How well does Fedora handle ATI cards?

[suvayu ali]

2009/8/4  <gilpel at altern.org>:
> Joonas Sarajärvi wrote:
>
>> Nouveau is just for Nvidia hardware. The rough equivalent for ATI
>> devices is the radeon driver.
>
>> RPM Fusion nonfree doesn't currently ship the proprietary
>> Catalyst/fglrx driver for Fedora 11
>
> So, Radeon is free, Catalyst/fglrx non-free?
>
>> because it is incompatible with
>> Linux 2.6.29 and newer, and F11 uses a kernel based on the 2.6.29
>> series. So if you want to use this driver, the only Fedora option is
>> really Fedora 10, until AMD updates the driver to support a newer
>> Linux.
>
> Ok, so that's why, when I bought my computer and I said I would use Linux,
> the salesman suggested I buy an Nvidia card.
>
> I've installed Compiz, but are there other uses for 3D ? If not, if one
> doesn't care about Compiz, I understand that Frank Cox says he had no
> problem whatsoever with his ATI cards.
>

I have one of those RV770 unsupported cards, and I used to get
reasonable 3D support in F10 (as the older kernel was supported and
the free drivers were not upto the mark then).

Now with F11 I don't have 3D support as I have to use the free drivers
(they are much more usable compared to F10), and I _do_ get very
reasonable 2D support. Playing hi-defn (formats like .mkv or .ts)
video can be a bit CPU intensive. And sometimes fullscreen flash
videos also render very jerky, (youtube plays just fine tho)

Overall I would say the 2D support is very reasonable. If you buy an
older generation ATI (RV 500 or below) you should be good to go.

GL

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.