@Dave Lents: Well, that might make it worth pursuing were I running a laptop. I do understand that the default driver probably runs up the main cpu(s) at high revs and uses the ATI/AMD module strictly as a presentation device, if that. My older Radeon 3000 GPU (AMD RS780 on- board chip set) never was very satisfactory, but this new driver is at least equivalent if not better.
The main 3D game I run is SimCity 4 Deluxe, and it runs a core at 100% all by itself. I'll have to have a look at the system monitor when this is running to see if the second processor on my system is doing more than maintenance things. SC4 was written in about 2000 and is single threaded, no GPU options. It is really too bad that there cannot be enough air plenum in a laptop to cool the processors properly, but fashion dictates they be thinner and thinner. The penality for this is running hot with gaming. These machines are not not really for gaming, and anyone who expects desktop performance out of them is smoking something truly strange. Of course this makes it impossible to please the 'now' generation who really want games like this on their telephone. *sigh*. It is hard to believe that the Univac II I first used has become what we have now. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to fglrx-installer in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1058040 Title: fglrx-installer not working with HD2000-4000 "legacy" cards in Quantal Status in Release Notes for Ubuntu: New Status in “fglrx-installer” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: Following the AMD decision to change to a new driver support model for Radeon™ HD 4000, HD 3000 and HD 2000 series cards as per http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/legacy/Pages/legacy- radeon_linux.aspx , fglrx-installer installs non-working drivers. I suggest the addition of an fglrx-legacy package to install the AMD legacy drivers for users with older cards or patch the current code base for use with these cards. Output for fglrx 9.00 [1]: # lspci|grep VGA 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS780L [Radeon HD 3000] # modprobe fglrx FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/3.5.0-15-generic/updates/dkms/fglrx.ko): No such device # dmesg|tail -n3 [ 6785.693869] [fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 7132 MBytes. [ 6785.694089] [fglrx:firegl_init_device_list] *ERROR* No supported display adapters were found [ 6785.694091] [fglrx:firegl_init_module] *ERROR* firegl_init_devices failed # dpkg --list|grep fglrx ii fglrx 2:9.000-0ubuntu1 amd64 Video driver for the AMD graphics accelerators ii fglrx-amdcccle 2:9.000-0ubuntu1 amd64 Catalyst Control Center for the AMD graphics accelerators [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer- updates/+bug/1032672/comments/34 !!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!! The following workaround has produced mixed results and left some users with temporarily broken systems. It is not recommended for production systems or novice users that are not comfortable with basic console/non-GUI recovery. USE AT OWN RISK. WORKAROUND: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:makson96/fglrx && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade && sudo apt-get -y install fglrx-legacy This workaround will downgrade X to 1.12 and install the AMD legacy fglrx 8.97 (Catalyst 12.6). To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-release-notes/+bug/1058040/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp