ATI radeon hd4570

spoonbadger

512mb graphics chip in my Dell studio 15. Anyone found a way to get this line of laptop ATI chips to behave nicely in linux without overheating? With the open source drivers, the fan is spinning full-time to keep it at a normal temp. With the catalyst drivers, it just doesn't seem to want to work at all. On the older versions of X i would get pants 3D acceleration and current versions just black-screen on boot.

Anyone had any luck with the ATI hd4xxx laptop range?

PrzemoF

No idea how advanced you are, but there are some options:
1. get the newest kernel/xorg/xorg drivers from a git repository and check if that helps. If you're not sure what I'm talking about just forget about this option.
2. get a ubuntu/mint/fedora/whatever distro livecd and check if the problem is still the same
3. Tha latest Catalyst driver version is 11.5? What is yours?


P.S. I don't have that card, but I'm going to buy a laptop with a radeon HD4xxx series card soon, so I'm very interested to make it work :-)

PrzemoF

I've an oooold ati X1600 and it works fine :-)

Hal Emmerich

OSI wrote: »

To be honest ATI+Linux=A lot of hurt

:eek:
Does Linux work properly with any graphics cards??

Naikon

The ATI Open Source drivers are FAR better quality than the reverse open source nvidia jobs. The RadeonHD driver is much higher quality and integrates well with Xorg extensions such as Xrandr, unlike the nvidia blobs. I actually avoid nvidia hardware these days, due to their reluctance to release specs.

Nvidia isn't doing Linux many favours imo. The quality solutions for Linux(and Unix likes in general) are the Intel and Radeon cards. Intel offers the best quality for 3D under Linux as far as I am concerned. Raw Performance isn't the only factor here. If you want brilliant 3D performance, you should be running Windows, not Linux.

AFAIK - The only proper cards that work under the less well known Unix like OS's are the intel and radeon cards via drm + Mesa3D. Nvidia blobs are causing more trouble than they are worth imo. Longterm - nvidia is bad for Linux/Unix in general. I can say that without any real hesitation.

Naikon

OSI wrote: »

Which is why you use the manufacturers drivers. In which the nvidia ones are far far better than either of the manufacturers opensource drivers or ATI's proprietary drivers. I'm yet to find a driver/card combo from ATI that doesn't give at least some compiz errors and crap perfomance.

They are only better when it comes to performance. The open source drivers cannot match the performance of the blobs due to the simple fact that the open source drivers are developed and maintained by people not holding intricate details of the specs and patents over optimization algorithms. Reverse engineering graphics hardware without any help whatsoever must be no mean feat. The open source drivers are already gaining on the closed drivers.

I am not going to say you should use one over the other, but I am not joking when I say the blob drivers are actually poorer in quality when it comes to integration with traditional Xorg components like Xrandr. Kernel mode setting is broken with the blobs, and nvidia refuse to co-operate. 2D acceleration is another minus for the blobs. Xinerama for is broken with the blob drivers under Ubuntu: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=10938828

Not to mention the blobs can not be audited, thus leading to situations like this: http://kerneltrap.org/node/7228

Short term, the blobs are the fastest we have, but they do not integrate with the Linux/Open source eco system. Having to reinstall your graphics drivers after a kernel upgrade is another windowism I can do without. Binary drivers are not the best solution imo. As supporters of Open source, we should actively discourage their use in the future. Nvidia won't be around forever.

Performance is poor in comparison to the blobs right now, so use Nvidia's drivers. However, I still stand by my long term advice: We need to start looking away from these drivers in the future, because Linux has no stable ABI, unlike Solaris or Windows. A lack of stable ABI is a disaster when it comes to binary driver support. A massive headache for everyone involved. Binaries die with the host system, whereas source code lives on.

croo

nVidia cards have historically offered good support but their new range of optimus based cards [that switch between the nvidia card and an integrated graphics process on the CPU] have no support on linux and nVidia say they have no plans to offer support either. So while until recently I would have always gone for the nvidia card myself but that has all changed now. We have the added issue that since nvidia did offer closed source drivers many (most) went that route so the open source solution is not as well advanced. Now we see the downside to relying on the binary drivers from nvidia!

Naikon

croo wrote: »

nVidia cards have historically offered good support but their new range of optimus based cards [that switch between the nvidia card and an integrated graphics process on the CPU] have no support on linux and nVidia say they have no plans to offer support either. So while until recently I would have always gone for the nvidia card myself but that has all changed now. We have the added issue that since nvidia did offer closed source drivers many (most) went that route so the open source solution is not as well advanced. Now we see the downside to relying on the binary drivers from nvidia!

What you are really doing with the nvidia drivers today - you are renting your graphics card. Once nvidia pulls the plug on your card, you have a paper weight in front of you. There is STILL some 3d support for old SIS/ATI cards from the late 90's in modern versions of Linux! Try getting one of those cards working with a vendor binary driver under windows 7 - not going to happen. Ever.