F$%&*ng ATI!
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Sander_Marechal Mar 10, 2008 5:25 PM EDT |
Pardon my French but I have to vent that I f$%&*ng hate ATI >:-( A friend of mine wanted a dual-boot Linux/Windows desktop so I told her to get a Dell with XP installed and I'd put Linux on it. Fair is fair, I can only build cheaper than Dell if you don't want any Windows on it. I worried a little bit during the configuration that the graphics card was an ATI X1300 but after reading all the positive news on Phororix and similar sites I told her to go ahead and order it. It came in, I shrunk Windows to 40GB and installed Ubuntu on the freed 160 GB. I rebooted into the fresh install and I get the friendly popup that I can install some restricted drivers. Good, because there's going to be FOSS games on this machine. Fast forward 3 hours that make my recent unsuccessful adventure with Broadcom wifi look pleasane and I still haven't managed to get the drivers working. I tried a whole heap of different ways and it always ends in the same $h!7. The driver loads but refuses to do 3D. For 3D I get MESA software rendering. Nexiuz can barely pull 5 fps in the menu and running glxgears crashes X,org. Just to reiterate: DIE ATI DIE! I'm only buying Intel and nVidia from now on. I don't care anymore that nVidia doesn't even attempt to produce FOSS drivers. At least a simple `apt-get install nvidia-glx` gives me full 3D without any hassle. I still have to get that heap-o-junk working though.... It's not my system and it was bought on my recommendation. Apologies... |
| herzeleid Mar 10, 2008 7:18 PM EDT |
I feel your pain. I've done my time struggling with ATI cards, and I'm done. For normal work desktops, I use intel video, and if I need lots of gaming horsepower, I use nvidia. Life is a lot simpler that way. |
| wjl Mar 11, 2008 3:00 AM EDT |
Same here - that's why we only sell Intel integrated or Nvidia. As much as I applaud the opening of their sources, at the moment, and for Linux, ATI is still "not worth the hassle", as someone said recently. Just to make sure: you got the proprietary driver working? Or the free one? cheers, Wolfgang |
| jdixon Mar 11, 2008 3:13 AM EDT |
> For normal work desktops, I use intel video, and if I need lots of gaming horsepower, I use nvidia. Obviously great minds think alike. Given another 2-3 years of work, the open source ATI drivers will be what they need to be to compete with NVidia, but they're not there yet. For now, stick with Intel and NVidia. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 11, 2008 5:10 AM EDT |
Quoting:Just to make sure: you got the proprietary driver working? Or the free one? Neither. Yet. But I have to make it work somehow. I don't care about compiz and desktop effects and all that. But the machine should be able to play all the FOSS games like Nexuiz and what-not. |
| softwarejanitor Mar 11, 2008 8:57 AM EDT |
Can't agree more... I spent a lot of time searching high and low before I bought my new laptop last year... One of the main things I wanted was something with an AMD processor and nVidia graphics with dedicated video memory and of course no Windows... Finally found what I was looking for in a Microstar. Everything except the built in webcam (someone is working on a driver for it) works out of the box with (Ubuntu) Linux even Microstar's internal mini-PCI wireless card. Well, not sure about the integrated modem, I haven't had any reason to try it... |
| Tamjay Mar 23, 2008 9:05 AM EDT |
I do feel you're pain. I'm no Linux Guru by any means, but I'm learning more and more every day. I do have an ATI card (Radeon X850pro AGP) and was an avid windows gamer for years. Bound and determined to run linux on my rig, I wen't to Ubuntu Fiesty and haven't looked back since, but cursing my self time and time again for not owning an Nvidia card. Hopeing for a better experiance with Gutsy, I still found myself jumping through hoop after hoop getting my card to play nice. (Still only got it half working with an fglrx wrapper and commanding direct rendering when I had to have it, ugh!) BUT, happy to report, I gave Hardy Heron Alpha 6 a test drive (i386), installed pleasantly (never been much of an issue with Ubuntu), enabled my restricted driver and whadda ya know, full ATI graphic support with AIGLX! No hoops, no hacks, it was just there. But i should add, 64bit Hardy beta didn't do so well, still some problems with the driver's in 64bit, i guess, or it's just me, don't know. But basicly, i agree, wish I had an Nvidia many, many times, but it's good to see ATI comming around (even if i can't use it as well on my 64bit architecture, yet). |
| Libervis Mar 23, 2008 10:32 AM EDT |
Well, I'm not surprised to hear stories like this for any card above Radeon X850 or X800 (which I have). Those are the last ones supported by the current functional free R300 driver. Proprietary drivers from ATI suck as everyone is saying so I pretty much never even bothered to try them (well once, and gave up immediately). However, with free drivers card up to X800 work pretty good, aside from some options not working very well and so some games not being at their full capacity or not working at all, it's pretty good. I mean, Nexuiz, Tremulous, OpenArena, Second Life (except on Gutsy for some reason) and such, they work great. :) And I never even have to set anything up. It works out of the box. Why? Because it's Freedomware. X800 is btw still quite a powerful card that can run most of the popular games today. That said, my recommendations are still as follows: If you don't care for real 3D gaming, but would like an occasional compiz or so, get Intel GMA, the latest you can. If you want 3D gaming with drivers which are Free Software and work out of the box do get Radeon X800 or X850 cause they work the best with *free drivers*. But if you must have a latest/greates with all options then I guess nvidia with their proprietary drivers is your last bet - a plus is that noveau driver is being developed (which is freedomware) so the free drivers situation with nvidia may soon beat ATI hands down. Anyway, just my 2.76 c. ;) |
| helios Mar 23, 2008 11:45 AM EDT |
You know, a while back, it was a switched situation for me, albeit strange. It was the Nvidia that wouldn't work for beans (really low end card I had thrown in a shoebox for an emergency). I can't even bring to mind what the distro was but it picked up the ATI Rage Pro without anything but installing the drivers via synaptic. that's the LAST time I've had that happen, most of my experiences mirror the ones above and I have even went as far as replaced a customer's pci ati card for an Nvidia I had laying about...just for the reasons Sander voices...I was the one that instigated the migration. You don't have the luxury of a shrug and walking away then. While I have such great minds on video cards assembled...given the time-frame of cards Libervis speaks of, where does the ATI Rage LT Pro fall in, or maybe the ATI Radeon 9200. I am currently running an old, and I mean old Nvidia card that will only run on the 71 series legacy drivers. Anyone had any luck with either of the cards above? The Rage is an AGP card btw. h |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 24, 2008 3:38 AM EDT |
I still have a bew foxes around that use old Nvidia TNT2 and Geforce2 cards. Both use the legacy driver (I have no idea what version) and both work. As for the ATI X1300, I managed to get it working. It turns out that Ubuntu installs xserver-xgl by default and the binary ATI driver doesn't like xgl. Symptom: de binary driver loaded but xglrxinfo said I was running on display 1 (instead of 0) using the MESA driver. As soon as I removed the xserver-xgl the binary driver worked. I even managed to get compiz working but if I did that I would get some black flickering when running 3D games. So I turned compiz off again. On the upshot, I installed a bucketload of games on that new machine at it game me a nice opportunity to see what's happening in Linux gaming land. I must say that the amount and quality of the games is surprising. My favourites: Sauerbraten (Cube 2), Wormux, Battle for Wesnoth, Nexuiz, Tremulous and Widelands (A pretty new Settlers II clone). |
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