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I bought an ATI 5870 a few years ago. At the time, it was a pretty beefy card, and drives my three 23" monitors really well... in Windows. Late 2012 is when I

by gtaylor 13y ago

I bought an ATI 5870 a few years ago. At the time, it was a pretty beefy card, and drives my three 23" monitors really well... in Windows. Late 2012 is when I found that enough bugs were fixed in the [now AMD] proprietary drivers to where I could get serious work done in Linux. The crashes were mostly fixed, but there are still lots of performance issues, as well as a lot of fun bugs (like my cursor randomly turning into a 20x50 block of randomly colored pixels when moving between monitors). It's been a dreadful experience. The AMD driver releases stopped coming with changelogs for about 6 months, and they still don't always release them (or when they do, they leave a lot out). When a new version of Xorg comes out, it takes them at least two months to add support (while nvidia often has support ready before release, or very shortly after). nvidia, even with their own issues, shows them up enough to make me envious. Intel is really taking things to a higher level with their drivers + OpenGL performance lately, too. If you have to use proprietary drivers (like I do for 3D/OpenGL), stay the heck away from AMD. They do an awful job with their Linux drivers. Linus likes to bitch at nvidia, but their binary Linux drivers are leagues better than AMD's. They've got issues, too, but are by far the lesser of two evils for higher end GPUs + Linux.

dmm 13y ago
Just use the in-kernel free drivers. They have improved immensely the past few years. The Radeon HD 5870 is called 'Evergreen', you can check out the feature support here: http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/RadeonFeature http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/RadeonFeature In my experience the free drivers have slightly slower 3d performance and much faster 2d performance.
- tribaal 13y ago
  That matrix is impressively green! Thanks for sharing.
- gtaylor 13y ago
  As mentioned in the initial comment, this isn't an option for me.
  - dmm 13y ago
    I don't see that mentioned.
- VMG 13y ago
  Still hit and miss though. Bought a laptop that even had somewhat decent 3d acceleration, but would horribly lag on 2d terminal output. Returned it and been using Intel and Nvidia exclusively now - no problems whatsoever.
  - mhurron 13y ago
    There are some things that can be done to fix that - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Radeon#Slow_performance_with_open-source_drivers https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Radeon#Slow_performance...
    - VMG 13y ago
      I tinkered around for a few hours and gave up. Not worth my time.
edwintorok 13y ago
The reason I bought an ATI card _is_ that it had open-source drivers. Is there any reason you "have" to use the proprietary driver? (besides better performance for games, which I assume is not what you are after since you mentioned getting serious work done...)
- gtaylor 13y ago
  I spend 99% of my time in Linux, so there is some gaming there as well, especially now that there are a lot of great titles with support on Steam. I rarely ever boot into Windows anymore, mostly for games that I can't play on Linux (or can't play well on Linux). If I wanted something for work only and wanted to use open source drivers, I'd buy Intel or nvidia now. The ATI 5870 exists to drive up to six monitors over displayport under EyeFinity, so this was as much of a work investment as it was a play investment (it's great for both). I want to be able to work AND play with this card that I paid good money for. The binary drivers are officially supported, and with that label comes some expectation of quality. Perhaps my expectations are unreasonable, but I've been very disappointed with the quality.
  - dmm 13y ago
    > The ATI 5870 exists to drive up to six monitors over displayport under EyeFinity Are you saying the open source driver cannot drive size monitors?
    - gtaylor 13y ago
      It does a pretty poor job with multiple monitors + OpenGL. Lots of pixels to push. I didn't try to get EyeFinity working, but that's probably out of the question as well.
- nshepperd 13y ago
  Maybe they're doing CAD, or other 3D modelling of some kind?
ris 13y ago
Why are you using the proprietary drivers? Is it just the lingering "got to run around finding drivers to install" windows mindset?
- jnbiche 13y ago
  If he's doing serious work, then he's probably using OpenCL, and as far as I am aware, the Gallium drivers do not yet fully support OpenCL. When I checked earlier this year, they were getting close, but not yet usable. Has this changed? Can I finally get rid of the proprietary ATI drivers and still run OpenCL reliably?
  - ris 13y ago
    "If he's doing serious work, then he's probably using OpenCL" He doesn't indicate that at all, and I assumed if he were doing "Serious OpenCL work" he'd be using a later-generation card.
    - foxhill 13y ago
      5870 has a theoretical peak of 2.7 tflops, a GTX680 has a theoretical peak of 3.1 tflops. even a 7970 has a peak of 3.8 tflops. you can argue (successfully) that it's much easier to achieve a high proportion of peak on GCN cards, but CL code tuned for a 5870s isn't going to be exactly sluggish.
ociredon 13y ago
I get the a similar bug where the cursor gets mangled when swapping monitors on Windows also.
- gtaylor 13y ago
  wow, that stinks. I've never ran into it on my Windows 7 partition. I think I'd be even more irate if I did, though. Hate to pay top dollar for a high end card, only to see stuff like that on the platform is was more or less specifically targeted at.
RyanZAG 13y ago
> as well as a lot of fun bugs (like my cursor randomly turning into a 20x50 block of randomly colored pixels when moving between monitors). This bug also occurs occasionally on Windows with the ATI drivers, it is not a Linux specific bug.
Ziomislaw 13y ago
I have the same opinion on ATI, but on windows. I use radeon hd 6630M (switchable graphics), with drivers from 2011, because they never bothered to release an update. Effect? I'm getting artifacts/BSOD when try to play games. Fortunately I can switch to intel.
- eropple 13y ago
  > I have the same opinion on ATI, but on windows. I use radeon hd 6630M (switchable graphics), with drivers from 2011, because they never bothered to release an update. Careful about tagging AMD on that. Mobile manufacturers often repackage the drivers and sometimes mess with the device IDs so you're stuck with their release of the drivers. If it's an entirely stock chipset, any modern Catalyst driver will be able to talk to that card.

