Phoronix wrote:AMD Catalyst 8.6 Linux Driver
AMD Catalyst 8.6 Linux

In AMD's usual fashion, this afternoon they have announced the release of new display drivers for both Linux and Windows. The Catalyst 8.6 release for Linux introduces a few bug fixes, version 2.0 of their driver installation API, and a few unannounced features are present. As always, we have the run-down for you on this month's changes.

Starting with the fixes for Catalyst 8.6 / fglrx 8.50 there are just a couple. The Linux fixes address corruption issues with full-screen OpenGL games, the system no longer hanging when logging-out with AIGLX enabled, a partially black screen after switching monitors on the RS780 / Radeon HD 3200, corruption in second server generation with some ASICs, X server crash while launching the AMD Catalyst Control Center on RHEL-4 x86_64 with a Radeon R520GL, and lastly is vsync not working properly in OpenGL. The Linux release notes mention a total of 21 issues resolved.

As is the case almost every month, the distribution packaging scripts for ATI's driver build / installation process have been updated. This month, however, Catalyst 8.6 brings their second-generation API for this installer. Version 2 of this driver package builder contains a number of enhancements, which will benefit both the package maintainers and end-users. Packaging script maintainers can now utilize an option for automating the installation process. On supported distributions, the user can simply run driver-title.run --buildandinstallpkg and it will not only build the driver package(s) but will proceed to install them using your distribution's package management system.

With version 2 of this API, end-users can now just call --buildpkg (or --buildandinstallpkg) without having to supply the distribution name/release and Catalyst suite will automatically attempt to determine this info. The main distribution to already have updated packaging scripts that comply with this new API is Ubuntu. Over the coming months, more of these packaging scripts should be updated as well.

That covers the official changes within Catalyst 8.6; however, that's not the exhaustive change-log. This driver is about 3MB larger than Catalyst 8.5 as it introduces some new yet-to-be-announced modules and other work. One of these is amdxmm. In addition, with X-Video there are now four available video formats available, and two of those are UYVY and YUV2. The YUV2 is great for those using MythTV and TVTime. There's also other work underway with the ATI/AMD Linux driver and we will talk about that on another day.

Unlike some of the other Catalyst earlier releases this year, Catalyst 8.6 is a rather interesting beast. It includes version 2.0 of their new packaging/driver installation API, a few bug fixes, and other important work. To the dismay of some users, Catalyst 8.6 for Linux doesn't support the Linux 2.6.26 kernel or X.Org 7.4 (X Server 1.5).

phoronix wrote:AMD Makes An Evolutionary Leap In Linux Support

Less than a year ago we shared with you the revolutionary steps AMD was taking to deliver significant improvements to their once infamous proprietary Linux display driver and at the same time the work they were doing to foster the growth of an open-source driver for their latest graphics card families. These steps have certainly paid off for both AMD and the Linux community at large. AMD's proprietary driver is now on par with NVIDIA's Linux driver and there are two open-source ATI drivers picking up new features and improvements on an almost daily basis. AMD also continues to publish new programming guides and register information on a routine basis for their latest and greatest hardware. This has been truly phenomenal to see, but AMD has now evolved their Linux support by taking it a large step further. AMD is in the process of pushing new high-end features into their Linux driver -- such as Multi-GPU CrossFire support -- and with the ATI Radeon HD 4850 they have even begun showing off Tux, the Linux mascot, on their product packaging and providing Linux drivers on their product CDs!

While AMD has been making great strides in both their open and closed source investments, their performance-oriented proprietary driver isn't yet feature equivalent to the Windows Catalyst Suite and they have had problems delivering same-day (or close to same-day) Linux support when introducing new graphics processor generations. As of late they have been able to deliver same-month support for their new products that are just minor revisions within a series, but when introducing the Radeon X1000 "R500" series it had took a staggering seven months for any level of Linux support. Most recently, when the Radeon HD 2000 "R600" series was released, it had taken AMD about six months for any level of support. Today though we are excited to share that all of this should be an issue of the past. AMD has not only provided same-day support for their just-announced Radeon HD 4800 "RV770" series, but they're now beginning to ship the Linux drivers on the retail CDs included with these newest graphics cards. In addition, AMD is very close to reaching feature parity between their Windows and Linux drivers.

In the past when ATI introduced GPUs in a brand new product family it had taken months for support as there wasn't much code being shared between the two drivers. Since last year when the new OpenGL driver was introduced, a majority of the code is now shared between the Windows and Linux drivers. This code-sharing design is similar to NVIDIA's where they have been using much of the same code within the Windows/Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris drivers except for the platform-specific bits. NVIDIA has generally had a good record of delivering Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris product support within days of their new product launch. However, NVIDIA's first-cut Linux support has been a bit problematic as of late -- most notably when the GeForce 8 series was introduced and its performance issues as well as other bug

phoronix.com wrote:[justify]ATI Radeon HD 4850 Linux Performance

Last week we exclusively shared the steps AMD was taking to make an evolutionary leap in Linux support with
same-day support for their brand-new Radeon HD 4800 series, Linux drivers shipping on the product CD, some
manufacturers showcasing Tux on the product packaging, and their proprietary Linux driver reaching a feature
parity with their Windows driver. We had also shared that the Radeon HD 4850 works with open-source
xf86-video-ati driver since day one. Now that we have had time to complete testing of the Radeon HD 4850,
today we are sharing the first Linux results from this brand-new ATI graphics processor. Before you think the
Windows and Linux performance is equal for the Radeon HD 4800 series, this isn't the case, at least not yet.

[ATI Radeon HD 4850 Linux Performance]

While you are likely already familiar with the ATI Radeon 4800 series, it's the industry's first TeraFLOPS GPU,
the RV770 contains 800 stream processors, and the Radeon 4870 is the first graphics card deploying GDDR5.
The Radeon HD 4850 has its RV770 core clocked at 625MHz with 110W power consumption while its big brother,
the Radeon HD 4870, is clocked at 750MHz and has 1.2 TeraFLOPS of computing power, but its maximum power
consumption is 160W. Both of these new graphics cards have 512MB of video memory, however, some AIB
partners may opt for using 1GB. Other features include a PCI Express 2.0 x16 interface, Unified Superscalar
Shader Architecture, Avivo HD, OpenGL 2.0 support, ATI PowerPlay, and CrossFireX Multi-GPU Technology. Making up
the RV770 core are 956 million transistors on a 55nm fabrication process.

[ATI Radeon HD 4850 Linux Performance]

As we have been sharing since last week, AMD has made an evolutionary leap in Linux support with the Radeon
HD 4800 series. Tux is part of AMD's licensed product package graphics, Linux drivers are shipping on the product
CDs, and there is same-day support for the Radeon HD 4850/4870 on Linux with fglrx 8.50 / Catalyst 8.6. In fact,
the support has been available before the graphics cards officially launched. Catalyst 8.6 is the driver that
introduces proper support for the Radeon HD 4800 series, and it was released on June 18. Both the Radeon HD
4850 and Radeon HD 4870 were scheduled to be released on June 25, but the 4850 launch ended up occurring on
June 19. The xf86-video-ati driver has even supported the Radeon HD 4800 series from the start due to its use of
the AtomBIOS abstraction layer.[/justify]