[mythtv-users] Hope for ATI Cards???

[Douglas Peale]

On 08/21/2010 01:16 PM, Brian Wood wrote:
> On Saturday, August 21, 2010 02:03:34 pm Greg Oliver wrote:
> 
>>> means. Of course there is a lot of misinformation out there. I clicked
>>> on a "What is Open Source" link on the Ubuntu site, and the explanation
>>> started out "It is sponsored by Canonical...". I reported this to the
>>> Free Software Foundation, thinking they would be upset about such an
>>> explanation of OSS, but their response was that they didn't care about
>>> "non-free" software, though I did notice that page changed in a day or
>>> two.
>>
>> Yep, that is a definite true statement for the _purist_ in
>> open-source/foss, whatever you want to refer to it as..  I _try_ to
>> support the movement when I can, but like all good things in life,
>> there are choices.  the nvidia module is a prime example - it makes
>> the linux multimedia experience very real. without it (nouveau, eg),
>> and you get the ati experience (well, as of 6 months ago)  :)
> 
> Quite true. I'd like to be a "purist", but unfortunately the OSS is not quite there yet. If I can do something I need/want 
> to do (like VDPAU), and still not break the rules, I will do so.
> 
> OSS has certainly made great strides, only 15 years ago I had to purchase a commercial X server to get anything beyond 
> frame buffer performance on an ATI card, and things like sound cards and CD drives were a total crapshoot. Now the things I 
> have to become "impure" to do are down to a very small list, though unfortunately a couple of them are Myth-related.

ATI does good hardware, but they suck at software. I have an ATI HDTV wonder because a friend of mine tried to use it in
windows, and gave it to me in disgust.

I have ATI HD4850 card in my system. Although it did not work well at first, since 10.04 video has worked fine with the open
source driver. In previous versions, the proprietary driver worked better, but never fully correct. 3D is slower with the open
source driver, but beyond google earth, I don't use 3D much.