Linux vs Windows vs Mac

New Features

• CrossFireX support
• Adaptive Anti-Aliasing support
• Support for new Linux operating systems
• ATI MultiView™
• Auto Detection and installation of distribution packaging

CrossFireX support

This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for CrossFireX configurations using the ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series on systems running the Linux operating system.

Adaptive Anti-Aliasing support

This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces Adaptive Anti-Aliasing support for the ATI Radeon HD 4800, ATI Radeon HD 3000 Series, ATI Radeon HD 2000 Series, and ATI Radeon X1000 Series of products installed on systems running the Linux operating system. Adaptive Anti-Aliasing substantially improves image quality by anti-aliasing transparent textures. This option is available in the Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition.

Support for new Linux operating systems

This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:

• RHEL 5.2 production support
• RHEL 4.7 early look

ATI OverDrive™ Support for Linux

ATI OverDrive™ maximizes the performance of the graphic processing unit (GPU) on your graphics card. This provides the ability to improve the performance of your GPU, especially if you are using a custom cooling solution.

Using ATI Overdrive™ to increase the graphics processor or memory clocks above normal limits may result in graphics corruption, data loss or system hangs. If ATI Overdrive™ detects unsafe conditions, it will automatically reduce the clocks. However, ATI cannot guarantee results, and will not be responsible for data loss or other problems that may occur as a result of using ATI Overdrive™.

ATI OverDrive™ on AMD Linux driver is a command line GPU overclocking tool for supported graphics adapters. It allows the users to:

• Enable or disable ATI OverDrive™
• Get GPU and memory clock range
• Manually set clocks within the available range. Note that there
• Test clocks with a stress utility
• Obtain GPU temperature

Graphics cards supported include:

• ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2
• ATI Radeon™ HD 4800
• ATI Radeon™ HD 4670
• ATI Radeon™ HD 4850
• ATI Radeon™ HD 4550
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3870
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3850
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3830
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3690
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3600
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3470
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3450
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3430
• ATI Radeon™ HD 2600

Note: The ATI Radeon™ HD 2900, ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2, and ATI Radeon™ HD 3850 X2 series of products, along with Workstation, and FireStream™ products are currently not supported.

Note: Mobile GPU OverDrive™ support is individual for each vendor, i.e. the same mobile GPU may have or may have not Overdrive 5 support. Please contact your vendor for more information.

More details on how to use ATI OverDrive™ can be found in the aticonfig help file.

ATI MultiView™

ATI MultiView™ provides the ability to utilize GPUs from multiple adapters on an independent multi-display desktop. It allows a user to configure, manage and use a Multiview configuration under Linux and allows OpenGL applications run on any displays driven by multiple GPUs. ATI MultiView™ provides:

• Multi-GPU configuration support
• Up to 4 displays support
• Enhanced display configuration and selection through the Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition
• Administrator shortcut which provides access to configuration options that require root privileges. Root privileges are required for multi-screen configurations, including enabling and disabling certain multi-screen configurations and screen placement.
• ATI MultiView™ only works on systems with two identical FireGL™ products which include:
  • ATI FireGL™ V7700
  • ATI FireGL™ V7400
  • ATI FireGL™ V5600
  • ATI FireGL™ V5200
  • ATI FireGL™ V3700
  • ATI FireGL™ V3600
  • ATI FireGL™ V3400
  • ATI FireGL™ V3350
  • ATI FireGL™ V3300
• ATI MultiView™ does not operate with Compiz environments
• ATI MultiView™ (released in 8.52/8.53) does not operate with Xinerama enabled

Auto Detection and installation of distribution packaging

With version 2.0 of the AMD Graphics Driver distribution packaging Application Programming Interface (API), each Linux distribution will have the option of updating their packaging scripts to provide auto detection and installation of the AMD graphics driver.

Version 2.0 of the API installation option will automatically generate and install a distribution-specific package using the distribution’s package management system, it automatically check for build and install dependencies when generating and installing distribution-specific packages.

Version 2.0 enhancements include the following:<

Automatic OS detection. Users will be able to generate and install distribution-specific packages without having to provide system-specific information
• Dryrun option. Users will have the ability to request a test run of the installer to ensure that all dependencies are met/li>

Currently only RedHat, Slackware and Ubuntu support these enhanced options. As more distribution packaging scripts implement the AMD Graphics Driver distribution packaging API version 2.0 this list will grow.

