ATI amd64 drivers in december...

Message

thaldyron · Post by **thaldyron** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 12:30 am

This was just posted by an ATI employee on rage3d.com:

Hey guys.

Sorry for the delay hitting this thread. I understand the frustration, but we had some unexpected requirements crop up that needed attention immeadiately. This has resulted in a number of stability improvements on the AGP, PCIe and AMD64 fronts for the new drivers.

This unfortunately resulted in a delay for the drivers. We have completed the work, and now must wait for the web-posting train for ati.com for the drivers to be posted officially. With Christmas/New Year, this will most likely be before the middle of January.

Not as a teaser, but as an answer to the questions, the new drivers will have a number of major new features...

o AMD64/EM64T Support
o XOrg 6.8 Support
o GLSL
o PCIe stability improvements

And of course we have bumped the major.minor version of the driver to match the Windows driver.

Once again, apologies to the Rage3D community for not being responsive for the last month. Some of the members on the Beta Program can probably make comment on the new drivers as well.

Regards,

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showpost.ph ... tcount=159

Anyone surprised?

Acoc · Post by **Acoc** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 3:08 am

I for one am encouraged by this. It means that at least they have made progress and more importantly, they have made the drivers for Xorg. This means that the time that would be needed modifying them from Xfree86 to Xorg is eliminated and we should be able to use them pretty much as soon as they come out.

I'd love to talk to some of those beta testers and see what they thought of the drivers.

Thanks for the posting thaldyron, giving us the first evidence of development from ati.

John

Mythos · Post by **Mythos** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 3:16 am

... they are saying that long time ago ... the results are equal to zero !!!

babo · Post by **babo** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 8:36 am

Well, this sounds very encouraging to me also.

I can wait till end of january.

Schmokin · Post by **Schmokin** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 9:02 am

Can't wait to see what this does for my X800

Swatinem · Post by **Swatinem** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 9:47 am

*counting the seconds* i cant wait

ernstp · Post by **ernstp** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 12:38 pm

The features are old news, but it's nice to hear a progress report and a comment on the release date.

thaldyron · Post by **thaldyron** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 3:55 pm

ernstp wrote:The features are old news, but it's nice to hear a progress report and a comment on the release date.

I don't see why everyone is so happy about this...

The problem is that ATI doesn't seem to care if they can't meet the release date again. If I remember correctly the AMD64 drivers should have been released back in June but were postponed to Dec. Then in Dec the Windows Drivers for AMD64 were released but not a word about Linux Drivers nor any update about the release date for 3 weeks!
I wonder how many people tried to contact ATI during that time to find out what the heck happened to the Linux drivers. ATI simply ignored them.

Then one day before Christmas an ATI Dev finally manages to tell us: "no drivers this year but in January for sure". Of course this isn't done by any official communication channel but by a forum post so no one can complain if yet another release date isn't met.

So it's almost one year I'm waiting for a driver for the hardware I _payed_ for and now I should be thankful to hear that it's going to take yet another month until I might get my hands on something that's probably unstable as hell???

No way...

ernstp · Post by **ernstp** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 11:35 pm

thaldyron wrote: I don't see why everyone is so happy about this...

The problem is that ATI doesn't seem to care if they can't meet the release date again. If I remember correctly the AMD64 drivers should have been released back in June but were postponed to Dec. Then in Dec the Windows Drivers for AMD64 were released but not a word about Linux Drivers nor any update about the release date for 3 weeks!
I wonder how many people tried to contact ATI during that time to find out what the heck happened to the Linux drivers. ATI simply ignored them.

So it's almost one year I'm waiting for a driver for the hardware I _payed_ for and now I should be thankful to hear that it's going to take yet another month until I might get my hands on something that's probably unstable as hell???

No way...

I don't think you have been following this as closely as the people in rage3d's linux forum.
Matthew is very accesible and I've actually chatted with him a few times.

Well, you remember wrong. Rumours have allways been abound, but this is the first time anyone has said anything official.
This is the first release from the new branch with the new trippled ATI linux team (including Micael DÃ¤nzer etc..)
They have since a few months back promised that the december release would be THE release and officially said it would support AMD64 etc, etc.
Now, did you read the post?

It's done. They're ready. They found a few late bugs, fixed them, got delayed three weeks, but this is it!

thaldyron wrote:Then one day before Christmas an ATI Dev finally manages to tell us: "no drivers this year but in January for sure". Of course this isn't done by any official communication channel but by a forum post so no one can complain if yet another release date isn't met.

