Needing Some ATI Help

[bobross419]

I finally have the chance to move over to Linux full time. I'm down to only 1 game (World of Tanks) and it seems to run reasonably well on Linux, except for horrible FPS and a slightly higher ping than Windows.

To start...

System Specs:

CPU - Intel Q9550 @ stock
RAM - 8GB Generic Dell 800
GPU - ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
Mobo - Gigabyte EP45-UD3L
O/S - Ubuntu 11.04

$ fglrxinfo
display: :0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series         
OpenGL version string: 3.3.10834 Compatibility Profile Context

(if more is needed let me know)

I started with the proprietary fglrx drivers offered in Additional Drivers. I immediately found that my FPS in WoT was hovering between 10 and 20 fps at lowest settings - Compared to Windows having 50-70 fps at mid-high settings.

I then ripped out the fglrx drivers and tried the open source ati and radeon drivers, but received some seriously crazy graphical stuff and reinstalled fglrx. I searched around for a good 10 hours for ATI graphics tweaks on Linux without really finding anything useful. What I did find was a reference to something called fgl_gears. So I ran this to see what I was getting:

$ fgl_glxgears
Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
268 frames in 5.0 seconds = 53.600 FPS  ** I moved the window right here
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.000 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.000 FPS
299 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.800 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.000 FPS
~$ glxgears
301 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.177 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.934 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.934 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.933 FPS

My dilemma is that the results I was seeing from other people online were in the triple digits for FPS in fgl_gears and most were using hardware that is blown away by the 4870.

I then decided to try the most recent drivers available from ATI, uninstalled fglrx and installed directly from the ATI website - No change.

I'm hoping for some help with this. I'd really like to move over to Linux full time as that is the only way that I'm going to be able to get the working knowledge that I really want. After a few botches with some other distros, fighting with wine, configuring stuff... I'm at about 40 hours into this 'project' and I'm hoping that you guys can point me in the right direction.

I understand that there will be a drop in FPS when gaming due to wine and drivers that just aren't as good, but I would still expect to see 30-40 which would make my game playable.

Dual booting just isn't an option for me. Vista takes about 3 minutes or more to boot and I have plenty of downtime while working where I want to play.

If anyone has any recommendations on where to go next please let me know.

I still haven't found any good information comparing the open source ati/radeon drivers and the proprietary fglrx drivers - the stuff I have found all seems to be a few years out of date and most dealing with 9800pro and the like. radeonhd drivers looked promising but they have been deprecated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Rifter]

Go Nvidia, they have way better linux drivers, its that simple.

I dual boot windows and linux and owned a 4890 before my current 460 SLI setup and experianced horrible jumps and dips in performance from driver release to driver release with the 4890.

On windows ATI and Nvidia have very similer driver performance but on the linux side Nvidia is miles ahead.

Edit, also dual booting is not so bad, get a SSD and win7 will boot in under 15 seconds.

 

[bobross419]

Thanks for the suggestion Rift, the thought to switch to nVidia has crossed my mind, but it just isn't doable for me right now.