How poor is ATI support

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d99ma · Post by **d99ma** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:58 am

Hello

I'm going to purchase a new laptop. Unfortunately it seems like all the affordable ones have ATI gfx cards which I've heard are supposed to be poorly supported in linux. My prime candidate is an Acer Aspire 5622 with the x1300.

Would apprechiate any input you can give me.

/Martin

tobr · Post by **tobr** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:18 pm

d99ma wrote:I'm going to purchase a new laptop. Unfortunately it seems like all the affordable ones have ATI gfx cards which I've heard are supposed to be poorly supported in linux. My prime candidate is an Acer Aspire 5622 with the x1300.

The main problem with ATI cards is that the native xorg drivers for the newer models don't support direct rendering (there are drivers that do this in xorg >= 7.0, but they are beta quality). I've got my ATI Radeon 9600 working with direct rendering with xorg 7.0 but 7.1 refuses to work, so YMMV. Never had luck with the binary ATI drivers. So if you don't need 3d stuff like blender or games, an ATI card will do.

Admiral_Trigger_Happy · Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:52 pm

Well I have a Radeon 9600XT in my desktop here and it works just fine with the ATI fglrx binary driver, its not perfect but works great for the most part and allows me to run XGL and compiz with KDE and to play UT2004 and other opengl games.

I have heard that the mobile ati chipsets present a bit more of a hassle to get working but of late I have been hearing more positive things about them.
The fglrx drivers have come a long way in the last year or 2 and they are starting to become rather good

CaptainDangeax · Post by **CaptainDangeax** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 8:29 pm

After MANY decepts with ATI cards (an IGP 340 on anIBM Thinkpad Laptop, and an ATI 9200SE AGP), I ventually conclude tu use ONLY Nvidia GPUs under Linux. It's my opinion, I share it with you, however I know that laptops with nvidia's are more expensive. An X1300 is not a very powerfull chip, and if you d'ont plan games, Recent Intel products are not that bad in 3d. I've a i865 on this P4, and Enemy territory is playable in 16bits color.

Master_of_Puppets · Post by **Master_of_Puppets** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:59 am

If you need 3d stuff I'd also say: get a NVidia... because open-source dri doesn't really work on newer radeon cards and the binary drivers from ATi have got problems with composite, xgl and so on... I'm stuck with a X700 here

Admiral_Trigger_Happy · Sun Jun 11, 2006 8:05 am

the ATI binary drivers have no problems with XGL for me, they run just fine.

skceb · Post by **skceb** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 11:21 am

just got xorg7.0,xgl working on my new dell inpiron 6400 with ati x1300 card, ati binary drivers. runs really fine..

CaptainDangeax · Post by **CaptainDangeax** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 4:02 pm

Glad to know that ATI surely enhanced their drivers since the last time I tried. Glad to know you managed to get it run !

Admiral_Trigger_Happy · Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:25 am

CaptainDangeax wrote:Glad to know that ATI surely enhanced their drivers since the last time I tried. Glad to know you managed to get it run !

I wouldn't say "managed" to get it to run, It was very easy for standard Xorg, Xgl is a little more fussy of course as its still development code, the hardest part was installing Xgl, compiz etc (Follow the Wiki and its not too bad), not getting it to work with the ATI drivers

Dakaru · Post by **Dakaru** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:49 am

ATI cards are no longer as hard as people think to get them to work. They are nearly as easy as Nvidia to be honest.

I am running xorg 6.8 and have a x700 with full direct rendering.

RazielFMX · Post by **RazielFMX** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 3:08 am

xorg 6.8 on an x600, it was easy to set this up, though aticonfig isn't great, you're better off reading the forums and wikis to set up your xorg.conf with an ATi.

d99ma · Post by **d99ma** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 12:46 pm

Thanks for all the input,

I found an Asus a6jc that has a geforce card and is affordable, so even though ATI support seems to be improving I will take the safe road and stick with nvidia.

/Martin

xPAGANx · Post by **xPAGANx** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:00 pm

ATI is just simple with Gentoo. Just download the installer from their website and run it. It takes like 2 minutes.

downey · Post by **downey** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 4:28 pm

Why would you download and install the driver from the website? Why not just emerge ati-drivers? I have a 9500pro and up until very recently the ATI drivers have been a royal pain. They have definitely improved them substantially from a year ago but there are still a few minor problems here and there. I switched back to NVidia with my next computer and I have to say that NVidia is easier. ATI will definitely work but it requires a bit more mucking around with.

