AMD Catalyst: Ubuntu 12.10 vs. Windows 7

[F i L]

Fil you are a big troll, http://people.freedesktop.org/~cbrill/libtxc_dxtn/, distros can't install it because legal patents restrictions.

You don't need to create your own driver, only use the brain , and search the .deb, rpm , tar.gz(aur), nothing more.

Thanks for the information, I didn't know it was that easy. Still, I need the performance of the blobs, even with texture compression enabled on the open drivers. However, this may mean we'll start adding open-driver support in our software in the future, if it really is only a install a lib from the AUR (in my case).

That being said, it's still ultimately more complicated than a complete Linux noob would be capable of doing. You can't expect laymen to even know what texture compression is, let alone hunt down an external library. That could change if "Official S3TC lib PPA" was advertise on some core site somewhere, but that's probably restricted by the patent as well. As I've stated before, I'm all for the open-drivers, and I do hope they get faster and more supported in the future.


ps. You're using the term "troll" wrong, I'm wasn't intentionally being misleading; just uninformed.

[juxtatux]

you make absolutely no sense what so ever

shame lol

~/Jux

[D0pamine]

Your point? I know this, I run Blender on Linux, Windows, & Mac. I just prefer to use Linux as my default desktop environment because there are other things I do as well (such as, but not limited to, D programming) which are easier to do on Linux. Plus, I just like supporting Linux by using it and reporting bugs when I find them.


You expect me to compile my own drivers? No thanks, I don't have the time. This is a completely unrealistic options for me or any causal user. However, the fact that Intel's latest drivers allow these features to be easily enabled (so I hear), is most likely do to pressures from Valve and Unity Game Engine. This is, and has been, my point this entire time. We need things to "just work" on Linux so the things that are morally superior (like the OSS drivers) can receive more attention due to increased consumer activity.


I said it makes them possible, please read my post more carefully.


Do you have any idea how many commercial games require texture compression, or how much work it would require just to make them work without that? Do you honestly believe these developers are just going to spend all that time on for a system which is the smallest sliver of their revenue pie? Even if they want to, it's simple unrealistic to expect them to make the effort. Plus, maximizing the frame rate of games is one of the biggest concerns of developers, because it's, in-turn, one of the biggest concerns of consumers.

I highly doubt games run on the OSS drivers would run at speeds anything a Windows consumer would consider acceptable frame-rates. Why run them slower anyways, when your only a simple download away from much better frame-rates?


I don't know enough about Mesa to properly comment on this, but I doubt it. The pro's don't outweigh the cons, and that's exactly why Valve and Unity3D are targeting the blobs only.


Never said it did. I said I need GL3.3+ for development.


This is completely different that using Linux/X11 as a desktop PC. Though I do agree that OSS is ultimately superior. I've stated that numerous times. My only point this entire time is that it's not realistic for the open-source drivers to be a requirement (or blobs-killer) today. Hopefully tomorrow isn't far away.


I used to run the OSS drivers, dude, and they glitch out my system (the whole screen lags for ~quarter second around every 15-30 seconds). And that happened on every distro I installed: Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Suse, & Arch. So I don't trust you on this. But even if they where most stable (and I'm sure they are on a lot of hardware), I would still need the performance and OpenGL feature versions of the blobs.


Baseless assertions aren't convincing. I noticed you didn't address the contradiction I pointed out in your statements, BTW (advocating pure-OSS then OSS-on-Windows).

you are a casual user who is a game developer who doesn't know how to install a s3tc lib and cannot compile mesa

you want to support free software by using a closed driver

yes you do contradict yourself alot and if you as a game developer use the free driver(s) rather than the blob(s) you can report bugs and suggest improvements - if you do not you cannot

[F i L]

you are a casual user who is a game developer who doesn't know how to install a s3tc lib and cannot compile mesa

I never said I was a "casual user", I said we share a common problem of practicality. If you where actually trying to have a constructive back-n-fourth with me rather than desperately looking for flaws in my statements, then you would be questioning my specific statements instead of constructing straw-man arguments.

you want to support free software by using a closed driver

Only because it's impractical to do otherwise for both me, and my target audience.

yes you do contradict yourself alot and if you as a game developer use the free driver(s) rather than the blob(s) you can report bugs and suggest improvements - if you do not you cannot

I will try and test on the open-drivers more in the future, but I only have so much time. Beyond that, I'm rather bored of this conversation and I probably won't be responding again. Good bye.

[D0pamine]

I never said I was a "casual user", I said we share a common problem of practicality. If you where actually trying to have a constructive back-n-fourth with me rather than desperately looking for flaws in my statements, then you would be questioning my specific statements instead of constructing straw-man arguments.


Only because it's impractical to do otherwise for both me, and my target audience.


I will try and test on the open-drivers more in the future, but I only have so much time. Beyond that, I'm rather bored of this conversation and I probably won't be responding again. Good bye.

