8500 support

Zardon

im actually posting this more as a question for all you linux experts out there.

just how well is the Radeon 8500 card supported in Linux, anyone care to enligthen me?

UberLord

2D is working really well in the XFree86 4.2.0 release - which should be included in all major distribtutions by know except for Debian which is traditionally about 6 months behind major releases.

Generic 4.2.0 has no 3D support. Interestingly, it does try to initialise the Rage Theater chip - if this is the DVD decoder part of the 8500 then its good that they're trying to make it work with Linux, otherwise ya boo sucks.

According to hi_ping the latest CVS of DRI (the 3D rendering interface between X and OpenGL) has some support for the 8500. So, we should see enough support for games (UT, Quake3, etc) in the next release of XFree86.

Just one minor bug with my software/system/whatever. Occasionally things get "left" on the screen. This is very apparernt in the screensavers (2D) but thankfully very rare elsewhere.

So, support is very good atm

Zardon

sounds like linux is a worthwhile alternative. and worth experimenting with.

are Nvidia cards supported as well, like the GF4 and is it comparible to the 8500 support, any ideas?

high_ping

nVidia ports their own drivers to linux, something that ATI should be doing. The only thing is that you need special nVidia glx libraries and such. Most new distros have them, you just need to install the source.

Zardon

well lets hope ATI get their act together

Mize

Matrox has their own linux drivers (and install proggie)...hmm...the 14th could be a very interesting day. I've been needing to try SuSE.

Mize

baz8080

From what I gather 4.3.0 will have basic support for 3d with the 8500. The mainstream branch for the original radeon/7500 seems to becoming a lot more mature also.

then again you can go the professional route and pay for your driver (eek!)
http://www.xig.com