Kenji Miyamoto · Post by **Kenji Miyamoto** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 4:52 pm

All I had to do on my Toshiba Satellite M45-S165 for my X200M was specify the bus ID to get it to work. Until recently (2.6.16-suspend2-r8), the screen became glarbled as X shut down, but I've had no trouble since.

lxg · Post by **lxg** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 5:05 pm

ATI runs fine under Linux (for me). DRI and stuff goes fine with my cards (Radeon 9000 and Radeon mobility 9600), even with the open source drivers. Even if you'd need the proprierary drivers, it can't be worse than with nvidia: I recently installed the nvidia driver on my girlfriend's machine (Google Earth urged

), and it was a real pain in the you-know-where.

xPAGANx · Post by **xPAGANx** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 6:23 pm

downey wrote:Why would you download and install the driver from the website? Why not just emerge ati-drivers? I have a 9500pro and up until very recently the ATI drivers have been a royal pain. They have definitely improved them substantially from a year ago but there are still a few minor problems here and there. I switched back to NVidia with my next computer and I have to say that NVidia is easier. ATI will definitely work but it requires a bit more mucking around with.

Well let me tell you why... I emerged the drivers... and wham!!! ...they didn't work. I downloaded the ATI installer, and wham... they did!

Thats the long story made short.

downey · Post by **downey** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:16 pm

Did you make sure you emerged the ~x86 and not the stable one. It takes the gentoo guys a while to mark some packages as stable but the testing versions are exactly the same version as the ones on ATI's website. Do a man portage and learn about how to use the /etc/portage/package.keywords file. That will allow you to always pick up the latest version of the drivers. If you already did this and the drivers don't work then I'd look at posting the problem and maybe even opening a bug in gentoo's buzilla as there really shouldn't be any difference between the two packages.

xPAGANx · Post by **xPAGANx** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 10:37 pm

downey wrote:Did you make sure you emerged the ~x86 and not the stable one. It takes the gentoo guys a while to mark some packages as stable but the testing versions are exactly the same version as the ones on ATI's website. Do a man portage and learn about how to use the /etc/portage/package.keywords file. That will allow you to always pick up the latest version of the drivers. If you already did this and the drivers don't work then I'd look at posting the problem and maybe even opening a bug in gentoo's buzilla as there really shouldn't be any difference between the two packages.

Well it isn't really a big deal. I got them working... Is there a problem with me downloading the driver from ATI's website? I thought they were there for a reason.

Ohh and I do know how to use the package.keywords file. If the stable version didn't work why would I expect an unstable one to work? I couldn't even load the module.

TerranAce007 · Post by **TerranAce007** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 11:06 pm

I have a 128mb Mobility 9700 in my AMD 64 bit laptop. I have been able to get direct rendering and dual head with an external monitor working with the 64 bit ATI binary drivers. It is somewhat buggy sometimes, and when it does work, I'm afraid to update anything through emerge for fear of breaking something...

I have an nVidia 6800GS in my desktop, also running 64 bit gentoo, and the drivers are very good. There is even a graphical GUI like the windows version to adjust all settings. They are definately better drivers, but still not perfect.

xPAGANx · Post by **xPAGANx** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 11:08 pm

TerranAce007 wrote:I have a 128mb Mobility 9700 in my AMD 64 bit laptop. I have been able to get direct rendering and dual head with an external monitor working with the 64 bit ATI binary drivers. It is somewhat buggy sometimes, and when it does work, I'm afraid to update anything through emerge for fear of breaking something...

I have an nVidia 6800GS in my desktop, also running 64 bit gentoo, and the drivers are very good. There is even a graphical GUI like the windows version to adjust all settings. They are definately better drivers, but still not perfect.

I don't think you would break the video drivers unless you built a new kernel.

TerranAce007 · Post by **TerranAce007** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:22 am

I don't think you would break the video drivers unless you built a new kernel.

Well, yes, I sometimes have trouble when trying to get a new kernel version working, but I am talking about other software. For example, upgrading Xorg (I'm still using the stable version) has caused me headaches in the past. For the most part, everything works, but I get tired of working out all the kinks all the time...

xPAGANx · Post by **xPAGANx** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:13 am

TerranAce007 wrote:
I don't think you would break the video drivers unless you built a new kernel.
...but I get tired of working out all the kinks all the time...

You installed Gentoo Sir... lol You knew what you were getting into lmao.

EatMeerkats · Post by **EatMeerkats** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:37 am

AFAIK, ati-drivers still lack the ability to rotate the display.

TerranAce007 · Post by **TerranAce007** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 1:32 pm

You installed Gentoo Sir... lol You knew what you were getting into lmao

Well, I have been considering switching to Ubuntu or Suse lately. I like gentoo because it is very flexible and highly configurable, but I use Ubuntu on my desktop at home and it just works.

How poor is ATI support

How poor is ATI support

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