Alright - what sort of game developer doesn't know about basic things such as how to enable s3tc and how to compile mesa as your 'I don't have the time' statement makes me wonder if you would even know how to. Even on a modest system it cant take more than 5 commands and a few questions in the terminal to create a deb/rpm/tgz for mesa and around 5 minutes of compile time. Not that you have to recompile mesa to use s3tc but using the latest and greatest mesa will give better performance.
Let me give you a real life scenario that one of my 'thick as shit' friends went through the other day - he tried to install ubuntu on a machine with a super new nvidia card in ( a gtx280 or something ) and the installer failed due to the graphics card not functioning properly so I suggested he use the text installer which he did and everything installed fine. When he came to boot his shiny new stock ubuntu the desktop wouldn't load again because of the graphics card not functioning. I explained that he should - ctl+alt+f1, login, and sudo apt-get install nvidia-drivers - However he could not because nm-applet had not connected to the network. At that point he gave up and installed windows 8 beta or something

and the moral of this tale is? blobs are a pain in the arse for the 'average user' and not wanted by the 'advanced user'. If the nouveau driver had worked out of the box which it should have done ( thanks again nvidia for helping with framebuffers ) then this would have been a breeze.

You sir are a bullshitter who has the time to defend a closed binary driver on a forum and yet does not have the run a few simple commands to even try the latest efforts from the people at mesa and I cant wait for your game to hit the shelves

[ChrisXY]

and the moral of this tale is? blobs are a pain in the arse for the 'average user' and not wanted by the 'advanced user'. If the nouveau driver had worked out of the box which it should have done ( thanks again nvidia for helping with framebuffers ) then this would have been a breeze.

No. When you are a distribution maintainer, don't enable drivers that are not stable for most hardware. Simply don't. Vesa + llvmpipe would have worked fine. Slow, but fine.

You sir are a bullshitter who has the time to defend a closed binary driver on a forum and yet does not have the run a few simple commands to even try the latest efforts from the people at mesa and I cant wait for your game to hit the shelves

Why didn't your friend just compile a new kernel + mesa? Oh wait, not everybody is an expert on linux.

[D0pamine]

No. When you are a distribution maintainer, don't enable drivers that are not stable for most hardware. Simply don't. Vesa + llvmpipe would have worked fine. Slow, but fine.


Why didn't your friend just compile a new kernel + mesa? Oh wait, not everybody is an expert on linux.

does vesa allow for a compositing desktop?

the nouveau driver would likely not work on a card so new thanks to nvidias helpful nature so compiling a kernel and mesa although educational would not be helpful

[gamerk2]

Alright - what sort of game developer doesn't know about basic things such as how to enable s3tc and how to compile mesa as your 'I don't have the time' statement makes me wonder if you would even know how to. Even on a modest system it cant take more than 5 commands and a few questions in the terminal to create a deb/rpm/tgz for mesa and around 5 minutes of compile time. Not that you have to recompile mesa to use s3tc but using the latest and greatest mesa will give better performance.

Because the majority of us don't bother with your kernel?

Just saying, developers like him and me are the people you need to convince to code for Linux if you ever want it to gain market acceptance. You're not doing a very good job at it though...

Let me give you a real life scenario that one of my 'thick as shit' friends went through the other day - he tried to install ubuntu on a machine with a super new nvidia card in ( a gtx280 or something ) and the installer failed due to the graphics card not functioning properly so I suggested he use the text installer which he did and everything installed fine. When he came to boot his shiny new stock ubuntu the desktop wouldn't load again because of the graphics card not functioning. I explained that he should - ctl+alt+f1, login, and sudo apt-get install nvidia-drivers - However he could not because nm-applet had not connected to the network. At that point he gave up and installed windows 8 beta or something

Question: Why was the GPU working during the Win8 install (as I'm inferring that Win8 works fine based on how you wrote your comment), but not on Linux, out of the box? I'm assuming a driver issue?

I mean, sheesh, MSFT made ATI/NVIDIA support 640x480 32-bit color out of the box, with no driver support required, as of Vista (2006). No idea why Linux can't fall back into this mode for DX10+/OGL3.0 capable cards if theres a missing driver...

[Marc Driftmeyer]

You guys disappoint me, why do you say you love open source but then you choose binary blobs when they clearly hinder development?

Why not help the open source drivers instead. *Sigh*

We'll never get improved open source drivers if we always go with the blob.

News Flash: Open Source is DOA without tens of billions of corporate dollars to make it exist. GNU doesn't exist without the cash and it don't come from joey in his basement or your enthusiasm.

Talk is cheap.

Money talks, bs walks.

The Radeon Open Source driver doesn't exist without AMD's cooperation in documentation.

You sit around for the next 6 years to get today's blob parity. The rest of the globe will be using those blobs 6 years down the road.

[D0pamine]

Because the majority of us don't bother with your kernel?

Just saying, developers like him and me are the people you need to convince to code for Linux if you ever want it to gain market acceptance. You're not doing a very good job at it though...



Question: Why was the GPU working during the Win8 install (as I'm inferring that Win8 works fine based on how you wrote your comment), but not on Linux, out of the box? I'm assuming a driver issue?

I mean, sheesh, MSFT made ATI/NVIDIA support 640x480 32-bit color out of the box, with no driver support required, as of Vista (2006). No idea why Linux can't fall back into this mode for DX10+/OGL3.0 capable cards if theres a missing driver...

woah woah woah! i'm not trying to convince you to do anything and 'linux' doesn't need you - if you agree to the terms of the GPL then you should want to contribute what you can whenever you can - thats how it works! As i've stated already GNU/Linux has market share already although not on desktop PCs and laptops... or toasters for that matter

All I am saying is that using non-free binary blob drivers hurts development of the free drivers as there are fewer end users giving feedback