question about catalyst drivers, are they any good for anybody ?

English Multimedia
#1

Hardware
amd phenom II X4 955 4 gig ram
HD 5750 1 gig ram

Yesterday I had to re install openSUSE 12.3

I had problems with uninstalling the Catalyst beta drivers 13.2 beta 3 , then used --force to un install, but that resulted in a not working openSUSE 12.3

After the re install of openSUSE, flash video’s in full screen were 100% fluently. I had no screen tearing when browsing websites.

Then I installed the catalyst driver ( through yast, by first adding the right repo )

Now I have again screen tearing, also in full screen flash vids, and flash video’s freeze for a sec frequently.

Because of gaming, the opensource drivers are sadly not an option, but they are much better with flash and Firefox.

From the steam for Linux forums, I know I am not the only one with these problems, but I am wondering, has anybody got them working right on Linux? ( openSUSE 12.3 64 bit)

I doubt I will ever buy and amd vid card though. That has been a disappointment form the start on Linux.

#2

gaming is not used but my experience is given in
https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/pre-release-beta/485143-catalyst-13-3-beta3-kernel-3-8-4-1-desktop-x86_64-compatible.html#post2541723

#3

Thank you.

Maybe I should try again the beta driver, but this time in init 3 and deleting x org.

#4

I managed to solve the freezing in flash.

System settings, desktop effects, disable effects for fullscreen.

#5

And I have turned on V sync. ( in catalyst control center )
I will have to test if this causes issues in games.

But at least at the moment fire fox is as smooth as on windows 7, no tearing.

#6

My understanding is the Catalyst drivers work well in openSUSE-12.2.

The version of X and the newer kernel in openSUSE-12.3 is causing problems with both nvidia and fglrx (catalyst) drivers. wrt fglrx (catalyst) there is nothing new there IMHO. Typically, going back as long as I ran remember in GNU/Linux, there has been a time lag before a new Catalyst driver was provided to support the latest and greatest version of X and of the kernel. As long as one does not insist on being on the cutting edge of the latest and greatest openSUSE release, indeed any GNU/Linux release, one can have the catalyst driver and play their games (such as on openSUSE-12.2).

My suspicion is it is mostly a matter of patience while waiting for a new fglrx version to hit the street for those with non-legacy AMD graphic hardware and with new versions of X and new versions of the kernel.

#7

For now I am happy, after the second time this week of reinstalling opensuse 12.3

This time I did not install the latest beta drivers, and everything seems to be fine.

Steam start up without errors.

#8

I am afraid you are right.

I can explain though, why I would want to try the latest beta drivers.
They have fixes for Teamfortress2 and serious sam 3.

Its not just because of the problems I have on Linux, windows is not that much better when it comes to gaming.

And before someone wants to argue that.

I tried installing grandprix 4 on windows 7, no luck, what ever compatibility mode I choose.
Star Wars republic command wont work either.
Area 51 , a free game which run fine on xp, will not work on W7.

There are days, I whish I was not interested in games.

#9

Something about the release notes of the latest Catalyst 13.4 ( released today)

**Linux Distributions Supported:
**The latest version of the ATI Catalyst™ Linux Software Suite is designed to support the following Linux distributions:

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Suite 6.2 and 6.3
  • SUSE® Linux Enterprise 10 SP4 and 11 SP2
  • OpenSUSE 11.4 and 12.1
  • Ubuntu 12.10

Not even 12.2 according to AMD.

Unbelievable.

Thank god this is usual fixed by our openSUSE friends.

#10

Installed Catalyst 13.4 yesterday on a AMD A3850 (built in 6530d GPU) and opensuse 12.3. Working fine for me. I don’t use my computer for games so i haven’t tested that.

#11

Reply om my own post.

“are they any good for anybody ?”

Hell YES>:)! Big difference. Running 2 large monitors in opensuse 12.3(KDE) and earlier…(9.3).

-gives your computer a boost.
(I don’t want to kick on the free developers, they are doing a great job).
-configurations possibility as logged in as root, -amdcccle at Catalystcenter. No editing in xorg files manually. Works!