Anything they say like that should be taken as official, they just don't have any better communications channel. If you've been following things like I have, you'd know.

ebrostig · Post by **ebrostig** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 2:43 pm

I can't believe that there are no *leaked builds* of the new drivers....

Erik

dapsaille · Post by **dapsaille** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:34 pm

It's a shame .. pftt i will never anymore buy ati cards by now .. (i've kicked my ati card out of my amd64 box and got a nvidia but for my laptop amd64 i cannot :/)

Really ... i know that say this things are not good but f..k ATI .. open source is great when you need something there is always someone for do it or help you to do it for free and now i've purchased some hardware and creaotrs of this hardware don't hear us ... so damn ... f..k again ....

Trevoke · Post by **Trevoke** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 10:07 pm

I'm very glad to hear this.
However, I, for one, and as much as I love to defend ATI, will drop my Radeon and buy an Nvidia if drivers are not out February 1st.

I'm pondering whether to try and sell it to someone or just send it to ATI and saying "Was waiting for AMD64 drivers. Can't return card anymore. With my compliments."

Mythos · Post by **Mythos** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 10:05 am

i see December is gone without any ati driver's, oki 29 February they will lunch ati-drivers!!!

racoontje · Post by **racoontje** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 11:22 am

I thought it was end of january?

lavish · Post by **lavish** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 1:04 pm

racoontje wrote:I thought it was end of january?

nope, it is @ the end of current.month()++

ryceck · Post by **ryceck** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 3:37 pm

lavish wrote:
racoontje wrote:I thought it was end of january?
nope, it is @ the end of current.month()++

With ati they dont have trouble with creating drivers buth with understandable reading.
They never learned the difference between month and year

So current.month()++ == current.year()++
I know its a mathematical inconcistency but so is ati

zinion · Post by **zinion** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 4:32 pm

HaHa

Drop your fucking ATIs and don't support this inconvience any more!

Don't let fool you until the next and next and next and next generation of cards is there. Support nVidia for the effort they do for the Linux-Community!

racoontje · Post by **racoontje** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 5:07 pm

Yeah, remember, you shouldn't just buy nVidia because it isn't ATi, you should buy nVidia because it is nVidia and all the trouble they went through to provide acceptable Linux drivers

Mythos · Post by **Mythos** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:20 pm

zinion wrote:HaHa

Drop your fucking ATIs and don't support this inconvience any more!

Don't let fool you until the next and next and next and next generation of cards is there. Support nVidia for the effort they do for the Linux-Community!

I would like support Nvidia in my laptop, but i have a ATI graphic card ...

. But... i have to recognize that ATI is improving. Last Saturday and Sunday i tested in my desktop PC (32b) and the driver's are much stable and quicker that they were, in Enemy-Territory for example, i don't need to put some extra command's because this new driver's doesn't seem to buggy ...

racoontje · Post by **racoontje** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:18 pm

Saying that it's better doesn't mean anything.

If someone has a gangrene infection in his leg, but the doctors amputated his leg so that it wouldn't spread, then the guy is better, but still far from good.

strobhen · Post by **strobhen** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:21 pm

I was about to buy an geforce 6800 & toss this ati card.

In the interest of saving money I will wait to see what happens here, but ATI has already lost my confidence.

From what I have seen in press reports and actual activity:
NVIDIA likes linux
ATI treats linux like baggage, a "necessary evil"

As a programmer I understand software delays and the like, they are inevitable. So I don't dislike them for that (and noone should be blaming ATI's developers, a few people can do only so much). I dislike them for the effort (or lack thereof) the the company's management puts into linux.

Looks like they like to take a "reactionary" stance on Linux. "When it becomes relevant, then we will work on it". Well, once it becomes relevant all your potential customers will be using the cards that do support it (nvidia), good luck penetrating that market.

Perhaps one day ATI will learn the meaning of "customer support", but that day is not today.

malloc · Post by **malloc** » Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:36 pm

I've heard Duke Nukem Forever was just around the corner...

Trevoke · Post by **Trevoke** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 6:37 pm

Wait, re-read this.
They're saying the drivers are DONE and they're waiting for the web-posting train.. So.. All the drivers getting copied to all the mirrors I guess.. and the new web page being done ..?

dapsaille · Post by **dapsaille** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 6:50 pm

Ok trevoke .. So maybee i can help them with a little html webpage :p ... don't you think they are taking us for dummies ?? .... really intersting what the say ... F..K ATI ....'cause they F..K US ...

racoontje · Post by **racoontje** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:11 pm

1. racoon sees
2. racoon believes.

Whereas 1 year ago, when I installed and bought my ATi card, it was.
1. racoon sees lots of promises
2. racoontje believes