ATI Open Source Stack progress

[lmilano]

Hi,

I am running Lucid on a spare partition where I started with a clone of my current Karmic (just dist-upgrade)

I am interested in testing the open source graphics stack, because I hate using binary drivers and there is already 3D support for the most ubiquitous cards (Chipsets R600 and R700, they are labeled as MOSTLY working as of this writing):
http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

A big Caveat: ubuntu Lucid is a LTS so it will be one step behind with the graphics stack
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NzcxOQ

The short of it is that at this early stage 3D is working nicely in simple games like Tuxracer, but most of the more complex 3D engines like Unigine are not even loading (OTOH WoP works perfectly). Of course 2D is brilliant, even 2D acceleration, World of Goo works dandy, so does Hulu in HD.

Hardware: Phenom x3 2650 20% OC'ed and Radeon HD 3450, and a modest 1280x1024 monitor.

Anyone interested in this topic is welcome to contribute here. We should start a launchpad report if we get a set of issues that can be reproduced in different machines.

Cheers!

Additional resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R600
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R700

[sithlord48]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

This is Great News!.

[lmilano]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

Indeed! Everything we run in the family desktop is running great, and in general much more stable than with fglrx (catalyst). For example, Secret Maryo produces an XServer crash when exiting in Karmic/fglrx, but it is rock solid in Lucid/radeon

3D performance is not nearly as good it seems (although it's fine for the apps I run), at least for now. For example, I am getting about 30-35fps in tux extreme racer in lucid, and typically a little more than 100 in karmic (same settings). Also: desktop effects seem a lot more stable. But, because they degrade performance and I have a pretty low specs graphics card, it doesn't make sense to keep them on.

I am thinking this release will be very stable and certainly usable, and 10.10 will add performance on top of that (there are many interesting developments in kernel 2.6.33 and in the latest mesa, neither of which will go in Lucid).

[sithlord48]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

10.10 should be good, 2.6.33 finally among a lot of other good has the k10 thermial driver.

if i can get lucid working i will try the open driver first for my card (HD4830)

[Untitled]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

Disclaimer: I'm not a gamer. Nothing at all.

I do see the radeon drivers getting better all the time. My work pc has a FireMV 2250 card which produced garbled icons and things like that when using radeon up to now (whatever the distro), but it's all very smooth with Lucid.
My home laptop uses the Mobility Radeon HD 3650 card which has been working using the radeon driver but I can also see it improving, although it still has problem rendering things like window shadows, sometimes.
As for performance, I really prefer using radeon than fglrx since it seems to use much less RAM on my computers and some things work better, like resizing windows. Painfully slow with fglrx, perfect with radeon.

What really impressed me with Lucid is the dual screen support. Previously, when using radeon, I had to to set up an xorg.file to be able to get that and when I got that right get it working using xrandr. In Lucid (and the latest Xorg and KDE developments) I install the machine, go to the Display in System Settings and set my dual screen... and I'm good to go. Unfortunately it's not persistent yet so still have to write an custom script, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before it will be done.

[lmilano]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

@Untitled: thanks for the feedback! Yes, there is a bug report in launchpad about setting dual monitors in extended more in Kubuntu, and the short of it is that it is coming in Lucid

I am curious, when you say "In Lucid (and the latest Xorg and KDE developments)", do you mean that Lucid comes with the latest Xorg and KDE? Or do you add custom repositories to get the latest Xorg? Note that KDE is at the latest version, but Xorg, kernel and Mesa are all one step behind bleeding edge (because this is a Long Term Support release and stability is more valued than features).

[Untitled]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

Sorry, should have used "recent" instead of "latest" and I'm using xorg that comes Lucid.

[lmilano]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

Hey, no worries, I was just curious.

Here is a nice experiment: I tried the 2.6.33rc5 kernel (mainline kernel ppa), and I got a nice performance boost in Tux Racer. This is on a new 1920x1080 monitor I just bought, video set at max resolution. Here are the numbers:

Karmic, fglrx: ~ 75 fps
Lucid, Opensource: ~ 15 fps
Lucid, Opensource, 2.6.33rc5: ~ 22 fps

Of course kernel and graphics are pretty much interrelated these days, and the newer kernel is giving roughly a 30% performance increase. I may end up using that kernel for Lucid, I really don't need any binary blobs in this machine. Of course performance will improve very significantly for 10.10, and hopefully some improvements will be backported to the Lucid graphics stack in the next couple months. I'll keep testing every once in a while.

I am so happy that a lowly card like the 2450 gives me flawless HD video in 1080p and decent 3D, all without any binary mess, in an HD 21.5 inch monitor.

Come on NVIDIA, you are the only one left in the dark ages. Both Intel and AMD already went open source

[lmilano]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

Hi, I ran more accurate tests, and it is along the same lines:
http://global.phoronix-test-suite.co...483-2293-23385

It is about 5 times slower here for 3D. I think 2D is comparable, I've seen some tests in the past where 2D performance is actually better with the open source drivers ...

[sithlord48]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

i think in due time the open stack will work just as good if not better then the current closed driver

my hd4830 runs (when comparied to the xp driver) about 30% slower over all in both 2 and 3 D renderings.. but the card is still more then enuff to do everything i need.. except when i have several programs trying to render stuff w/ openGl....

[lmilano]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

i think in due time the open stack will work just as good if not better then the current closed driver

my hd4830 runs (when comparied to the xp driver) about 30% slower over all in both 2 and 3 D renderings.. but the card is still more then enuff to do everything i need.. except when i have several programs trying to render stuff w/ openGl....

Yes, I think I ran the worst possible test (racing game).
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showt...d=1#post111762

Some other 3D is supposed to be much faster, I think I'll try to come up with a more balanced test of 2D/#D and test it better.

[lmilano]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

Good news! I reported a bug and it was fixed immediately
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...re/+bug/521737

The fix brings KMS not only to the mainline kernel, but also to the Lucid official kernel:
http://global.phoronix-test-suite.co...63-31033-29346

I was getting 16.7 fps in WoP with UMS before the fix (first test on the LHS), and now I am getting 19.10 fps (this the 4-KMS test on the RHS). Of course, the binary drivers are still a lot better, but my computer is fully usable in Lucid for all my needs with open source, which makes me quite happy!

[sithlord48]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

nice. when a bug that get found thats good..but its even better when its squashed.

[lmilano]

Re: ATI Open Source Stack progress

nice. when a bug that get found thats good..but its even better when its squashed.

Yes, that was pretty awesome work by the Canonical guys, and the xorg-radeon guys, too!