14 DAY TRIAL // A new version of the ATI/AMD Linux display driver was released last night for both x86 and x86_64 platforms. This release is a bit special, as it is recommended to be used exclusively on ATI Radeon HD 2000 family. Moreover, AMD suggests to distributors to use the previous version (8.40.4) for distribution packages. Now the good news: this version includes major improvements in the OpenGL performance on a large variety of ATI Radeon video cards for OpenGL consumer based games, such as Doom 3 and Quake 4.
Issues resolved in this release:
￭ The TV-out size and position now supports adjustments on systems running Linux and containing an ATI Radeon X1900 or higher product. ￭ Running HP CAT on 64 no longer results in a BAM hang. ￭ X server no longer fails to respond when a DFP display device is connected to the secondary port.
Known issues of this release
￭ Corruption may be observed with certain applications on some Linux distributions which enable the Composite extension by default, e.g., RHEL 5. If you notice some application corruption, please disable the Composite extension. ￭ Using the xgl enabled x-server interface disables display switching hot plug support ￭ There is no support for video playback on the second head in dual head mode. ￭ Desktop corruption may be noticed when dragging the overlay/video when using dual-display mode. ￭ A black screen may be observed on some hardware when switching to the console or leaving the X window system when a Vesa framebuffer console driver is used. ￭ Various error messages may appear during RPM installation under SuSE 10.2. ￭ The display may go blank with clone/dual/horizontal mode configured or switching VT on systems containing an ATI Radeon 9800 XT product.
In order to gain the best performance and ease of use, ATI/AMD recommends the following:
￭ Kernel module build environment - should include the following: Kernel source code: either the Kernel Source or Kernel Headers packages ￭ ISSE Support enabled in your Linux Kernel (applies to Intel Pentium III and later CPUs only; enabled by default on version 2.4 and later kernels) ￭ The rpm utility should be installed and configured correctly on your system, if you intend to install it via RPM packages;
Requirements:
￭ XOrg 6.7, 6.8, 6.9, 7.0, 7.1 or 7.2; XFree86 version 4.3 ￭ Linux kernel 2.4 or higher ￭ glibc version 2.2 or 2.3 ￭ POSIX Shared Memory (/dev/shm) support is required for 3D applications
For installation instructions and more information about this release, please go here.
You can download the ATI/AMD Linux Display Driver now from Softpedia.