work in what sense? Machine does not resume at all? Or just the screen is blank on resume? In the latter case you just needed to increase the brightness a bit to get it working. Annoying workaround : YES. But a bug report with proper description would help more dont you feel?

You have to ask? I had the impression it's a very common problem. Yes, one is out of luck. The screen is blank and there are some LEDs flashing. I forget which ones. It's not my machine. AFAIK, one has to reboot the machine when you get that state.

[Panix]

I have a HD 6550M and it wouldn't wake up correctly with fglrx for several months.

Since I switched to the open source driver the notebook wakes up correctly about every time.
.

Come to think of it, I think with the ATI hardware of the T500 being HD 3650, that it is the radeon driver that is involved. It's either not being used and it's using VESA which I doubt or the radeon driver is not benefiting or doing any kind of 'good' job since the laptop functions are not working properly. I am sure that the fglrx driver wasn't installed on the laptop. It's a brand new Debian Wheezy install.

[nightmarex]

perhaps phoronix should publish piglit comparisons instead of/as well as performance benchmarks......

EDIT
aside from hw video decoding the radeon driver is perfectly adequate for my needs

I would like to see piglet Linux drivers (Intel,Nvidia,AMD,xf86) vs Windows (Nvidia,AMD) to see the contrast as well. +1


I use the closed source AMD driver as well as the NVIDIA closed source. NVIDIA has always been more stable even on Windows trust me. everyone was knocking ATI drivers back in the day. I also use laptops with <r300 cards that use the opensource xf86 drivers and they are more stable, although they run hot and performance isn't amazing (seriously unimpressive) . My main rig uses AMD proper and so far the only video crash (limited) was playing skyrim in Wine when switching between the loading screen and the main game display.

To those with tearing issues, you know you can force vsync right? Personally I limit my FPS in gaming and sync to avoid that issue. You would be amazed at how well ~30 FPS play when you have headroom up the wazoo as to avoid chokes.

I haven't read a single post in this thread so far, but...



Why in the name of Popeye should anyone have to "setup their rig" to get _anything_ working properly anymore, much less basic media functionality?

Well not all of us use things like Ubuntu or Mint. Gentoo,Arch distros in their vien, yeah you pretty much are setting up everything anyway whats the difference?
Don't you need to setup things in Windows as well or am I missing your point? Why are there things like CCC if you're not meant to tweak things?

[PsynoKhi0]

I don't think it's a vague statement. With "doesn't work" I mean that the driver causes crashes, graphic corruption or is really slow ie. things that make the computer unusable. I had two Intel-based laptops before the AMD-based one. Also sometimes I use another laptop with a geforce, and my desktop computer has one too. Neither of them have any issues like this. So yes, this does give me the impression that the fglrx driver is faulty. At this point I don't care if fglrx follows specifications better than Intel's or Nvidia's drivers, I just want my computer to not crash. Perhaps the kernel, compiz or Unity is buggy and fglrx is actually a great driver but since Intel and Nvidia is able to handle this then so should fglrx.

"Crashes, graphic corruption and really slow" is *slightly* more specific. Would be better with a list including affected program, distro, graphics card, fglrx version etc.
As for the blame-game, I actually am of a different opinion: I see no reason why AMD should pour man-hours into their drivers to fix someone else's mess. They already have their hands full. And if anyone has issues with the OpenGL specs (too complex, obscure and what not), they should take them to the Khronos group, not AMD.
Now before I get jumped: there are most probably bugs in fglrx, like in any piece of software, especially of that complexity. BUT I really find people's habit of jumping to conclusions on how every problem has to be caused by fglrx "because it works with XYZ" totally disingenuous. Which is what that Slashdot entry is about.

[drag]

I solved issues with proprietary drivers long long ago by simply not using them.

The only proprietary driver worth a damn in Linux any more is Nvidia's proprietary driver. If you don't mind running proprietary video drivers for performance and you are running anything but Nvidia you are doing it wrong. With ATI proprietary you are going to end up spending a lot more time and money to get the same performance and you still will have to deal with their shitastic drivers.

I don't understand why anybody bothers to punish themselves like this.

When everything works perfectly well on OSS Intel, OSS AMD, and proprietary Nvidia while proprietary ATI drivers are a pain to install and have application compatibility issues up the wazoo... then why assume that it's everybody else's problem except for proprietary AMD?

It's just silly.

[PsynoKhi0]

I am tired of listening to all this suspend-doesnt-work-so-amd-sucks! remarks. Could you please elaborate ?

Doesnt work in what sense? Machine does not resume at all? Or just the screen is blank on resume? In the latter case you just needed to increase the brightness a bit to get it working. Annoying workaround : YES. But a bug report with proper description would help more dont you feel?

Erm dude... Just check his post history... SPOILER ALERT: don't get your expectations too high.

[PsynoKhi0]

When everything works perfectly well on OSS Intel, OSS AMD, and proprietary Nvidia while proprietary ATI drivers are a pain to install and have application compatibility issues up the wazoo... then why assume that it's everybody else's problem except for proprietary AMD?

It's just silly.

Because it has never happened that things appeared to work fine, only to realize it was actually due to a bug in the drivers, right? And it's really far fetched drivers uncover bugs in other software, right?
There is absolutely no analytic value in the "It's fglrx' fault" mindset. None. It's merely comfy sheep behavior.