Resolved Issues

The following section provide a brief description of resolved issues with the latest version of the ATI Catalyst™ Linux software suite. These include:

• Setting the Overscan to an invalid value no longer results in segmentation faults. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35211
• XServer no longer fails when playing media files with XVideo enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35968
• An incorrect error message is no longer returned when applying an unsupported TV geometry in a console terminal. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35212
• Connecting a CRT display device to a system containing an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 product no longer results in the display device flashing multiple times or failing to display an image when attempting to launch the Catalyst Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-34300
• Quake 3 Arena (demo): Segmentation faults no longer occur when attempting to play the game. Further details can be found in topic number 737-34302
• OpenGL PBOs no longer fail to work with GL_RGB texture format
• Ubuntu 7.04: aticonfig –enable-monitor no longer results in X restarting
• Launching the Catalyst Control Center (Linux Edition) and clicking on the hyperlink located on the Welcome screen no longer results in the browser taking an extra long time to load the web page
• The initial RPM installation no longer results in an libGL.so, no such file or directory error
• The Linux installer now automatically determines the package to build
• The Linux kernel module is no longer installed to wrong location if the Linux kernel is updated
• Running X server without a window manager no longer results in the X server flashing green for a moment, going black, and the computer becoming unresponsive
• Creating two successive connections no longer results in direct GL context to fail. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35215
• Doom3: Connecting a secondary display device and configuring the game to launch on the secondary display device under x, no longer results the game failing to launch on the secondary display device
• A segmentation fault no longer occurs in kdesktop_lock application
• X no longer fails to start after installing the driver and configuring the driver using default values

Known Issues

The following section provides a brief description of known issues associated with the latest version of ATI Catalyst™ Linux software suite. These issues include:

• DiscoveryStudio1.7: The print preview and save as functions may fail to work properly. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35219
• Desktop corruption may be noticed when dragging the overlay/video when using dual-display mode. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29578
• Bandwidth corruption may be noticed when setting the desktop resolution to 2048×1536 on systems containing an ATI Radeon HD 3200 series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33499
• An X segmentation fault may occur when launching SUZI/textured video. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35214
• The X Server may fail to reset clearly when AIGLX is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35217
• Running Xtest may result in the operating system failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35927
• Softimage XSI Ariane x64: A segmentation fault may occur when loading the application. Further details can be found in topic number 737-35963
• The entire X desktop including the mouse cursor is choppy during playback of video files or suzi test app
• Some display resolution mode may fail to be available when using component video
• Connecting an HDMI display device may result in the audio failing to be heard
• Entering a standby state while running a 3D application may result in desktop corruption being noticed when resuming the system
• Logging out one of multiple users may result in X failing to display an image

For further information and general help on driver or software installation, game issues, and more, visit the ATI FAQ website.

Installing the AMD Proprietary Linux Software Driver

Installation information can be found at: www.ati.com/install

Nvidia released a new beta version of it’s linux display drivers - version 177.67 with support for new GPUs.

Release Highlights

• Added support for the following new GPUs:
  • GeForce GTX 260
  • GeForce GTX 280
• Improved support for RENDER masks, as well as RENDER repeating modes and transformations, for video memory pixmaps.
• Added accelerated support for RENDER convolution filters for video memory pixmaps on GeForce 8, 9 and GTX GPUs.
• Added an ‘AllowSHMPixmaps’ X configuration option, which can be used to prevent applications from using shared memory pixmaps; the latter may cause some optimizations in the NVIDIA X driver to be disabled.
• Added support for DisplayPort display devices (including 30-bit devices).
• Resolved various stability problems on GeForce 8, 9 and GTX GPUs, as well as some GeForce 6 and 7 PCI-E GPUs.
• Fixed a bug that resulted in GPU errors when changing the TwinView display configuration while using Compiz.
• Further improved the error recovery paths taken in case of GPU command stream corruption.
• Removed an old workaround that caused incorrect fake Xinerama information to be reported after enabling a second TwinView display.
• Fixed the subpicture component order reported by the NVIDIA X driver’s XvMC implementation.
• Fixed a problem that could result in IRQs being disabled on some multi-GPU SMP configurations.
• Worked around cache flushing problems (on some Linux kernels) that caused corruption and stability problems.
• Added experimental support for PCI-E MSI.
• Improved compatibility with recent Linux 2.6 kernels.

