ATI Linux Blogging
June 2nd, 2006 by CrusaderPhoronix sent in the following announcement regarding their new ATI driver blog:
In an effort to get a better understanding for the current state of ATI’s proprietary fglrx Linux display drivers, and to provide the alternative OS community with more facts as well as in-house comments, Phoronix has today announced the creation of redblog.phoronix.com. This blog will focus on the Phoronix Editor-In-Chief, Michael Larabel, personally evaluating ATI’s current Linux drivers for 50-days — simply think of it as an ATI Linux review for an extended amount of time.
While over a year ago the quality of the red’s Linux display drivers could be refuted, they certainly have improved by near light-years when it comes to their installation strategy, performance, bug issues, and variety of cards supported — among other areas. But how well does this ATI experience come first hand? Are gamers and computer enthusiasts alike now ready to accept ATI’s current Linux display drivers for prime-time action?
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:57 pm
I’ve got ATI cards for testing- they might be ready; the laptop support is lackluster at best right at the moment. Where I can play things like Postal 2 on the XP side of things with playable framerates, the same cannot be said of the Linux side. It’s not the game, it’s the drivers as best as I can tell- and they won’t work with the Sideport (on-board memory as opposed to UMA…) mode at all.
For desktop use, they might be closer to ready, but for mobile users, forget it.
June 3rd, 2006 at 4:40 am
just to add – i am mobile user, and i’ve got a small notebook with ati rage mobility (fujitsu lifebook 2110) and one with an ati radeon mobility 9600 pro (dell inspiron 8600)
the elder and smaller one uses the open source driver, which in this cards incarnation is much better than the windows one (a seldom thing)
on the other side the newer one with ati’s driver
despite the fact where you are right – 3d performance in linux for ati’s driver is far from the performance in windows – you are totally wrong with your other arguments
since 2 years i can switch consoles without crashes, i got randr mode selection, ddc for the display, 2d acceleration and 3d acceleration and video overlays without any hassles, tv-out and dual view are more flexible than with nvidia
the driver is definitely ready for everyday usages esp for elder chipsets on notebooks and desktops, but it lacks performance for things like decent 3d games – that’s all
June 6th, 2006 at 12:03 am
’nuff said