Member Avatar for TheNNS

since ati has the linux drivers for my video card(ati radeon 9200), does that mean it can run all the eye candy and stuff?
thanks for your help.

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Dani AI

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Short answer: not automatically. The Radeon 9200 is an R200-era (RV280) card with limited GL/shader features and small VRAM, so while it can run simple compositing and older OpenGL apps, it won’t deliver the full set of modern “Aero/Compiz” effects or smooth performance you’d expect from a newer GPU. (techpowerup.com)

Why people in this thread see mixed results: driver and stack differences. ATI/AMD’s proprietary Linux driver historically supported some R200 cards but vendor support for R200 was removed in later Catalyst/fglrx releases, so a 9200 only worked with particular older fglrx versions (or with the open-source driver). Trying to install an old fglrx on a newer kernel/X server often breaks things. That explains reports that games might run but compositing does not. (thinkwiki.org)

Practical path to check and to get whatever effects are possible: prefer the open-source radeon + Mesa + DRI route (it’s more maintainable), and verify what’s actually accelerated on the machine. Useful commands:

lspci -nnk | grep -A3 -i vga
glxinfo | grep -i direct
grep -i driver /var/log/Xorg.0.log
lsmod | egrep 'radeon|fglrx'

If glxinfo reports “direct rendering: Yes” and the renderer is the card (not llvmpipe), basic compositing (AIGLX/Compiz) is possible but some effects that need GLSL/OpenGL 2.0 won’t be. (help.ubuntu.com)

Recommendation: for reliable full-featured desktop effects, use a GPU with OpenGL 2.0+/GLSL (R300/9500-series and newer) or a modern card with supported proprietary drivers. If keeping the 9200, stick to the open driver, accept limited effects, and avoid mixing very old fglrx packages with current kernels/Xorg. (en.wikipedia.org)

Notes tied to the thread: the differing reports from , , , and mirror these driver/version issues — when compositing fails while games run, it’s almost always a driver or GL-extension gap rather than the window manager itself.

Recommended Answers

All 26 Replies

Member Avatar for John A

Yup.

Member Avatar for jbennet

it doesnt work for my x600 :(

Member Avatar for John A

Perhaps you misconfigured your drivers? It seems like ATI's got full support for it on their driver page.

Member Avatar for DimaYasny

I'm no ATI expert, but isn't x600 a simple card, without a serious accelerator?

Member Avatar for jbennet

it plays farcry just fine

Member Avatar for DimaYasny

whatever farcry is ;) I'm not a gamer mate :)
what we use here is NVIDIA Quadro 1500 mostly, because they are much better than anything ATI-made for our kind of graphics - high volume 3D COP processing

Member Avatar for TheNNS

That rocks, thanks guys.
Who needs vista when you have XGL?
linux rocks

Member Avatar for jbennet

farcry is (although FEAR is now becoming more popular) a game used for real life (gaming) benchmarks

card has no probs with games / cad on medium settings so wtf wont it run XGL or Aero!

Member Avatar for DimaYasny

bash/ksh/csh man, everything else is eye-candy :)))

Member Avatar for TheNNS

i've had so many porblems with my ati card, i love nvidia.

Member Avatar for jbennet

bash/ksh/csh man, everything else is eye-candy :)))

i like mc. it reminds me of the DOS shell of my childhood

Member Avatar for John A

>i've had so many porblems with my ati card, i love nvidia.
That's rather odd, although Nvidia tends to be higher-end than ATI, it seems that they have more vertex shader problems than ATI. I've seen several programmers complain that their vertex shaders look great on ATI cards, but turn into "polygon soup" on Nvidias.

Member Avatar for TheNNS

I've just never been able to work well with linux on an ait, but nvidia just works so well.

Member Avatar for DimaYasny

i like mc. it reminds me of the DOS shell of my childhood

you mean it reminds you of Norton Commander/Volkov Commander? ;)

Member Avatar for jbennet

no, the ms dos shell with its lovely blue colour scheem.

Member Avatar for TheNNS

anybody tried freedos? i can't even download it because there's too much traffic.

Member Avatar for jbennet

I dont like it. Has anyone tried the Windows XP Powershell by the way?

Imagine BASH for XP. Thats basically it. It rocks, full scripting support and most POSIX commands work.

Member Avatar for TheNNS

it's pretty cool, i tried it and it works well.

Member Avatar for alienlinux

ATI are crap when it comes to Linux support, and I don't say that lightly, I'm a die hard 3DFX user and I still hate Nvidia for shelving the company, but even I have had to change all my cards to Nvidia because the drivers are buggy. just ask the developers of video players what graphics card is best and they'll say Nvidia. i don't know their current stance, but mplayer hated anyone even asking for support if they were using ati lol

Member Avatar for jbennet

I have a radeon x800 and i have full linux support

Member Avatar for alienlinux

I have a radeon x800 and i have full linux support

your lucky, what gets me mad about them is they dropped support from <9600 even though directx10 had hardly even come out

why is that then? not that the 9200 can't handle any of the games thats for sure, i have a fx5200 now and it rocks at doom3 etc but i can't use the better 9200 as ati don't support <9600 any more and i have to use an older xorg to support it

i think it's rediculous, i can't speak for other ATI cards but the 9200 is fully directx 9.0c compatible and certainly not in any need of upgrading just yet

it's all the money issue again, resources to make drivers, and i say this to all companies! if your going to stop support on a driver, for the love of mercy RELEASE THE CODE!!!!!!!!!!

Member Avatar for DimaYasny

stick with nvidia guys, ATI are known for troublesome drivers

Member Avatar for alienlinux

stick with nvidia guys, ATI are known for troublesome drivers

thats well known, least of all to me, but it's also kind of irellavent as i am poor and have little choice in the matter as it's the only card i have with tv-out
My main box does have an nvidia

Member Avatar for TheNNS

i agree, ati sucks.

Member Avatar for jbennet

my dad just baught a new dell pc (with vista arrgh) and it has a geforce 7 something. Its totally passively cooled?

Member Avatar for TheNNS

i want to get the 8800 gtx turbo, overclocked with custom liquid cooling.

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