Stop Microsoft
Operating Systems => Linux and UNIX => Topic started by: RaZoR1394 on 25 August 2006, 18:07
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Please don't do the same mistake as I did (I bought a high end ATI card) a year ago. The problems are huge for people with all kinds of Radeon cards ranging from 9200 to x1900. My 9800pro has worked fine in my htpc but my x850xt has mostly been problems (lockups, lagg, bad performance, low on features, etc). Now I'm struggling with a very annoying bug that keeps me from logging out (it hardlocks the computer and the workarounds don't work). The bug is confirmed and has been for over a half year. Now I'm studying at the university and I simply don't have time for this crap. I made a big thread at another forum (swedish) where most ATI users reported problems with fglrx. Drivers have gotten better but they're still crap. One release breaks r200 support, other one introduces lockups. If you look at the development they keep introducing new features while not fixing most of the current bugs. If you contact ATI support you get the classical "Fuck of, support for GNU/Linux is provided as is.". There is a guy aiding over at Rage3d but often he doesn't give a rats ass specially when you start criticising ATI. Nvidia have several peeps over at nVNews and I also believe that they offer GNU/Linux support via their support center. Performance with nVidia Forceware is also similar to Windows if not better, Cedega features works fully and there ain't many problems with native games.
So please buy an nVidia card if you wan't to use GNU/Linux and play games or Intel GMA if you just want eye candy like AIGLX. I will probably insert a nVidia
7900gtx this evening into my gaming rig. Sorry for the rant. I'm just so sick of this shit and I hope you stay away from ATI. If I have the time I'll remove my 9800pro and insert a 7800gs for the sake of nVidia's good drivers. Don't forget that ATI is sleeping with Microsoft.
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The free (as in freedom) ati driver isn't that bad, especially if you have a radeon <= 9600. There is no free driver for nvidia cards. Intel release their drivers under a free license, for some of the cards.
So if you wanna have decent free drivers available, ati isn't so bad. Plus fglrx and the nvidia driver are of questionable legality too ;)
Plus, a lot of people reckon AMD will release the code of the ATi drivers, if they do we'll have a kick ass free DRI driver, stable with all ATi/AMD cards, after a few months.
my radeon 9600 is running well, with the free driver. I've never setup fglrx :)
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The free (as in freedom) ati driver isn't that bad, especially if you have a radeon <= 9600. There is no free driver for nvidia cards. Intel release their drivers under a free license, for some of the cards.
So if you wanna have decent free drivers available, ati isn't so bad. Plus fglrx and the nvidia driver are of questionable legality too ;)
Plus, a lot of people reckon AMD will release the code of the ATi drivers, if they do we'll have a kick ass free DRI driver, stable with all ATi/AMD cards, after a few months.
my radeon 9600 is running well, with the free driver. I've never setup fglrx :)
Yes if you're stuck in the stoneage with old cards but good luck getting a x1900xtx or a x1950xt running with the free radeon drivers. Pre x1800xt cards ain't worth shit for todays high end gaming and heavy 3d work. If you want to keep up with the game and 3d work development you have to upgrade frequently.
The rumour about ATI releasing free drivers is just BS. Either way it would just be a functional driver as they said; no 3d, xgl, aiglx, high performance etc. An ATI/AMD rep recently said openly that there are too many patented optimizations in the driver to make it open source. He also specifically said "It's never gonna happen".
And yes there is a free driver for nVidia (nv) however I don't think it provides accelerated 3d but who gives a rats ass when "nvidia" works perfectly. I got two computers with nVidia who never have problems except one crash because of high Xorg cpu usage.
And did I forget to say that my computer frequently randomly locks up when I'm GNU/Linux even with the "radeon" driver while Windows XP is rock stable.
ATI makes very good hardware (except the high power usage) but the software blows just like in Windows.
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Oops.. When I said "driver" I meant "3d driver"..
Yes for old cards but good luck getting a x1900xtx or a x1950xt running with the free radeon drivers. Pre x1800xt cards ain't worth shit for high end gaming.
The cheapest card in the results of a search for 'x1800xt' on newegg is nearly $190, by "high end gaming" maybe you mean "funding AMD".
The rumour about ATI releasing free drivers is just BS. Either way it would just be a functional driver as they said, no 3d, xgl, aiglx, high performance etc.
