For r600 hw, Radeon driver is better than Catalyst in all but two aspects: OpenGL version supported 3.3 vs 4.2 and performance for low-end and high-end GPUs (comes mainly due to highly tuned memory management in Catalyst, something which takes time to acheave).
r600g on the other hand have better: * responsivenes - google "catalyst lag input" * video decode support - exposed via VDPAU api which is supported by all big media players * wine support - Catalyst is horrible here
r600g is name for driver for r600 hardware -> radeon 4000 - 6000, APUs up to Trinity. Catalyst as a name cover wide range of hardware generations and just "Radeon" is good equivalent, however newer GCN based GPU's are served by radeonSI driver, which is quite fresh, and require cutting edge code, litterarly from under hands of AMD developers ;) (Though all the major Linux distros should have precompiled kernel/drm/mesa packages so its not hard)
Even some game devs starts to recommend r600g over Catalyst. So this PR statement is quite significant.
The problem I have with the open source driver on my 7970 is that it doesn't slow the fan down to 20% from its boot speed of 35%. The gentle fan noise I get at idle with the open drivers drives me crazy and unlike Catalyst there doesn't seem to be a way to control the fan speed at all.
7970 is GCN, right? It got power(and hence fan) management identical to Catalyst only recently. Make sure that You use required version of kernel. (And that You have DPM turned on)
Yep, that's with DPM turned on. The GPU sits in its lowest power state and idles at nice cool temperatures, but the drivers don't slow the fans down to match.
Kernel with drm-next then? DPM work for GCN GPUs is still ongoing. Bugs are worked on, etc. Give me Your distribution name and I maybe I can even find some repo with daily builds of kernel.
I'm glad they are working on it. However in my case it's a bit too late, I just bought an Nvidia card to replace my Radeon as the open source driver was not able to configure a triple monitor setup and the proprietary driver produced a constant stream of various memory management stack traces in the kernel log.
It should be OpenGL 3.3 (And OpenGL ES 3.0). Not 4.3. Nobody in OSS camp support more than 3.3. Only some extensions. (List of what is supported by extension and OpenGL version can be found here: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/tree/docs/GL...
Radeon driver support 6 extensions from 4.3 though.
Unfortunately AMD still has their hands tied with Enduro platforms. From my understanding you can't even install these drivers on an Enduro platform. I wish they could come up with a work around for those with systems that aren't able to physically disable the Intel integrated video. Mantle works with certain high end mobile cards but not on an Enduro platform. It's very frustrating.
Unfortunatly, both AMD, and Nvidia treat their integration with Intel GPUs as secret sausce that must be kept secret, and on top of that Intel do not support mantle yet (so no idea how much sense, coop between OGL/DX on intel and Mantle on AMD would make).
Funny enought on the Radeon side of things, AMD works together with Intel on some good solutions (but for OGL/Crossfire like solutions. Mantle should mean even lower lever communication, but maybe not. No public Mantle docs yet.)
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przemo_li - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
OK.Quick comment on Linux Radeon driver.
For r600 hw, Radeon driver is better than Catalyst in all but two aspects: OpenGL version supported 3.3 vs 4.2 and performance for low-end and high-end GPUs (comes mainly due to highly tuned memory management in Catalyst, something which takes time to acheave).
r600g on the other hand have better:
* responsivenes - google "catalyst lag input"
* video decode support - exposed via VDPAU api which is supported by all big media players
* wine support - Catalyst is horrible here
r600g is name for driver for r600 hardware -> radeon 4000 - 6000, APUs up to Trinity.
Catalyst as a name cover wide range of hardware generations and just "Radeon" is good equivalent, however newer GCN based GPU's are served by radeonSI driver, which is quite fresh, and require cutting edge code, litterarly from under hands of AMD developers ;)
(Though all the major Linux distros should have precompiled kernel/drm/mesa packages so its not hard)
Even some game devs starts to recommend r600g over Catalyst. So this PR statement is quite significant.
przemo_li - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Or in shorter terms.Unless You have apps that refuse to work with OSS Radeon driver, its better to avoid Catalyst.*
* PRO market is ofc. different.
r3loaded - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
The problem I have with the open source driver on my 7970 is that it doesn't slow the fan down to 20% from its boot speed of 35%. The gentle fan noise I get at idle with the open drivers drives me crazy and unlike Catalyst there doesn't seem to be a way to control the fan speed at all.przemo_li - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
7970 is GCN, right? It got power(and hence fan) management identical to Catalyst only recently. Make sure that You use required version of kernel. (And that You have DPM turned on)r3loaded - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Yep, that's with DPM turned on. The GPU sits in its lowest power state and idles at nice cool temperatures, but the drivers don't slow the fans down to match.przemo_li - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Kernel with drm-next then? DPM work for GCN GPUs is still ongoing. Bugs are worked on, etc. Give me Your distribution name and I maybe I can even find some repo with daily builds of kernel.r3loaded - Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - link
I'm using Arch, so I guess I'll try the linux-mainline package?stepz - Wednesday, February 26, 2014 - link
I'm glad they are working on it. However in my case it's a bit too late, I just bought an Nvidia card to replace my Radeon as the open source driver was not able to configure a triple monitor setup and the proprietary driver produced a constant stream of various memory management stack traces in the kernel log.przemo_li - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Oh. And in that AMD anouncment there is typo.It should be OpenGL 3.3 (And OpenGL ES 3.0). Not 4.3. Nobody in OSS camp support more than 3.3. Only some extensions. (List of what is supported by extension and OpenGL version can be found here: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/tree/docs/GL...
Radeon driver support 6 extensions from 4.3 though.
przemo_li - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Hmm, and those docs...They contain all the information that AMD devs already put in code. So its nothing new, but just written properly. ;)
Woody - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Unfortunately AMD still has their hands tied with Enduro platforms. From my understanding you can't even install these drivers on an Enduro platform. I wish they could come up with a work around for those with systems that aren't able to physically disable the Intel integrated video. Mantle works with certain high end mobile cards but not on an Enduro platform. It's very frustrating.przemo_li - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Unfortunatly, both AMD, and Nvidia treat their integration with Intel GPUs as secret sausce that must be kept secret, and on top of that Intel do not support mantle yet (so no idea how much sense, coop between OGL/DX on intel and Mantle on AMD would make).Funny enought on the Radeon side of things, AMD works together with Intel on some good solutions (but for OGL/Crossfire like solutions. Mantle should mean even lower lever communication, but maybe not. No public Mantle docs yet.)
zivnix - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
I used to have 14.1 beta v1.6. Display driver version is still the same in 14.2 beta v1.3 (13.350.1005.0000). Is that normal?Flunk - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Depends, if you're not using a GCN-based card it could be that they're not changing the driver for older cards.The Von Matrices - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
Did you uninstall the old drivers first? The download page on AMD's site says that uninstalling the old drivers is required before updating.