FGLRX look out thread

[thiussat]

Originally Posted by Melcar

video tearing on Xv and OpenGL renderings (this problem seems to only affect a few people).

I actually have this issue with my Nvidia card listed in my sig rig (running Gentoo). I think there is a way to overcome it via xorg.conf but I haven't put together the right combination of settings yet.

It can be especially bad with Flash videos.

[Melcar]

Originally Posted by thiussat

I actually have this issue with my Nvidia card listed in my sig rig (running Gentoo). I think there is a way to overcome it via xorg.conf but I haven't put together the right combination of settings yet.

It can be especially bad with Flash videos.

At least for fglrx, Xv has no vsync. AMD has said that it will implement it soon, but I'm guessing it's a very hard thing to do. On the FOSS side of things, in order to implement vsync in Xv DRI2 is needed, and that won't come until hell freezes over I think. The tearing does not happen with opengl, but using opengl for video rendering sucks big time (uses more resources and does not look any better than Xv).

[Melcar]

New driver release. Major changes are proper kernel 2.6.27 and xserver1.5 support, which means that you can now use the new drivers with Intrepid (instead of using their own patched older driver) or any other new distro.

[Melcar]

New driver released. Check first post.

[Melcar]

New drivers out. ATI's website does not have the new link yet, so for now I will just use the link at phoronix. Possibly the biggest changes are support for opengl3.0 instructions and "flickerless" video playback with composite managers (Compiz and the like). Beware that in 9.1 this last "feature" is bugged and not entirely stable; your display may "die" if you attempt to switch videos from windowed to fullscreen, and some players (Totem did it when I was testing the beta) will display windowed videos off center and/or have their GUIs corrupted.

[error10]

Originally Posted by Melcar

New drivers out. ATI's website does not have the new link yet, so for now I will just use the link at phoronix. Possibly the biggest changes are support for opengl3.0 instructions and "flickerless" video playback with composite managers (Compiz and the like). Beware that in 9.1 this last "feature" is bugged and not entirely stable; your display may "die" if you attempt to switch videos from windowed to fullscreen, and some players (Totem did it when I was testing the beta) will display windowed videos off center and/or have their GUIs corrupted.

I would ask for a link, but it really sounds like nobody should run this version.

[Melcar]

Originally Posted by error10

I would ask for a link, but it really sounds like nobody should run this version.

Relevant links are in the first post of the thread. Aside from the video issue everything works (what was working before anyways).

[Melcar]

New release today. Nothing special. Just a few fixes and stuff. Xv video playback with composition should still be a bit shaky unfortunately.

[Melcar]

Fglrx 9.3 was released today. This is the last driver that will have support for anything older than r6xx class hardware, so users of those chips that need future support should start looking into the open source drivers.
The biggest change is probably better opengl composite support. Current drivers allow opengl applications to run with little problems (i.e flickering) while they remain in fullscreen mode, and this latest driver revision should allow windowed opengl apps. to run with no flickering. Also, window tranformation (resizing, maximizing, etc.) under composite managers should be a bit better.

[Melcar]

Compiz desktop with glxgears and Eschalon Book 1 (OpenGL) in windowed modes with no flickering whatsoever. Moving the windows causes no corruption either. KDE4 should be no different. This extends to OpenGL accelerated videos as well.
Video playback under composite (Compiz mainly) can still be a bit of a hassle. Xine is still a pain, and the Totem + Gstreamer + Xv combo can cause problems (choppy playback, non-centered videos, going to fullscreen mode can kill X). VLC functions fine however, and so does mplayer (except the FF plugin, which also displays videos off-center).