As I understand, it would be fglrx. We already have free 2d drivers for ATi cards.An ATI/AMD rep recently said openly that there are too many patented optimizations in the driver to make it open source.
Licensed patented optimizations? I can see how that would fck things up..
Anyhow. Even if they just release decent specs it'd be fine (better, even).
And yes there is a free driver for nVidia (nv) however I don't think it provides accelerated 3d.
It doesn't.
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LOL. $190 for an x1800xt is dirt cheap! they originially retailed at about $500 wich was considered good at the time! but x1800s have ceased production a while ago, the x1900s have replaced it
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Don't forget that ATI doesn't even have drivers for FreeBSD.
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Oops.. When I said "driver" I meant "3d driver"..The cheapest card in the results of a search for 'x1800xt' on newegg is nearly $190, by "high end gaming" maybe you mean "funding AMD".
As I understand, it would be fglrx. We already have free 2d drivers for ATi cards.Licensed patented optimizations? I can see how that would fck things up..
Anyhow. Even if they just release decent specs it'd be fine (better, even).
It doesn't.
The current free 2d driver can't even bring up X with the latest ATI cards.
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So if you wanna have decent free drivers available, ati isn't so bad. Plus fglrx and the nvidia driver are of questionable legality too ;)
How exactly?
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Why doesn't somebody make a $200 computer out of the circuitry on a video board? Seriously, the things are SO DAMN RIDICULOUS that often times, a card is better than the computer it goes into.
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No offense but legality and rumors into the future can go screw themselves. In the now, nvidia runs with less problems. I already knew all that about ATI. Seriously, even on winblows ATI drivers suck by comparison - in my experience. No doubt, I have to go with nvidia. Well if I ever dork out and spend money on a fancy 3d card that is, it will be nvidia. After I confirm that the linux driver supports it that is.
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How exactly?
I think the argument is this:
The kernel is GPL. You cannot distribute binaries linked to it that are non GPL. You get in _lots_ of trouble if you distribute NVIDIA binary drivers with your distro that are precompiled for the kernel.
However, there's a loophole, because nvidia actually distributes non binary stuff, source code that by licence you are not allowed to see or modify. It gets compiled into a new kernel module on the fly. As an end user, the GPL doesn't prevent you from tainting the kernel. It does keep you from distributing a tainted kernel.
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/me looks down adoringly at my 6600GT ....
I upgraded my card because it was a very bad bottleneck and I wanted a dual monitor system with a single card. probably should have saved money and gone with just a 6600. I'm never going to buy a gaming computer again unless I'm rich now consoles have HD. Probably get a huge LCD monitor for my pc and a tv card and run the console through that...
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Why doesn't somebody make a $200 computer out of the circuitry on a video board? Seriously, the things are SO DAMN RIDICULOUS that often times, a card is better than the computer it goes into.
Come on, man. You know better. The GPU is really powerful because it's specialized. It does one thing and one thing well. It cannot do everything.
That kind of statement is like saying "wow, my 18 inch crescent wrench is so much awesome at turning lug nuts, why doesn't someone throw away that $400 box of tools that it sits in and just use the crescent wrench to turn screws, hammer nails, apply heatsink grease to CPU's .... "
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Ten points for missing the point. Additional 3 for lack of sense of humor.
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The current free 2d driver can't even bring up X with the latest ATI cards.
Blame ATi.
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The free (as in freedom) ati driver isn't that bad, especially if you have a radeon <= 9600. There is no free driver for nvidia cards. Intel release their drivers under a free license, for some of the cards.
So if you wanna have decent free drivers available, ati isn't so bad. Plus fglrx and the nvidia driver are of questionable legality too ;)
Plus, a lot of people reckon AMD will release the code of the ATi drivers, if they do we'll have a kick ass free DRI driver, stable with all ATi/AMD cards, after a few months.
my radeon 9600 is running well, with the free driver. I've never setup fglrx :)
I'd have to disagree with this. The ATI drivers for Linux are a real pile of bullshit (as they are for Window$ as well). True, I'd really like to see the nVidia drivers be released under GPL, but who knows if that will ever happen. I don't see what you would do with the source either. You can actually access the source code for the proprietary nVidia drivers if you know how, you just can't use it or distribute it or they may sue you. If you want to run games on Linux you have no business buying an ATI card. (Also, if you want a reliable card that won't give trouble, you don't want ATI). Furthermore ATI's support for their drivers is absolutely horrible.