by gtaylor 13y ago

dmm 13y ago

Just use the in-kernel free drivers. They have improved immensely the past few years. The Radeon HD 5870 is called 'Evergreen', you can check out the feature support here: http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/RadeonFeature http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/RadeonFeature In my experience the free drivers have slightly slower 3d performance and much faster 2d performance.

tribaal 13y ago
That matrix is impressively green! Thanks for sharing.
gtaylor 13y ago
As mentioned in the initial comment, this isn't an option for me.
- dmm 13y ago
  I don't see that mentioned.
VMG 13y ago
Still hit and miss though. Bought a laptop that even had somewhat decent 3d acceleration, but would horribly lag on 2d terminal output. Returned it and been using Intel and Nvidia exclusively now - no problems whatsoever.
- mhurron 13y ago
  There are some things that can be done to fix that - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Radeon#Slow_performance_with_open-source_drivers https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Radeon#Slow_performance...
  - VMG 13y ago
    I tinkered around for a few hours and gave up. Not worth my time.

edwintorok 13y ago

The reason I bought an ATI card _is_ that it had open-source drivers. Is there any reason you "have" to use the proprietary driver? (besides better performance for games, which I assume is not what you are after since you mentioned getting serious work done...)

gtaylor 13y ago
I spend 99% of my time in Linux, so there is some gaming there as well, especially now that there are a lot of great titles with support on Steam. I rarely ever boot into Windows anymore, mostly for games that I can't play on Linux (or can't play well on Linux). If I wanted something for work only and wanted to use open source drivers, I'd buy Intel or nvidia now. The ATI 5870 exists to drive up to six monitors over displayport under EyeFinity, so this was as much of a work investment as it was a play investment (it's great for both). I want to be able to work AND play with this card that I paid good money for. The binary drivers are officially supported, and with that label comes some expectation of quality. Perhaps my expectations are unreasonable, but I've been very disappointed with the quality.
- dmm 13y ago
  > The ATI 5870 exists to drive up to six monitors over displayport under EyeFinity Are you saying the open source driver cannot drive size monitors?
  - gtaylor 13y ago
    It does a pretty poor job with multiple monitors + OpenGL. Lots of pixels to push. I didn't try to get EyeFinity working, but that's probably out of the question as well.
nshepperd 13y ago
Maybe they're doing CAD, or other 3D modelling of some kind?

ris 13y ago

Why are you using the proprietary drivers? Is it just the lingering "got to run around finding drivers to install" windows mindset?

jnbiche 13y ago
If he's doing serious work, then he's probably using OpenCL, and as far as I am aware, the Gallium drivers do not yet fully support OpenCL. When I checked earlier this year, they were getting close, but not yet usable. Has this changed? Can I finally get rid of the proprietary ATI drivers and still run OpenCL reliably?
- ris 13y ago
  "If he's doing serious work, then he's probably using OpenCL" He doesn't indicate that at all, and I assumed if he were doing "Serious OpenCL work" he'd be using a later-generation card.
  - foxhill 13y ago
    5870 has a theoretical peak of 2.7 tflops, a GTX680 has a theoretical peak of 3.1 tflops. even a 7970 has a peak of 3.8 tflops. you can argue (successfully) that it's much easier to achieve a high proportion of peak on GCN cards, but CL code tuned for a 5870s isn't going to be exactly sluggish.

ociredon 13y ago

I get the a similar bug where the cursor gets mangled when swapping monitors on Windows also.

gtaylor 13y ago
wow, that stinks. I've never ran into it on my Windows 7 partition. I think I'd be even more irate if I did, though. Hate to pay top dollar for a high end card, only to see stuff like that on the platform is was more or less specifically targeted at.

RyanZAG 13y ago

> as well as a lot of fun bugs (like my cursor randomly turning into a 20x50 block of randomly colored pixels when moving between monitors). This bug also occurs occasionally on Windows with the ATI drivers, it is not a Linux specific bug.

Ziomislaw 13y ago

I have the same opinion on ATI, but on windows. I use radeon hd 6630M (switchable graphics), with drivers from 2011, because they never bothered to release an update. Effect? I'm getting artifacts/BSOD when try to play games. Fortunately I can switch to intel.

eropple 13y ago
> I have the same opinion on ATI, but on windows. I use radeon hd 6630M (switchable graphics), with drivers from 2011, because they never bothered to release an update. Careful about tagging AMD on that. Mobile manufacturers often repackage the drivers and sometimes mess with the device IDs so you're stuck with their release of the drivers. If it's an entirely stock chipset, any modern Catalyst driver will be able to talk to that card.