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AMD (ATI) GPU drivers are the worst when it comes to OpenGL. id software is one of the few big companies that makes OpenGL games and they always run much slower

AMD (ATI) GPU drivers are the worst when it comes to OpenGL. id software is one of the few big companies that makes OpenGL games and they always run much slower on ATI cards (Doom 3 during the first few years of its release) or run with nearly game breaking glitches (Rage, textures that pop up 3 seconds too late on the screen) John Carmack was seriously angry about ATI's drivers when the game "Rage" was released. http://kotaku.com/5847761/why-was-the-pc-launch-of-rage-such-a-cluster http://kotaku.com/5847761/why-was-the-pc-launch-of-rage-such... "The driver issues at launch have been a real cluster !@#$, [...] When launch day came around and the wrong driver got released, half of our PC customers got a product that basically didn't work. The fact that the working driver has incompatibilities with other titles doesn't help either. Issues with older / lower end /exotic setups are to be expected on a PC release, but we were not happy with the experience on what should be prime platforms." I unfortunately made the mistake to buy an AMD 5770 when I assembled my last desktop computer. This hateful GPU. If you even care one bit about either OpenGL or Linux, you are *ed with AMD. The open source drivers for linux are too slow for anything that matters and the closed source drivers made by ATi are too buggy to be used at all, they couldn't even run Gnome 3 without so many glitches, for so many months without improvements to the drivers, that I felt true despair. You want OpenGL or/and Linux, and you need performance ? Get a Nvidia. There's nothing but Nvidia that works well with either. If you don't need performance, then simply get something that has an integrated intel chip. I will never, ever think about buying anything from AMD again. Pure garbage. Their newer CPU line, the Bulldozer, is also garbage that runs slower than the older generation on many tasks.

