The State of ATI Drivers on GNU/Linux 173
An anonymous reader writes "After 50 days of the Phoronix editor-in-chief exclusively using ATI Radeon hardware in his system, he has issued his final blog post dubbed The State of ATI Linux. Topics covered include the very low frame-rate performance, image quality, overclocking X.Org 7.1 support, Big Desktop/Dual Head, Linux CrossFire, and other relevant items to gamers and Linux enthusiasts. From the article 'While discussing this trial with a colleague that was not familiar with the quality of ATI's Linux drivers he immediately classified ATI Technologies as attempting to fine-tune a hull on a ship while there is a giant hole in the side. However, is this truly the case?'."
What was the question again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
The state of ATI drivers on Windows is pure crap. It's even worse on Linux.
Re:What was the question again? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I have tried with a hell of a lot different Linux/bsd distributions [freebsd, gentoo, fedora, Mandriva (full powerpack DD illegaly bittorrented version), Ubuntu 6.06, DSL are the ones I remember) and in none of them I have been able to install any half usable drivers.
Yeah, Ati graphic drivers for any Non Windows OS work, I blame Ati for that, they should make, release and mantain drivers for their hardware, without that I just have a nice plastic card accumulating dust in my computer. Now, I am not one of those stallmanists-zealots-advocatus that want to have the source code of the drivers, I am very happy to insert the graphics card companion driver CD and install it.
On a slightly different but related note, I can't remember of anything similar (on any Linux distro) to the steps available on windows that ask you where are your hardware drivers located. Does that exists? is there a way to install some kind of card (like for example if I want to install a specialized medical heart rate data input card) and then I have the Linux drivers in a CD, how the heck do I install it without needing to recompile the kernel or any other esotheric things? (yeah I did installed gentoo you nitpicking slashdotter
Which 3D graphics card would you recommend if I wanted to make a top noch "open" gaming machine?. I would like a card whose drivers could exploit all the hardware properties (I remember being unable to use the TV-OUT and TV-IN from an ATI all in wonder-ful-of-shit)
Forget this. We need an improved free driver. (Score:1, Insightful)
This free driver, however, needs improvement. This is where energy needs to be focused.
Other reason: I use OpenBSD. I can't use fglrx. Don't care about it. Won't do me any good. When people tell me about ATI drivers on Linux (read: fglrx nonsense), I tune them out. It is worthless information. It really is such a shame that Linux people are so willing to sell their soul to a proprietary driver.
A good driver (read: free) would mean freedom for all platforms. This would also give developers a chance to update the driver as things change, which would fix reliability problems.
Re:Not good (Score:5, Insightful)
It's amazing to me the author of the article can put out as much verbiage as he did about this issue without ever once mentioning the real problem here - ATIs refusal to document the card interface so that the hardware can be properly supported.
Until they do, their customers that use Linux, *BSD, etc. remain broadly unsupported. Only a small subset of free systems even have the option of using the mushware they want to substitute for documentation, and at a cost many will not pay. They're making themselves irrelevant in what is probably the fastest growing segment of the computer market. Why would a free software user shell out big bucks for the latest ATI *or* Nvidious card only to face the choice of running it without accelleration for the same performance as a much cheaper card, or with buggy opaque mushware that that doesn't perform that much better and taints your system, assuming it will even run on it, which it often won't?
Re:fglrx vs Xorg (Score:3, Insightful)
Having some experience with writing free software drivers for ATI cards I must (sadly) concur.
The problem is that it takes up to a year to make a half-way usable 3d driver - with the specs. Which means the developers should get specifications at least 6 months before the release of the new card for the drivers to be of relevance.
The reality is that we are lucky to get specifications 1 year after the release has happenned.
With regard to open hardware this is a great idea for many reasons beside the availability of specs.
For example, I would really, really, not mind paying extra $5 so that the graphics card does not lockup the moment it receives a slightly malformed command. Or so that it has a timeout and does not hang the PCI bus forever on a wrong address. The general-purpose CPUs have got this for ages - they just throw an interrupt and go on.
Re:OpenGL Lockups (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Spent more time to document the damn hardware
2. Opened the interface to the public.
The problem is the hardware is always in a state of flux and just incremental improvements. Your GeForce 7800 is probably based on the same HDL source as the 6600 with appropriate changes. This means that legacy symbol names from one project creep up into the new space. You get odd names, combined with lack of comments and documentation [compliance] leads to hardware with "oops" that the drivers have to work around.
