X Server 1.6, ATI Catalyst, and cards moved to legacy status

[GomJabbar]

From reading the Mandriva cooker forum, I have discovered that the new version of X Server (1.6) will not run Catalyst 3. Only X Server 1.5 and earlier will run Catalyst 3. Unfortunately, ATI has just moved many cards to legacy status and will not support them in Catalyst 4. So the latest Linux distro releases that use X Server 1.6 cannot run the propriatary ATI driver for these legacy adapters. This means no fglrx support for many ATI adapters such as the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 that I have in my T42.

ATI Radeon 9500 Series
ATI Radeon 9550 Series
ATI Radeon 9600 Series
ATI Radeon 9700 Series
ATI Radeon 9800 Series
ATI Radeon X300 Series
ATI Radeon X550 Series
ATI Radeon X600 Series
ATI Radeon X700 Series
ATI Radeon X800 Series
ATI Radeon X850 Series
ATI Radeon X1050 Series
ATI Radeon X1300 Series
ATI Radeon X1550 Series
ATI Radeon X1600 Series
ATI Radeon X1650 Series
ATI Radeon X1800 Series
ATI Radeon X1900 Series
ATI Radeon Xpress Series
ATI Radeon X1200 Series
ATI Radeon X1250 Series
ATI Radeon X2100 Series

The Linux ATI Catalyst™ driver will only be supported in Linux distributions prior to February 2009 for the legacy products listed above.

Any customers using a combination of a ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series, or ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series product with any of the legacy products listed above in a single PC system must use the ATI Catalyst 9.3 or earlier driver. All future ATI Catalyst™ releases made available past the ATI Catalyst™ 9.3 release will not include support for the legacy products listed above or any of the features associated with those legacy products.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/w ... ce-xp.aspx

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15796

[Blue Thunder]

Hmmm, so maybe thats why I can't get my R50's 9600 working.

Anyway to 'downgrade' to Xserver 1.5? (I don't know if this is possible since I don't really understand what or how Xserver is/works )

[GomJabbar]

I did a search on Phoronix forums and found the following.

Effectively what this means is beginning with the next round of distribution updates (like Ubuntu 9.04 and Fedora 11) you will be unable to use the Catalyst driver. You could selectively downgrade some packages to the X Server 1.5 series, but that may cause other problems and is not something to tell a novice Linux user to carry out. Instead you will need to use the open-source Mesa stack with the xf86-video-ati driver (or the option of xf86-video-radeonhd if using a Radeon X1000 series ASIC).

For those using a Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 series GPU, it means you will need to wait until at least Catalyst 9.4 in April before seeing X Server 1.6 support.

AMD's Legacy Driver Will Not Support X Server 1.6

[masterus]

hi all,

as you know the old ATi GPUs isn't support any longer by ATi in Ubuntu 9.04(pity as having T43 with X300)
but coming back to meritum..you can use that solution to partially solve that problem
hope that will be some help

regards,

[Harryc]

I found it interesting that X1400 is not included on the above list. Good news for 'some' T60 owners, myself included.

[GomJabbar]

I think it was a bit of oversight that the X1400 was not included in the above list. I am pretty sure the X1400 is NOT supported in Catalyst 4. Look at the download site for ATI. The X1400 is not listed under (desktop) Radeon, only under Mobility Radeon. Whoever comprised the list only looked at the desktop Radeons, and didn't think to check the Mobility Radeons for missing numbers. The release notes for Catalyst 4 gives no indication that it might support the X1400.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

http://www2.ati.com/relnotes/Catalyst_9 ... _notes.pdf

[damorg]

I thought I'd lucked out with the X1400 too

[Marin85]

That X1600 is mentioned in the above list, does it mean that the FireGL 5200 (found on so many T60p and Z61p units ) is doomed too? The proprietary ATI driver is no longer listed under hardware drivers (speaking about Kubuntu 9.04). From what I have seen so far, it uses the radeon driver, but I haven´t seen any performance deterioration, running full compiz-fusion, compared to before. It uses the OpenGL engine, haven´t tried the other one (forgot the name ), nor the FireGL gears.

[Volker]

The open-source "radeon" driver has recently been worked on and should now be as good or better than ATI catalyst on older cards. Most users will be better off by switching to radeon instead of using the old driver/Xserver.