nitrogen 14y ago
I will never, ever think about buying anything from AMD again. Pure garbage. Their newer CPU line, the Bulldozer, is also garbage that runs slower than the older generation on many tasks. In fairness to AMD, AIUI that is by design, with the intention to increase clock speeds and core counts to compensate. However, that line of thinking was the downfall of the Pentium 4.
foamdino 14y ago
As someone who bought AMD/ATi to 'support' the idea of a more open linux, I regret the decision daily. Very little works on linux and performance on windows (I dual boot for gaming), is not very good. I'll never buy ATi again after my experience with them.
- Nicole060 14y ago
  Yeah even when your run windows AMD's still not worth the pain. OpenGL games like Rage are bugged on release for AMD owners and the catalyst drivers often introduce terrible bugs. I don't upgrade my drivers unless I the older ones have a known bug with a newer game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsD3y3vnsM8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsD3y3vnsM8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pSHOJKcFU8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pSHOJKcFU8 (the youtube comment is wrong, it didn't happen only with skyrim, I had the antialiasing bug with lots of games after I upgraded to that version of the catalyst at the time) This is what happens (and happened to me) when you trust AMD with their drivers. That one of their mid or high end card can work like shit with one of the best sellers on the PC platform says it all about how much AMD cares for their customers : they're giving us the finger. How could AMD stay in business with such subpar products is beyond me. I know they'll never regain my trust. That's just not possible. Too many problems on too many platforms.
  - yuhong 14y ago
    Because of the Windows world that generally don't care about OpenGL, of course.
iliis 14y ago
On the other hand, Nvidia still has no proper support for multiple monitors under Linux. Yes, you can have two and yes, you can rotate them. But only both at the same time. Luckily, the opensource driver seems to work quite nicely on my system. [OT: Why is your nick green?]
- Macha 14y ago
  Nicks are green for users who have made less than a certain amount of comments. I think it's either 3 or 5, but I could be wrong.
  - iliis 14y ago
    Thanks, I always wondered about this. The threshold seems to be a bit higher though: Nicole060 has made 8 comments as of now.
- exDM69 14y ago
  > On the other hand, Nvidia still has no proper support for multiple monitors under Linux. Multi monitor support should be fixed, latest Nvidia beta drivers have Xrandr. It's still a new feature so it can have a few rough edges, though.
  - iliis 14y ago
    Woah, you are right, thank you! So far, the beta driver seems to run somewhat smoother than the nouveau-version. 3D is certainly faster.
- Nicole060 14y ago
  I know nvidia's support is not perfect. But frankly which is better, something that's not perfect but achieving "good enough" support, or something like ATi that has so many bugs you couldn't even use Gnome 3, a desktop environment ? http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTAyNzk http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTAyN... http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=99 http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=99 I couldn't run any game under wine either without crashing, even older games that usually run ok like Baldur's Gate 2. The open source driver are much more stable but on the other hand they are MUCH slower. Like, turning a good, midrange card like the Radeon 5770, into what low end crap would do in Windows. But you're better off with that mid range or a high end card since a low end card is not going to be usable at all for anything that makes use of the GPU, with the open source drivers running even free games like Xonotic on a low end card is plain crazy. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r600g_compete12&num=11 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r... On a game like Warsow, the difference between the open source driver and the catalyst can be as high as 34 fps vs 374 fps (34 fps is not enough for a fluid gaming experience, you need at least 50 to 60. Gaming is not like the 24 fps of motion pictures with each frame blurred giving the illusion of movement even with a low framerate since each frame rendered in a 3d game are sharp as hell.) on a high end card, and 17 fps vs 45 fps on a low end card, which means that the game is not playable at all on the open source driver, while it's tolerable on the catalyst. AMD's stuff is not worth the pain. Don't buy AMD unless you have a masochist streak. I wish I had known before I built my desktop, I was being influenced by all the free software maniacs who were praising AMD to heaven because of their policy on giving out the GPU specs. Free software be damned, I will take nvidia's closed source driver over shit that is not working the next time. My previous GPU was a Nvidia Geforce 7600 GT and it worked like a clock.
potkor 14y ago
> You want OpenGL or/and Linux, and you need performance ? Get a Nvidia. Unfortunately they've dropped laptop support so not really an option these days. The open source Intel/Radeon drivers in Mesa look to be the only game in town in the future. edit: to expand, they've said many times that they're not going to support Optimus and that covers all except the luggable laptops these days.
- Nicole060 14y ago
  https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ
- rat87 14y ago
  You can simply disable the intel gpu in most of these.
  - potkor 14y ago
    I must have bad luck so far then. Can you remember examples?
JabavuAdams 14y ago
I've talked to some people who've worked on AMD (ATI) driver code, and at the time it was a mountain of unmaintainable co-op student code. The co-ops were allowed to write their crappy code, then when they left there was that much more technical debt.
dman 14y ago
Its funny but I have the opposite experience - the following amd devices have been rock solid for me on both windows and debian a) radeon 3850 b) fusion e-350 c) a mobile x700 The only nvidia chip I have is some version of a mobile quadro and it has very bad thermals and will frequently segfault.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  That's not really the opposite experience. Bad cooling on a piece of mobile hardware isn't nvidia's fault. I'm glad for your sake that you haven't hit any driver bugs though.

nitrogen 14y ago

I will never, ever think about buying anything from AMD again. Pure garbage. Their newer CPU line, the Bulldozer, is also garbage that runs slower than the older generation on many tasks. In fairness to AMD, AIUI that is by design, with the intention to increase clock speeds and core counts to compensate. However, that line of thinking was the downfall of the Pentium 4.

foamdino 14y ago

As someone who bought AMD/ATi to 'support' the idea of a more open linux, I regret the decision daily. Very little works on linux and performance on windows (I dual boot for gaming), is not very good. I'll never buy ATi again after my experience with them.

