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I wasn't. I agree that the closed-source drivers AMD also still produce are friggin' terrible, and far worse than nVidia's closed-source drivers. AMD has been m

by sho_hn 13y ago

I wasn't. I agree that the closed-source drivers AMD also still produce are friggin' terrible, and far worse than nVidia's closed-source drivers. AMD has been much better about supporting efforts to write free drivers than nVidia has, however. In terms of serving as role model I'd say Intel takes the lead by actually developing their sole drivers out in the open _and_ releasing hardware documentation so others outside the company can help out. Even Intel as had their missteps however (e.g. the infamous Poulsbo driver mess).

pjmlp 13y ago
Not only that, their all developer documentation and tooling for tracking down graphics performance focus mainly on DirectX and Windows.
vacri 13y ago
For sure, Intel is the golden standard. It's just that AMD drivers suck - proprietary or free - and nvidia's don't - proprietary or free. I've got a pitcairn chipset GPU (AMD, released about a year ago) and I cannot get dual-screen working with hardware acceleration. The free drivers can't enable it, and the proprietary drivers are limited to the very bizarre 1920x1920 maximum joined resolution. I've noticed plenty of others struggling with AMD at the moment, and these days it's "just choose nvidia". A complete switcheroo on several years ago when it was "just choose ATI" (well, if you wanted something more than intel, that is).
- sho_hn 13y ago
  Luckily there's an increasing number of use cases that no longer have a want for more than Intel - I've been impressed just what the HD 4000 in my new laptop can do. Sure, a nVidia GPU still kicks its butt pretty thoroughly, but there's a lot more that works acceptably than there used to be, and it looks like Iris Pro will be a significant improvement on top of the current gen. Unfortunately it also looks like the wall they're going to run into after they leap over the performance one might be legal rather than technical (e.g. Mesa for Intel implements OpenGL 3 now, but due to Red Hat legal having problems with the patent coverage on some of that stuff Fedora won't actually ship all the bits, etc.).
- lgeek 13y ago
  Offtopic, but: > the proprietary drivers are limited to the very bizarre 1920x1920 maximum joined resolution That's not true. I'm currently using 2 1080p screens on a HD7870. You just have to initially set it up using amdcccle or maybe aticonfig, or to edit xorg.conf manually, after which you can use RandR-based tools as normal. I dislike that the AMD drivers lag behind in software compatibility and that they do things in non-standard ways, but they provide all the functionality I'd expect. Getting back to your problem, in amdcccle set up Display Manager > Multy-Display, or manually in xorg.conf, Section "Screen", SubSection "Display" needs to have an entry called 'Virtual', which looks something like this: Virtual 3840 1920.
  - vacri 13y ago
    Well, it is true in a sense because that's the limitation that they give you. I figured you could manually fight with the xorg.conf (which I did last time I had a non-intel card years ago), but by that stage, I'd already spent heaps of time fighting with the card, and it was a work machine and I wanted to get work done. I just wanted to dual-screen Cinnamon, and the free driver did that with software rendering... with my quad-core pegged to 70%. But I live in the console, so I don't notice it except when I open htop - it was deemed 'good enough'. In any case, the AMD drivers, at the current time, require stupid shennanigans to go beyond basics and the nvidia ones don't. The domain knowledge you need is quite high, and the target shifts so rapidly that the search engines are filled with out-of-date cruft. Thanks for the info, by the way - I do appreciate it, but there is already a replacement card coming...

by sho_hn 13y ago

pjmlp 13y ago

Not only that, their all developer documentation and tooling for tracking down graphics performance focus mainly on DirectX and Windows.

vacri 13y ago

For sure, Intel is the golden standard. It's just that AMD drivers suck - proprietary or free - and nvidia's don't - proprietary or free. I've got a pitcairn chipset GPU (AMD, released about a year ago) and I cannot get dual-screen working with hardware acceleration. The free drivers can't enable it, and the proprietary drivers are limited to the very bizarre 1920x1920 maximum joined resolution. I've noticed plenty of others struggling with AMD at the moment, and these days it's "just choose nvidia". A complete switcheroo on several years ago when it was "just choose ATI" (well, if you wanted something more than intel, that is).

sho_hn 13y ago
Luckily there's an increasing number of use cases that no longer have a want for more than Intel - I've been impressed just what the HD 4000 in my new laptop can do. Sure, a nVidia GPU still kicks its butt pretty thoroughly, but there's a lot more that works acceptably than there used to be, and it looks like Iris Pro will be a significant improvement on top of the current gen. Unfortunately it also looks like the wall they're going to run into after they leap over the performance one might be legal rather than technical (e.g. Mesa for Intel implements OpenGL 3 now, but due to Red Hat legal having problems with the patent coverage on some of that stuff Fedora won't actually ship all the bits, etc.).
lgeek 13y ago
Offtopic, but: > the proprietary drivers are limited to the very bizarre 1920x1920 maximum joined resolution That's not true. I'm currently using 2 1080p screens on a HD7870. You just have to initially set it up using amdcccle or maybe aticonfig, or to edit xorg.conf manually, after which you can use RandR-based tools as normal. I dislike that the AMD drivers lag behind in software compatibility and that they do things in non-standard ways, but they provide all the functionality I'd expect. Getting back to your problem, in amdcccle set up Display Manager > Multy-Display, or manually in xorg.conf, Section "Screen", SubSection "Display" needs to have an entry called 'Virtual', which looks something like this: Virtual 3840 1920.
- vacri 13y ago
  Well, it is true in a sense because that's the limitation that they give you. I figured you could manually fight with the xorg.conf (which I did last time I had a non-intel card years ago), but by that stage, I'd already spent heaps of time fighting with the card, and it was a work machine and I wanted to get work done. I just wanted to dual-screen Cinnamon, and the free driver did that with software rendering... with my quad-core pegged to 70%. But I live in the console, so I don't notice it except when I open htop - it was deemed 'good enough'. In any case, the AMD drivers, at the current time, require stupid shennanigans to go beyond basics and the nvidia ones don't. The domain knowledge you need is quite high, and the target shifts so rapidly that the search engines are filled with out-of-date cruft. Thanks for the info, by the way - I do appreciate it, but there is already a replacement card coming...