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Am I the only person who's properly tried the free DRI driver for ATi cards?
I've had no problems playing bzflag or Enemy Territory (which runs unbelievably fast, I can't believe the card can handle it!). In some benchmarks posted to one of the mailing lists (dri-users probably) the free drivers beat fglrx (and (more often, especially on later cards) vica versa).
compiz also runs without a hitch. In fact, I can't remember the last time I found a shortcoming using the free driver.
Then again, all I have is a shitty out-dated radeon 9600 that's good for nothing except playing games that don't have the shitty effects and detail that adds so much to gameplay (but at least it, as well as the bloated software, keeps the US in business, so they can take good care of the rest of the world (and the solar system too)).
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I thought you need to run a 2.4.x kernel for DRI ... I don't like doing that.
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I thought you need to run a 2.4.x kernel for DRI ...
Um, you don't.
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Well, I've never actually gotten the DRI drivers to work, so I wouldn't know how good they are. Do they come standard in most distros ... or do you have to install them yourself ? If so, is there an easy way to install them ?
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Well, I've never actually gotten the DRI drivers to work, so I wouldn't know how good they are. Do they come standard in most distros ... or do you have to install them yourself ? If so, is there an easy way to install them ?
Since the ATi driver is only coming along, it hasn't been enabled in many not-new distros. Ubuntu 6.06 had it setup by default, which was nice. I could just install bzflag and play! I was amazed. No going to ati.com or nvidia.com to download what Ubuntu can't distribute of theirs.
The drivers would still have come along since then (June 1st), I added these two lines to my sources.list so I get pretty-new ones:deb http://xgl.compiz.info/ dapper aiglx
deb http://xgl.compiz.info/ dapper main(I would've followed the compiz on AIGLX tutorial on the ubuntuforums to add them lines)
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The free DRI driver for ATI cards only works with older cards.
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The current free 2d driver can't even bring up X with the latest ATI cards.
Looking at http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon :R500 series chips (X1300, X1800 etc) do not have a Radeon 2D core, so are only supported by the vesa driver (no acceleration).
Looking at http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/R300_20Benchmark things must be going pretty alright in the X700LE direction too.
The free DRI driver for ATI cards only works with older cards.
I see that now.. Well I know I'll hopefully never buy another card without workable free drivers, that rules out NVIDIA completely and only the ATi cards in the higher-end which I shouldn't feel much need to touch anyhow. Eventually, it'll be my turn to laugh anyhow, when I get 3d acceleration outta the box on every half-decent OS (something people with Intel graphics cards already enjoy). You'll never get it with the non-redistributable drivers (and not on my OS for sure ;)).
On the legal thing, see http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2006/08/why_binaryonly_linux_kernel_mo.html
There's nothing illegal about what NVIDIA's doing (I've no idea what way fglrx is distributed - never installed it in my life thankfully), but people packaging drivers linked to the kernel have to apply the GPL terms to the package. Recently, Novell stopped redistributing non-free modules:
http://news.com.com/Novell+bans+proprietary+Linux+modules/2100-7344_3-6100659.html
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My 7900gtx is a dream. Drivers work perfectly in both Windows and GNU/Linux. Temperature is much lower (30C on idle and 34C on load), more Cedega games and features work, It's much faster, doesn't lockup in GNU/Linux when logging out, control panel is very useful etc, composite and XVMC works and it doesn't randomly lockup the comp like my ATI card did.
Sure if the free radeon drivers work ok then sure older cards may be fine. However last time I tried with my 9800xt the performance was awful. So if you want to game higher end in GNU/Linux then ATI is a no-go.
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I'll hopefully never buy another card without workable free drivers, that rules out NVIDIA completely
Well, I have a question (ok, many questions):
Why do you not want non-free drivers ? I mean say the nVidia drivers went open-source tomorrow ... would you instantly change your mind just cuz they're free ? What would you do if the nVidia drivers were free ? How would you take advantage of this ? I mean would you try to modify the driver code ? or something else. What benefits would open-source nVidia drivers offer to YOU over the current proprietary licencing ? As I said before you CAN access the source code for the nVidia drivers and even modify it yourself, you just can't redistribute it modified or not. I just don't see the benefits open-source nVidia drivers would offer you and how you could take advantage of them in a meaningful way, that you cannot do now.