Nicole060 14y ago
Yeah even when your run windows AMD's still not worth the pain. OpenGL games like Rage are bugged on release for AMD owners and the catalyst drivers often introduce terrible bugs. I don't upgrade my drivers unless I the older ones have a known bug with a newer game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsD3y3vnsM8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsD3y3vnsM8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pSHOJKcFU8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pSHOJKcFU8 (the youtube comment is wrong, it didn't happen only with skyrim, I had the antialiasing bug with lots of games after I upgraded to that version of the catalyst at the time) This is what happens (and happened to me) when you trust AMD with their drivers. That one of their mid or high end card can work like shit with one of the best sellers on the PC platform says it all about how much AMD cares for their customers : they're giving us the finger. How could AMD stay in business with such subpar products is beyond me. I know they'll never regain my trust. That's just not possible. Too many problems on too many platforms.
- yuhong 14y ago
  Because of the Windows world that generally don't care about OpenGL, of course.

iliis 14y ago

On the other hand, Nvidia still has no proper support for multiple monitors under Linux. Yes, you can have two and yes, you can rotate them. But only both at the same time. Luckily, the opensource driver seems to work quite nicely on my system. [OT: Why is your nick green?]

Macha 14y ago
Nicks are green for users who have made less than a certain amount of comments. I think it's either 3 or 5, but I could be wrong.
- iliis 14y ago
  Thanks, I always wondered about this. The threshold seems to be a bit higher though: Nicole060 has made 8 comments as of now.
exDM69 14y ago
> On the other hand, Nvidia still has no proper support for multiple monitors under Linux. Multi monitor support should be fixed, latest Nvidia beta drivers have Xrandr. It's still a new feature so it can have a few rough edges, though.
- iliis 14y ago
  Woah, you are right, thank you! So far, the beta driver seems to run somewhat smoother than the nouveau-version. 3D is certainly faster.
Nicole060 14y ago
I know nvidia's support is not perfect. But frankly which is better, something that's not perfect but achieving "good enough" support, or something like ATi that has so many bugs you couldn't even use Gnome 3, a desktop environment ? http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTAyNzk http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTAyN... http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=99 http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=99 I couldn't run any game under wine either without crashing, even older games that usually run ok like Baldur's Gate 2. The open source driver are much more stable but on the other hand they are MUCH slower. Like, turning a good, midrange card like the Radeon 5770, into what low end crap would do in Windows. But you're better off with that mid range or a high end card since a low end card is not going to be usable at all for anything that makes use of the GPU, with the open source drivers running even free games like Xonotic on a low end card is plain crazy. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r600g_compete12&num=11 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_r... On a game like Warsow, the difference between the open source driver and the catalyst can be as high as 34 fps vs 374 fps (34 fps is not enough for a fluid gaming experience, you need at least 50 to 60. Gaming is not like the 24 fps of motion pictures with each frame blurred giving the illusion of movement even with a low framerate since each frame rendered in a 3d game are sharp as hell.) on a high end card, and 17 fps vs 45 fps on a low end card, which means that the game is not playable at all on the open source driver, while it's tolerable on the catalyst. AMD's stuff is not worth the pain. Don't buy AMD unless you have a masochist streak. I wish I had known before I built my desktop, I was being influenced by all the free software maniacs who were praising AMD to heaven because of their policy on giving out the GPU specs. Free software be damned, I will take nvidia's closed source driver over shit that is not working the next time. My previous GPU was a Nvidia Geforce 7600 GT and it worked like a clock.

potkor 14y ago

> You want OpenGL or/and Linux, and you need performance ? Get a Nvidia. Unfortunately they've dropped laptop support so not really an option these days. The open source Intel/Radeon drivers in Mesa look to be the only game in town in the future. edit: to expand, they've said many times that they're not going to support Optimus and that covers all except the luggable laptops these days.

Nicole060 14y ago
https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ
rat87 14y ago
You can simply disable the intel gpu in most of these.
- potkor 14y ago
  I must have bad luck so far then. Can you remember examples?

JabavuAdams 14y ago

I've talked to some people who've worked on AMD (ATI) driver code, and at the time it was a mountain of unmaintainable co-op student code. The co-ops were allowed to write their crappy code, then when they left there was that much more technical debt.

dman 14y ago

Its funny but I have the opposite experience - the following amd devices have been rock solid for me on both windows and debian a) radeon 3850 b) fusion e-350 c) a mobile x700 The only nvidia chip I have is some version of a mobile quadro and it has very bad thermals and will frequently segfault.

Dylan16807 14y ago
That's not really the opposite experience. Bad cooling on a piece of mobile hardware isn't nvidia's fault. I'm glad for your sake that you haven't hit any driver bugs though.