To download and install the drivers, follow the steps below:

STEP 1: Review the NVIDIA Software License. You will need to accept this license prior to downloading any files.

STEP 2: Download the Driver File.

Download - NVIDIA-Linux-x86-177.67.pkg1.run. SuSE users: please read the SuSE NVIDIA Installer HOWTO before downloading the driver.

STEP 3: Install
Type "sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-177.67-pkg1.run" to install the driver. NVIDIA now provides a utility to assist you with configuration of your X server configuration file. Please see Chapter 3 of the README or run ‘man nvidia-xconfig’ for details on usage. Instructions for those wishing to edit their X config file by hand can also be found in the README.

Fedora Core 6, Fdora 7/8 & RHEL5

If you wish to install the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver on a Fedora Core 6, Fedora 7/9 or RHEL5 system, please ensure that your system meets the following requirements:

* the latest update kernel is installed and in use
* a kernel-devel RPM is installed that corresponds to the kernel that is in use. Note, FC6 has a known bug which occasionally installs a kernel-devel RPM that is a different arch than the kernel (i586 & i686 mixed). See: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla….cgi?id=211941
* the pkgconfig and xorg-x11-server-sdk RPMs are installed (only applies to FC6)
* Xen kernels are not currently supported

The items above can be addressed with the following commands (they need to be run as  root):

# yum install kernel-devel xorg-x11-server-sdk pkgconfig
# yum update
# reboot

If you are using an SMP (multi-CPU and/or multi-core) enabled system in FC5(only), please replace kernel-devel with kernel-smp-devel in the command above.

The SELinux requirement can be addressed via two mechanisms after the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver has been installed:

1)  If you do not wish to use SE Linux  enforcement, you can disable it by running the `setenforce 0` command before starting X, or by adding selinux=0  to the end of the kernel  line in  /etc/grub.conf  and rebooting.

2) If you wish to use SELinux enforcement, you will need to change the security context of the NVIDIA X driver module and of the server-side NVIDIA GLX extension module. To achieve this, please run the commands listed for your platform below:

Linux/x86

(32-bit):

# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.1.0.9631
# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1
# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1.0.9631

Linux/x86-64

(64-bit):

# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.1.0.9631
# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib64/libGLcore.so.1.0.9631
# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/lib64/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.1

Debian GNU/Linux or [K]Ubuntu with Xorg 7.x

If you wish to install the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver on a Debian GNU/Linux or Ubuntu system that ships with Xorg 7.x, please ensure that your system meets the following requirements:

              * development tools like make and gcc are installed               
              * the linux-headers package matching the installed Linux kernel is installed
              * the pkg-config and xserver-xorg-dev packages are installed
              * the nvidia-glx package has been uninstalled with the –purge option and the files /etc/init.d/nvidia-glx and /etc/init.d/nvidia-kernel do not exist

If you use Ubuntu, please also ensure that the linux-restricted-modules or  linux-restricted-modules-common packages have been uninstalled. Alternatively, you can edit the /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules or /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common configuration file and disable the NVIDIA  linux-restricted  kernel modules (nvidia , nvidia_legacy ) via:

DISABLED_MODULES="nv nvidia_new"

Additionally, delete the following file if it exists:

/lib/linux-restricted-modules/.nvidia_new_installed

Please note: unfortunately, it has become difficult to keep track of the pre-/post-installation steps required for [K]Ubuntu, and the above instructions may be incomplete. If in doubt, it is recommended that you use your distributor’s NVIDIA Linux graphics driver packages, exclusively.

Updates for xorg-server 1.4.99.901 and higher and Fedora 9

Fedora 9 ships with a prerelease version of xorg-server 1.5. This server has improved autoconfiguration that allows it to function without a configuration file. Because /etc/X11/xorg.conf does not exist, nvidia-xconfig will create an /etc/X11/XF86Config file instead. While this will work, some people may find it confusing.

Unfortunately, xorg-server 1.4.99.901 removed support for the RgbPath option, so X configuration files generated by nvidia-xconfig will not work. For these servers, I recommended that you delete everything but the "Device" section and leave the rest up to the X server’s autoconfiguration:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "NVIDIA Device"
    Driver         "nvidia"
EndSection

Future releases of nvidia-xconfig will be better equipped to handle these minimalist configuration files.