Michael A. Sterba wrote:
Hello Dave,
On Friday 03 April 2009 01:11:24 am Dave Plater wrote:
From this I think we can conclude that the new driver doesn't work with 11.1 and Peter should either use the older driver you mentioned above or as he mentioned in one of his posts, get an nvidia card. Regards Dave P
I have been watching the thread with amazement that there has been such an issue. Your blanket statement doesn't apply to everyone as the newest driver on my SuSE 11.1 x64 laptop is working great. A friend of mine is running the 32bit version of the same driver also with good results
There must be an issue either with the compatability with specific chipset of the ATI card or the users baseline installation has been muddied with some other installation.
BTW, I tried KDE 4.2 with this driver and found that the glxgears jumped from 4-6K to 9Kfps.
I'm sorry some are having problems
Michael, There is a very frustrating problem. From what I can determine, the ATI driver problems affect/cripple the supported Rev. 300-500 series cards. The integrated (Mobile) versions particularly. I'm glad the ATI driver works for you guys, though I question how well since there is virtually no way to make an apples to apples comparison of the new driver performance against the 8-6 through 8-9 driver performance for 11.1 because nothing prior to 8-12 will compile on 11.1. With respect to the Rev. 300-500 mobile cards, the frustrating part is the 8-6 through 8-9 work well for these cards, but beginning with the 8-10 driver, what was heretofore working, was broken in 8-10 release and all subsequent driver releases. What that means to me and anyone else that owns a laptop with R300-R535 cards is that you do not have an upgrade path to 11.1 or later if you want to retain decent graphics performance. The real frustration is that for these cards, obviously something was changed in the 8-10 release that adversely affects driver performance for these cards, which is something that should be within ATI competence to fix. Despite providing detailed logs, etc. to ATI following every release since 8-10, the problem remains -- all laptop owners with laptops purchased pre-Q1 2006 (or Q1 2007 with the X1050 cards) are for the most part screwed right now. Apparently the 9-3 release was the last hope to get a decent driver for anyone affected by these issues. Evidently ATI is 'conveniently' dropping Linux driver support for all R300-R500 cards as of ...NOW... (See ATI forum on phronix) In case you are keeping score, that is dropped support for all 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, X300, X550, X600, X700, X800, X850 AllInWonder, and X1050 cards. Check your laptops, it might be time to think new one. However, and more importantly, the driver issue doesn't just affect these older mobility cards, it affects the X1300 (R535) series in my Toshiba P205D from 2008. Who gives a crap about problems with a desktop card, a 3 minute $50 change will fix any problem there. The gripe is basic, there is a huge installed user base stuck with laptops with these chipsets. It is just sad to see such shameful customer support -- basically the big FU to all the folks caught in the conundrum. Especially when it is probably a simple fix for an experienced ATI driver programmer to identify the 8-9 -> 8-10 release change affecting these cards and fix it. That is if there is anything called an experienced ATI driver programmer after the latest round of outsourcing. But ATI has done me and a lot of others a big favor so I can't complain. I will never have a problem with ATI drivers again, all subsequent laptop purchases will have nVidia chipsets in them.... Why any corp would want to piss off its customer base in this economy defies logic. (even though the number of affected boards * percent linux installs, etc... isn't exactly the lions share, bad PR is still bad PR) -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org