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DRI, no comment... I think people are just afraid that nvidia will somehow taint the open source frame. The humongous Microsoft set out specifically to take down linux! A little driver will do it by trying to run well? I don't see it.
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Well, I have a question (ok, many questions):
Why do you not want non-free drivers ?
Because I don't need them.
I mean say the nVidia drivers went open-source tomorrow ... would you instantly change your mind just cuz they're free ?
That would mean my next graphics card would almost definitely be an Nvidia one (but still not my soundcard lol. Their sound drivers are shit-old). Not only because free drivers are available, but because Nvidia gave us free drivers. Noone would've needed to kill themselves reverse engineering the cards like they basically do with the ATi cards.
What would you do if the nVidia drivers were free ? How would you take advantage of this ? I mean would you try to modify the driver code ?
Not likely. I might peek at it, or try to fix simple bugs but still that's not likely.
My OS, whenever I ever make it, will be able to offer 3d acceleration for Nvidia cards outta the box. Same with Ubuntu, SUSE, etc. It would be the neatest thing in a long time. I'd be able to play whatever I want outta the box on any half-decent OS on all Nvidia cards, something I already kinda enjoy, but not-thanks to ATi.
As I said before you CAN access the source code for the nVidia drivers and even modify it yourself, you just can't redistribute it modified or not.
Isn't it just the smallest possible part of the source code that's distributed?
I just don't see the benefits open-source nVidia drivers would offer you and how you could take advantage of them in a meaningful way, that you cannot do now.
Other than what I've mentioned, there's a pretty big effort to get those free ATi drivers developed and working. I'd far rather use whatever they produce as long as I can, and report bugs when I can etc.
Even if Opera had Firefox's extension system, with the extensions I basically depend on for web-development (firebug, livehttpheaders, tamperdata, and the web-dev toolbar (which I know is available on Opera (and IE) in some shape or form)), and even if it did everything plain-better than Firefox (which it does not.. in particular Firefox 2 got session-restore right - much better than Opera), and had the auto-update feature too, I would still not use Opera (as my primary browser) as long as it remains non-free, until using i.e. supporting Firefox is a major inconvenience.
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Hmmm ... well I guess you're set on using only truly free software. Well, that's fine I guess. I don't quite see a reason not to use non-free drivers as long as they are available free of charge.
Do you use non-free codecs ? If you do ... how do you explain yourself ? How do you watch pr0n ? ... hehe ;)
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Hmmm ... well I guess you're set on using only truly free software. Well, that's fine I guess. I don't quite see a reason not to use non-free drivers as long as they are available free of charge.
Do you use non-free codecs ? If you do ... how do you explain yourself ? How do you watch pr0n ? ... hehe ;)
I dunno which codecs are free and which aren't.. Some packages won't be packed in distros like Ubuntu 'cause of software patents, which don't hold in the EU. So my OS will pack them (as long as they're free software), and my OS will proudly be illegal in the US :D
I know I have at least the w32codecs package installed here, as well as Opera (for testing web-pages) and Enemy Territory (won't be playing that anymore though) and Skype (I'll try and use OpenWengo (http://openwengo.org/) before sticking to Skype (which I've yet to use) though).
I'm gonna compile an LFS install someday soon to see what file formats are/aren't possible to be used on a completely free system, since I've no idea. Didn't Real say they're gonna provide an open-source way to decode WMV? That would be real cool of them, if other programs could use their free library.
If I knew of an effort to reverse engineer every audio/video format out there, and if the results of their efforts were pretty good for what I need, then it'd be a different story.
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The free (as in freedom) ati driver isn't that bad, especially if you have a radeon <= 9600. There is no free driver for nvidia cards. Intel release their drivers under a free license, for some of the cards.
So if you wanna have decent free drivers available, ati isn't so bad. Plus fglrx and the nvidia driver are of questionable legality too ;)
Plus, a lot of people reckon AMD will release the code of the ATi drivers, if they do we'll have a kick ass free DRI driver, stable with all ATi/AMD cards, after a few months.
my radeon 9600 is running well, with the free driver. I've never setup fglrx :)
That would be nice if they did, though that's not going to peel the 'Intel Inside' sticker off the front of my box. That would be great to see free ATi drivers, I'd take a shot at making them better. ATi has great hardware, it's a shame to see them with mediocre Unix support.