is ati for linux worth the wait?

[frontwards]

i just installed fedora core 3 about a week ago, and i've been really pleased so far. my only complaint is that the ati-fglrx isn't available for whatever X server that FC3 uses by default. this has really been bothering me lately, i have a nice video card (radeon 9800 pro) but i can't even play tux racer. i installed FC3 on my little brothers computer and downloaded the nvidia-glx package using yum, and everything worked fine. is ati gonna release something anytime soon? the next time i upgrade my X server will i have to wait around for ati again? i really just want to get an nvidia card, even if i have to downgrade. what do you guys think? will ati eventually be quicker with making drivers for linux?

 

[n0cmonkey]

I gave up on the thought of ATI releasing something decent a long time ago. I still hope nVidia gets off their butts to release something decent though.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I gave up on the thought of ATI releasing something decent a long time ago. I still hope nVidia gets off their butts to release something decent though.

Yep. To bad, too. Nvidia and ATI are nice cards.

How long till they realise that people buy their cards for the cards and not for their drivers? Even if they release (proper) drivers only to obtain support needed for the standard OpenGL stuff and nothing extra, I'd be happy.

But that being said you can probably install ATI's drivers on Fedora using the src rpms. ati howto from linux-gamers

Personally I would be looking for somebody with a comparable Nvidia card willing to swap it with you.

 

[Spencer278]

ATI will have linux drivers that work out in time for the release of Duke Nukem Forever

 

[frontwards]

Originally posted by: drag
Personally I would be looking for somebody with a comparable Nvidia card willing to swap it with you.

what would be a comparable nvidia card to the 9800 pro?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: frontwards

Originally posted by: drag
Personally I would be looking for somebody with a comparable Nvidia card willing to swap it with you.

what would be a comparable nvidia card to the 9800 pro?

6600's shouldn't be too much...

 

[drag]

6600 would be nice.

anything around 5900 or newer would have similar performance in windows and would own it in Linux (ati drivers are especially bad). Just depends on what you can find.

look at the reviews with benchmarks and pricing at newegg..

 

[frontwards]

thanks guys.

 

[WobbleWobble]

ATI just released new Linux drivers here.

These are a couple days old. FC3 uses X.Org and the previous driver did work under X.Org, but not without knowing some limitations. ATI's fglrxconfig tool previously didn't write to the xorg.conf file like it was supposed to. That's why the driver didn't work under X.Org. Since you already have the hardware, give these new drivers a shot.

BTW, Livna has the ATI drivers in their repository. You'll have to add Livna if you want a package manager to help you autoinstall.

 

[bersl2]

Would that either would, at the very least, release the documentation necessary to make our own drivers. ATI used to do this, so anything up to the 9200 series has completely open 3D drivers.

There was discussion on /. about future X servers possibly using hardware acceleration in the same way as OS X does now and Longhorn will. The benefit of this is lost without dependable drivers, and I'd feel a lot more comfortable about the idea if we had good open ones.