AMD Releases Catalyst 13.2 Beta 6 For Linux

[schmidtbag]

@vimuser
just curious but what distro do you use? and what does the latest kernel have that you so desperately need? I get your point about how AMD devs should be doing their job, I know you shouldn't be forced to use another distro, and I know it shouldn't be the package maintainers' responsibility to make drivers work. But considering how much AMD as a whole is crumbling, I think linux users unable to use the latest kernel and play SS3 is the least of their concerns. In their eyes, you're like someone at a restaraunt who is complaining that your coffee is too hot.

[mibo]

It's an AMD Radeon HD 7850M (ASRock VisionX).

I'm not aware of any flickering; what settings do you use, then I can try the same?

The Steam forums have many Catalyst + SS3 reports.
The problems I've seen so far:
1. SS3 autodetects GPU ultra settings but gives only playable fps at medium GPU settings

2. The intro screen shows garbage, as described here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410...9854179310029/

3. Shadow areas such as under palm trees, in grass or the bottom side of the space ship you have to fight with at the end of level "Under the Iron Cloud" do flicker. The texture seems to disappear there.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410...9854178994223/
(I just found this thread and maybe the "gfxRestart()" command helps - will try it tonight)

Point 3 made me stop playing - the flickering was too annoying. I will continue when the problem is fixed.

I use Suse 12.2 64bit, HD5850 Catalyst 13.1, 16GB ram, 3570K quad core cpu.

Edit: @schmidtbag: I hope AMD does not listen to you. IMHO they should care about their customers needs.
I did buy the graphics card to play games with it. If I can't play SS3 with it, why should I buy an AMD card next time?

[manmath]

I did buy the graphics card to play games with it. If I can't play SS3 with it, why should I buy an AMD card next time?

Bang on! But AMD is on down roads. Fuck on my over-enthusiasm I bought a notebook with e-350 apu and convinced 3 others about AMD's OSS efforts on Linux, and they bought 3 A-Series APU desktops. Opensource radeon plainly suck us all three on performance; catalyst is buggy as hell.
Dear AMD, we don't bother about your efforts. The fact is we're all Linux users and we also love games. We want a smoother performance on your graphics, we (especially I) don't care if it's OSS or catalyst. Whatsoever, it should work which it doesn't. Poor me!

[bridgman]

Bang on! But AMD is on down roads. Fuck on my over-enthusiasm I bought a notebook with e-350 apu and convinced 3 others about AMD's OSS efforts on Linux, and they bought 3 A-Series APU desktops. Opensource radeon plainly suck us all three on performance; catalyst is buggy as hell.
Dear AMD, we don't bother about your efforts. The fact is we're all Linux users and we also love games. We want a smoother performance on your graphics, we (especially I) don't care if it's OSS or catalyst. Whatsoever, it should work which it doesn't. Poor me!

APU performance is slow with the open source drivers because the default clocks are low and fancier power management is needed -- FWIW we are working on that. What gaming issues are you running into with Catalyst ?

[PsynoKhi0]

I hope AMD does not listen to you. IMHO they should care about their customers needs.

Yes, they should, HOWEVER there is a difference between caring about their customers' needs and bending over to accommodate every single nobody's whim.
That's called "trade-offs".
E.g. throwing in a random patch so basement dwellers can watch their favorite porn in full HD at the expense of workstation users who need stability to do their work on a GPU that cost them 10 grand a pop, is definitely not a way to conduct business.
Though obviously that part might be hard to grasp from a "me, myself and my own little life" point of view...

[mibo]

Yes, they should, HOWEVER there is a difference between caring about their customers' needs and bending over to accommodate every single nobody's whim.
That's called "trade-offs".
E.g. throwing in a random patch so basement dwellers can watch their favorite porn in full HD at the expense of workstation users who need stability to do their work on a GPU that cost them 10 grand a pop, is definitely not a way to conduct business.
Though obviously that part might be hard to grasp from a "me, myself and my own little life" point of view...

I'm not sure your point of view is valid.
Just look in the Valve Linux forum. When somebody asks for a graphics card recommendation or reports a problem with the Catalyst driver. There quickly will be people pointing out that AMDs drivers just suck and recommend Nvidia hardware.
So, I think fixing Catalyst bugs is good for AMDs business.

In addition I hope that Valves game box will base on a AMD GPU. Then it would be even more important for Valve and AMD to have good Catalyst drivers.

[Gps4l]

AMD has damaged itself big time.

I doubt that there are gamers, on linux native or through wine, that consider buying an amd vid card. (again)

When I look at my self. would I want to upgrade my 5750, what card can I buy?
HD 6XXX or HD 7XXX ? all I read is people having problems.
Maybe one in 10 is happy.

If people ask for advice about gaming on Linux, the answer is nvidia.

The only positive thing about this might be, that the number of linux gamers is small, so the damage might be relative small.

And about workstations, there is no excuse for selling a vid card, and not delivering working drivers.

When I first installed catalyst for openSUSE, which they claim to support, firefox was not even working right.
Scrolling a webpage had a terrible lag. I had to turn something off, which helped, but then the screen tearing got worse. ( which at the moment for my 5750 is almost gone )

Some of my opensource friends on this forum, don't seem to realize, that most users don't give a fuck about a driver being open or closed source. They simply want it to work.

Me personal is again happy with AMD.
But them helping to give us good opensource drivers, is irrelevant to most users.

[Darksurf]

AMD and ATI have been my match made in heaven for as long as I can remember (since before the all in wonder cards and my K7 thunderbird cpu!). Its all I buy. I have NEVER purchased an Intel or Nvidia system. AMD/ATI ONLY! Now they are one company and getting better all the time. I custom build and sell only AMD machines! I've built and sold over 200 AMD machines in my area alone! When AMD fails at something it also makes me look bad. I am a little dissapointed in the lack of upkeep on the legacy drivers. I still have a laptop with an HD4250 in it. I agree about working on the drivers and getting better linux support. I'm sick of always hearing nvidia fanboys brag about their crap when nvidia is also far from perfect. I'm still awaiting for AMD/ATI to take over the linux realm as best in CPU/GPU/APU support. I love my triple monitor Crossfire HD6870 setup. Although since adding my second card I've noticed Crossfire issues in linux . Havent even bothered testing drivers since before 13.1 catalyst drivers came out due to my fear of heartbreak that crossfire in linux will not be fixed .

Please AMD, don't let your avid fans down over and over again. Please show Linux some love.

Your biggest fanboy/reseller,
Darksurf

[Kano]

@bridgman

Don't you think that OpenGL should be better supported and game devs should get more help from AMD as well and not only from Nvidia (think about "The Way It's ment to be played" program). When you look at current state then AMD needs to profile more OpenGL engines (luckyly often several games use similar engines) and tell the devs what to change to get full speed. Maybe they did that for Source engine as well - Intel seems to be the first who helped Valve in that case. It is very bad when AMD mainly only optimizies for Win games. Many like Linux games but when they run like crap it is not good - and pretty bad for a possible Steambox.

[bridgman]

AFAIK that is all happening, although I think our dev rel program has a different name from NVidia's