Things could vastly improve for the customer if they stopped pretending that they know best. I know for a fact that companies like ATI and Nvidia spend a good deal of time [re: cost of the video card] in DRM technologies. Basically they don't give two shits about you as a customer so long as you
a) feel inadequate with your 75W GPU and buy the next best thing next quarter
b) fully comply with their "dominance" of your machine, force you to run windows, force you to use their bloaty drivers, use their drm, etc
I tolerate Nvidia solely because their kernel modules work decently [well not anymore as they're not keeping pace with xorg development]. Opening the 2D and 3D accelerators to the public can only serve to make the hardware more popular.
Their value is in the hardware and the ability to develiver it. Not the interface that puts a triangle on the screen.
Tom
Re:Useless bitching about no/bad open source drive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Useless bitching about no/bad open source drive (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, Intel has been providing specs and source code for their integrated graphics chipsets. This includes hardware accelerated 3D, though the chips aren't up to the nVidia and ATI top or upper-mid range. Hardware T&L is missing, for one thing. However, their next refresh of those chips should get much closer and should still have excellent OSS drivers.
Intel offers much more hope than OGP ever will, as noble as that effort is.
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man4/i810.4.html [die.net]
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164
-Charles
Re:Here is why they can't (Score:5, Insightful)
The hidden premise here is that somehow documenting the interface will make it easier for competitors to 'steal' some advantage. That's so obviously wrong in so many ways it's shocking someone would assert it in good faith.
What are they going to do? Copy the interface so their card will be compatible with the other cards drivers? Well, yes, I suppose someone could do that. Wouldn't necessarily even be a bad thing (standard interfaces are generally considered a good thing, even ad hoc standards.) But this is a far cry from somehow "stealing" the actual video card technology. That technology is, in many cases, patented, rather than protected as a trade secret, so the competition can (and you can bet, has) gone and read the patents right off anyway. They just can't legally imitate it too closely. And to the extent there are things in hardware that *are* trade-secrets, a disection of one of the cards would be a much better way to get at them. Looking at the external interface is the last method one would use to try to disect the inner workings of a device. Note that refusing to disclose the interface doesn't do jack to stop the competitors from disecting the hardware.
No, I'm sorry, that whole line of argument is utter nonsense.
Re:Here is why they can't (Score:3, Insightful)
How is not documenting the registers going to prevent NVidia from putting an ATI chip under an electron microscope to analyze their circuits?
Face it. If you're one chip fab competing against another one, documenting the externally-exposed registers for programmers is NOT going to deter your competitors in the slightest, nor is releasing binary-only drivers. Remember, decompiling code for reverse engineering IS legal (just don't copy & paste the code , recompile, and call it your own, that's copyright infringement) and decompilers are readily available, so there is NO advantage ATI has over Nvidia, or NVidia has over ATI by not open sourcing drivers.
The only thing that they are doing is alienating potential customers and slowing down the progression of open source. NVidia does have an advantage because while ATI's drivers totally suck, NVidia's drivers actually work so most of us accept NVidia's drivers. Of course, if I were wanting to upgrade from xorg 6.9 to 7.1 right now, I'd be pissing and moaning about binary-only releases right now (the fact that I am STILL running a piece of shit ATI card now is immaterial ATM).
I suggest an alternate course of action. (Score:4, Insightful)
After learning exactly how "awesome" ATI's driver support was when I tried to setup 3D with my Radeon 8500 (and also Xinerama, etc) to play WoW under Cedega, in both 32-bit and 64-bit modes, I switched to nVidia and haven't looked back (yes, nVidia's drivers ran with Cedega and WoW in both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux installs perfectly well).
So, I suggest to you, to never buy ATI again. Saying you'll be careful when buying ATI again, is like saying you'll be careful when shoving a live scorpion into your pants again. ATI is shit. Regardless of what their hardware might do, if you don't have drivers to make it do it, it's the same as not having the card!
Re:Here is why they can't (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I suggest an alternate course of action. (Score:3, Insightful)
But yeah, Nvidia drivers if I want performance.