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<font size=5 color="#0000FF"><b>Please REMOVE this address from your
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</font></b>At 10:20 AM 8/14/2006 -0400, you wrote:<br>
>On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 11:44:58PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier
wrote:<br>
>> I'm glad to hear that. ATI lost me as a customer after a
few too many<br>
>> disappointments. I was biased towards the home-town
team. Some<br>
>> things that I think I know:<br>
>> <br>
>> - the fastest 3d card with open source drivers, of any brand, is
the<br>
>> ATI Radeon 9250. Get them before they die of
old age.<br>
>> <br>
>> - In January, I needed a video card that supported Dual Link
DVI. At<br>
>> that time, reasonably-priced ATI x1000 family cards
(like the x1300)<br>
>> would not work in Linux with an open source
driver. Not even as a<br>
>> 2d card. (Well, the VESA driver could do it,
but only at<br>
>> resolutions wired into the cards BIOS extension, and
those did not<br>
>> include the resolutions I needed.) At the
time, 6 months after the<br>
>> product was released, ATI had not disclosed enough
about the new<br>
>> fiddly bits for 2d output to enable the open-source
Radeon driver to<br>
>> support these cards.<br>
>> <br>
>> - at that time, the ATI web site claimed that the proprietary
X<br>
>> drivers supported any card newer than the 9600 (I
think that was the<br>
>> number). Pre-sales support repeated this
misinformation. I bought<br>
>> nice fanless x1300 card and discovered the
mistake. Was the site<br>
>> corrected when I reported this? No.<br>
><br>
>This has unfortunately been very common for ATI over many
years. Try<br>
>getting a driver for a laptop with an ati chipset in it from
ati. If<br>
>your laptop maker doesn't care and doesn't update the drivers, too
bad.<br>
>ati doesn't make drivers for laptops for windows. For linux
they do<br>
>somewhat. I did find the omega drivers that someone else
manually puts<br>
>together using bits and pieces of ati's drivers for windows and
makes<br>
>them work with laptops. This really should not be someone's
hobby.<br>
>Nvidia has no problem providing drivers for laptops.<br>
><br>
>> - the open source drivers for nVidia cards are limited to
2d.<br>
><br>
>They do however usually work with new cards fairly quickly.<br>
><br>
>> He is asking for approval because an NDA is involved. He
does claim<br>
>> that nothing scary is revealed in the code.<br>
>> <br>
>> Maybe somebody inside ATI could champion this (you know who you
are).<br>
>> Many of us would be willing to help.<br>
><br>
>Well I did see this:<br>
><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/02/32OPcurve_1.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/02/32OPcurve_1.html</a><br>
>One can always hope there is some truth to that.<br>
><br>
>> A decade ago I tried to talk to some ATI engineers that I had
met, but<br>
>> there no interest.<br>
>> <br>
>> Intel is the best player, as far as revealing graphics chip
details.<br>
>> They have released open-source drivers and are maintaining
them. The<br>
>> most recent message from them was written by Keith Packard (one
of the<br>
>> key X folks). If he is working for them, that is an even
better sign.<br>
><br>
>There appears to be some binary only HAL involved in the new
"open<br>
>source" intel drivers. I haven't quite figured out what
that does yet<br>
>or if it is required for the drivers to work.<br>
><br>
>--<br>
>Len Sorensen<br>
>--<br>
>The Toronto Linux Users Group.
Meetings:
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