On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Dan wrote:
>>We get what the lawyers say we can have basically, and we should
>>be glad to get that, especially if the alternative is nothing.
>
> From an end-user's point of view, this argument doesn't cut it.
It doesn't have to cut it. If a product does not do what you do
not want it to do or expect it to do, or if a
company/vendor/whatever does not provide or support a product
which meets your personal needs or work the way you require or
expect, then it is simple. Repeat after me:
Do not purchase the product that does not meet your needs.
>The fact that ATI have contributed code for a 2D driver doesn't move me.
>In fact I don't even use the 2D driver - the only time I run X with my
>Radeon I use the VESA driver for it, as it's the only way I can get
>tv-out working in X, but admittedly that's only when I leave my
>girlfriend with the computer and she wants a gui interface to mplayer
>with tv-out.
I don't think that the product you are using was designed,
developed, marketed, supported, or advertised for the purpose
that you are trying to use it for however, as much as you may or
may not want to use it for that purpose. You may be upset by
that, but really. Purchase the right tool for the right job, and
in some cases that might very well mean that you can't use OSS to
solve the job at hand.
>Sure Quake works, and xscreensaver and the xmms plugins. Cool. But a
>majority of the games I have don't work: Tribes 2 ( crashes on startup
>), Unreal Tournament 2003 ( previously required S3 Texture Compression,
I feel pretty confident to say that none of the video hardware
companies which either support XFree86/OSS with open and/or close
source drivers are doing so for the Linux video gaming market.
Video gaming in Linux is a cool thing for Linux enthusiasts such
as yourself, and for myself, however it is not something which is
driving the production of video drivers.
If any of the numerous video hardware vendors out there reading
this are in fact specifically targeting their drivers to the
Linux gamers out there, please speak up.
I have a feeling I'll see a vow of silence on this one.
The drivers are produced for high end CAD and 3D animation and
scientific usage such as geological exploration, and medical.
They are thrown over the fence more unsupported and more or less
as-is to the unwashed masses (of which I consider myself as well
for the purpose of this statement) in hopes that if other people
get them to work with whatever software they use, great.
I would be surpised, no, shocked to find out that the production
of Linux video drivers is *aimed* at improving their corporate
financial bottom line, by selling hardware to Linux gamers or
home enthusiasts.
>now has far too many rendering bugs to be able to tell what's
>going on) , Neverwinter Nights ( runs at 1 frame every 5
>seconds - and yes I have DRI working ).
Most likely, the scientific, medical and 3D animation customers
that the drivers were written and are maintained for have not
encountered these problems in the 3D software that they use for
business purposes.
>While I certainly don't just sit here playing games all day, I
>bought my Radeon for 2 reasons, and 2D support wasn't one of
>them - $AUS 500 is too much for just 2D support. I wanted 3D
>acceleration, and multimedia ( tv in & out ). Of these, 3D
>acceleration doesn't work with my games, tv-out
>kinda-just-barely works on the console ( but I assume someone
>will eventually 'fix' this so it doesn't work at all ) and
>tv-in I believe works, ( but not if compiled with gcc-3.x. - I
>suppose this is fair enough ).
You purchased hardware that has drivers that were not developed
and are not _supported_ for the purposes that you wish to use
them for. You are very much in a position of caveat emptor.
>If ATI have provided more documentation than all other hardware
>vendors combined then that is an interesting statistic, but it
>doesn't address the above end-user issues. However I have read a
>number of threads in the Gatos mailing list about ATI not even
>responding to requests for documentation for the newer Rage
>Theatre chips for the past *year*.
And ATI is the market leader for that kind of hardware
functionality. I presume they don't want all of their
competitors to have similar functionality in their next
generation video hardware.
>Responding with a reason why the documentation is not available
>would be something.
Yes, it would be something that the community would use to start
a never ending thread to counteract whatever the reasons are.
More likely than not it is a case of "it's better to not say
anything at all, than to try and be honest and explain your
position and then have people attack you endlessly with more
ferocity than they'd have done had you not said anything".
I encounter this all the time. If someone asks me "Why does your
product version x.y not support foo?" and I delete their mail,
they are none the wiser. They are unlikely to flame me, or to
even know if I got it.
However, if I say "We do not support foo in product x.y because
there are very few users out there who use it, and the amount of
engineering resources that would have to be spent to develop this
support would be far greater than the benefit it provides to our
users overall, compared to those engineering resources being
spent on other features and support that we could be working on
that would benefit a much larger group of users". If I say that,
I might get back a "hmm, you have a point there, I must agree",
and sometimes I do. More often I get back "WTF? I bought your
product and paid $nn, and you're telling me you wont add support
for "foo"? Too hell with you then! I'm going to use vendor
bar's product next time and you can go to hell!"
Anyone in my position who has to deal with these types of support
questions or customer/user feedback, will very likely know
exactly where I am coming from, and will strongly back up my
statement that it is often better to just shut the hell up and
not say anything to a customer/user about something than it is to
be honest and then upset them even more, possibly getting them to
spread their negativity around and generate more bad publicity or
angst toward your company.
>Not responding at all ... that's something else again. Maybe
>there are legal reasons. Maybe they just want to protect their
>IP. Whatever. Respond. It doesn't matter to end users anyway.
>What matters is that nVidia's cards just work, and the reason is
>that nVidia have made the effort to make things work. ATI have
>made some efforts to make some things work.
I disagree, and for the reasons given above. And I'll add to
what I said above, that if you do respond, you'll most likely get
SOME kind of email back, and most likely very negative, and with
arguments/debates and more questions. The majority of time you
are the messenger, not the decision maker, and you're now in an
argument you want no part of, with some user/customer who is
going ballistic at you over a decision that is likely not made by
you. Do you then respond back and likely make things even worse?
Or do you now be quiet and hope they just go away? Perhaps they
get 3 other people to email you or phone you too, and now you
have to deal with 3 people who you KNOW are going to disagree
with you and want to argue/debate/state their mind about
something you KNOW that there is ZERO chance of anything they say
changing the situation.
Worse, you waste your time doing so, and your company time.
Should these companies hire 50 people to respond to all of these
emails to listen to users argue with them? No. Hit delete, and
let it go. The user may be upset for not getting a response, but
they're going to more often be a lot less upset than hearing
the truth and wanting to argue with you and waste a lot of your
time doing so. Also, your company is paying for your time, so if
you're responding to 5000 users a day to listen to them argue,
that is hardly worthy usage of your time.
Fortunately, it is Saturday, so I can argue with you until
Monday. After that, I'll have to delete your mails. ;o)
>The sad thing is that I would actually really like a Radeon 9800. But I
>would be a fool if I bought one. Previous experience tells me I'd be far
>better off with a GeForce - even my friend's hand-me-down GeForce 2 MX.
You're the best judge of what works best for you, especially
after personally testing various things. And while you might
decide to purchase card A and B above and find B works best for
you, and A does not work well at all, just as many other people
out there are likely to buy card A and B and find card A works
better for them.
That is what I see by analyzing postings to the XFree86 mailing
lists, 2 bugzilla databases, and 4 IRC channels devoted to X11
anyway. What works for one person great, might not work worth
shit for another. Your mileage will definitely vary.
Do experiment though, and find something that does work good for
you, preferably on loaner/trial if possible.
TTYL
--
Mike A. Harris
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