State of ATI drivers

tyreth · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 1:22 am Post subject: State of ATI drivers

Hi,

I'm looking at buying a laptop for myself, but most seem to have ATI Radeon cards. This is unfortunate, because I want a laptop with a graphics card I can get good, reliable 3D drivers for - ie, nvidia.

I'm not aware of the current state of ATI drivers. Does it work well with games like Quake 3, Doom 3, UT2k4 and other games that use OpenGL. I am also particularly interested in opensource games that require OpenGL.

I don't want to invest in a laptop with a graphics card I'm going to regret. Thanks.

gentoo_lan · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:05 am Post subject:

ATI driver development is moving slowly. You can get it to work but the performance is still not as good as some older Nvidia cards. I would try to stick to Nvidia if you can.

Arainach · l33t Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 609

The drivers are stable. They work. They're just not nearly as fast as the Windows drivers right now, and they're still a pain to install the first time.
_________________
Gentoo: Stage3 w/ NPTL & udev, gcc 3.4.4 full rebuild
Kernel: 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 w/ 1G-Lowmem Patch
System: Athlon XP 2.2Ghz/1GB Corsair Value/160GB, 250GB WD IDE/128MB GeForce 6800/Sony 17" Trinitron G200 @ 1280x1024x75Hz

tyreth · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:38 am Post subject:

Arainach · l33t Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 609

You'd be more than fine on those, no sweat. And by "Slower" we mean "No development for the last 2 years except that they just tripled their Linux development team a few months ago, so things are picking back up"
_________________
Gentoo: Stage3 w/ NPTL & udev, gcc 3.4.4 full rebuild
Kernel: 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 w/ 1G-Lowmem Patch
System: Athlon XP 2.2Ghz/1GB Corsair Value/160GB, 250GB WD IDE/128MB GeForce 6800/Sony 17" Trinitron G200 @ 1280x1024x75Hz

IntergalacticWalrus · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 3:29 am Post subject:

The hell with ATI. Dell has a nice selection of nVidia-powered (GeForce 5200 Go 64MB) laptops. A friend of mine has one of these and everything under Linux works perfectly (even ACPI, which is buggy at best on many laptops). You can get a Pentium M model, which is awesome. And it's not really expensive!

Also, HP has that kickass AMD64 Compaq. It's only a GeForce 4 440 64MB, but it's even cheaper than the Dell I mentionned above. "Tis a good time to switch to 64 bit computing.

Lepaca Kliffoth · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:52 am Post subject:

I went for ATI because I wanted a particular card. I got it because I can hope to tap its whole power with my current system before I dump it all and build a new one from scratch in about 2 years. I play games under windows and have little interest in linux gaming as it is still too limited.
I also think this is the only situation in which you should go for ATI - if you plan on using windows to use your card. In your situation, I think going for ATI is the worst thing you can do as you'll get about 1/10th of what you've paid for. Wait, change shop, whatever, just don't buy ATI since you'll waste your money on hardware you can't use properly.
_________________
It isn't enough to win - everyone else must lose, and you also have to rub it in their face (maybe chop off an arm too for good measure).
Animebox!

b3cks · Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 1:17 pm Post subject:

Where is the problem?
Look at these forums or search at google or have a look here www.tuxmobil.com
Everywhere you will find information about what ATI cards work with the new drivers and those who don't. I think rahter it's not the question what cards will work but the more important question is which cards are supportet. And than you'll have the biggest problem off all. Finding a notebook wich you like with the components you want.

Have fun...
_________________
I am /root and if you see me laughing you better have a backup.

tyreth · Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 8:28 am Post subject:

deadstar · Guru Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 319 Location: England

Not sure what to say about that one...

Other than: Give it time. The ATi drivers WILL get better. Who knows, maybe they'll reign over nVidia with the right people. Buy an ATi, but LET ATi KNOW you bought one for linux use. Email. And they'll eventually realise how much interest there really is.

At the moment, ATi drivers aren't worth what you pay for the card, but the future's bright, the future's... hang on i dont wanna get sued.
_________________
Hysteriagaming.co.uk is now DOT COM! New design, forum, articles, the works! http://www.hysteriagaming.com

(\ /)
(O.o)
(> <)
This is Bunny. Copy Bunny into your signature to help him on his way to world domination

@alexander · Retired Dev Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Posts: 24

IntergalacticWalrus · Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2005 3:42 am Post subject:

But it's not just a 3D thing! nVidia's drivers (with Render acceleration activated) beats everything else in terms of performance for normal X11 usage.

Luka21 · n00b Joined: 24 Aug 2004 Posts: 39

I have a notebook with ati and I would never buy it again. If you plan on using windows then ati is an excellent choice, however linux drivers are still faaar away from perfection. You can't use xcompmgr for eyecandy, occasional lockups, poor game performance (I can't play native doom3-demo even on lowest details and I have p4@2,4GHz, 512 MB ram and radeon 9000/64 MB mobility) and on top of that their setup tool and control center are nearly useless. But things are improving and driver developmet is in motion so maybe this will change soon.

ivan300 · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:31 am Post subject:

I think the drivers are excellent. I just installed CS source in cedega and its playable at 50 fps +

Trebiani · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:20 am Post subject:

Wedge_ · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 9:27 am Post subject:

zzats · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:13 am Post subject:

Just do not buy an ATI-card if you plan to use Linux as your primary platform. Or even better, just don't buy an ATI card if you plan to use linux!

IntergalacticWalrus · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:57 pm Post subject:

No, even better: just don't buy an ATI card PERIOD. Personally I NEVER recommend ATi cards to anyone, including people who only run Windows.

tyreth · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 9:54 pm Post subject:

Just to re-iterate - I can't find any nVidia laptops for sale.

I have found one, the Toshiba M30, but it is overpriced and underpowered.

IntergalacticWalrus · Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:45 pm Post subject:

After 30 seconds of browsing on Dell's australian site, I found this.

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/notebooks_Q1_W2_inspn_8600_M510219?c=au&l=en&s=dhs

Behold: the Inspiron 8600. BTW it's roughly the same model I've talked about earlier in this thread. It really kicks ass.

UPDATE: Oh crap, I understand what you meant by "the only one that says it has one doesn't even list it when you go to customise & buy". D'oh. You should email their sales support to ask about it. And remember to tell them that they won't get your money if they don't have nVidia.

And if all else fails, there's the AMD64 Compaq.

tyreth · Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 12:53 am Post subject:

IntergalacticWalrus · Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 1:09 am Post subject:

Hey, I figured it out. Dell always has this special offer thing where every week something different is upgraded. This week it's the video card that's been "upgraded" to a Radeon 9600 (ugh):

sgaap · Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 1:30 am Post subject:

tyreth · Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 3:21 am Post subject:

thepi · Guru Joined: 06 Jan 2004 Posts: 352 Location: Tokyo, Japan