This guide shows you how to use the open source Radeon driver for some ATI/AMD graphics cards and APUs, which is part of the xserver-xorg-video-ati package.
This driver provides 2D and 3D acceleration in your video hardware. For the most recent releases of Ubuntu (and its flavours) this driver is usually as fast as the closed-source, proprietary fglrx driver (called AMD Catalyst) from AMD Inc. Furthermore the Radeon driver supports some older chipsets that fglrx does not.

Dec 01, 2011  Hi, I've replaced my old Nvidia GT 120 (PCI) display card with the new ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB display card (PCI). It is working, but when I am looking 'PCI Cards' tab under Hardware in the 'System Information', its showing two cards under Slot-1.

The Radeon driver is already pre-installed in Ubuntu.

First, check your graphic card name and chipset:

It should report something like this for your graphics card and/or APU:

If the report shows two different hardware devices, then you probably have a 'hybrid graphics' system, with an iGP (integrated graphics processor inside the CPU) and a dedicated GPU.

• Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and newer: for some most recent graphics cards (R9 285, R9 380/380X, R9 M395X, R9 Nano/Fury/FuryX, RX 460/470/480, RX 550/560/570/580..) and APUs (Carrizo, Stoney), the open-source AMDGPU driver is enabled by default. For Ubuntu 16.04 LTS AMDGPU-Pro hybrid driver is also available to download here (please read the release notes for known problems and limitations).

• Ubuntu 14.04 LTS: if you have Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Linux kernel 4.4.0 (HWE stack Xenial), you can't install the proprietary fglrx/Catalyst driver. However the open source AMDGPU driver is available to install through the xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu package.

These cards will not run Ubuntu's Unity desktop with 3D acceleration. They will still run Unity, but the CPU will be used for basic drawing and performance may suffer. If you have one of these cards, a lighter desktop (such as XFCE or LXDE, found in Xubuntu and Lubuntu respectively) is recommended.

All these ATI/AMD cards have good 3D acceleration support. This is not an exhaustive list.
Check the version of Ubuntu you have installed:

• Ubuntu 16.04 and newer releases: look at the 16.04+ column.

• Ubuntu 14.04:

  • kernel Linux 4.4.0-xx-generic (HWE stack Xenial), look at the 16.04+ column.

  • kernel Linux 3.13.0-xx-generic, look at the 14.04 column.

• Ubuntu 12.04:

  • kernel Linux 3.13.0-xx-generic (HWE stack Trusty), look at the 14.04 column.

  • kernel Linux 3.2.0-xx-generic, look at the 12.04 column.

Notes

• *1: in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Linux kernel 3.13.0 if you find problems with the most recent graphics cards (Radeon Rx 2xx/3xx) and APUs (KABINI/KAVERI), try to install the Xenial HWE stack in Ubuntu 14.04; this should solve your problems. As an alternative, you can install a newer release of Ubuntu.

To look for boot messages/errors, check

To see your OpenGL information, you can run the commands below. Make sure your OpenGL renderer string does not say 'software rasterizer' or 'llvmpipe' because that would mean you have no 3D hardware acceleration:

If you've previously installed the ATI binary/proprietary driver (a.k.a Catalyst/fglrx), you need to make sure it's fully purged before trying to use the open-source ati/radeon driver. See this page

No configuration is necessary for ATI driver in the modern versions of Ubuntu. You can safely take away your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and your computer should run fine.

Check the manpage of the Radeon driver for advanced options.

• Ubuntu 14.04 and newer: HDMI audio should work automatically.

• Ubuntu 12.04: users have to enable HDMI audio manually by passing the radeon.audio=1 kernel parameter. It can be done with the following command:

Ubuntu Precise/12.04 users should also note that they may need a newer kernel (>= 3.5.x) to enable HDMI audio on later cards.

Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS (Linux kernel 3.13.0), Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and later

For the most recent ATI/AMD graphic cards supported by the Radeon driver, DPM (Dynamic Power Management) should work automatically without additional steps.

Instead if you notice overheating problems and/or you have an old Radeon HD graphic card, you can enable DPM by adding a boot parameter. This should greatly help power consumption, especially when idle. To do so, edit /etc/default/grub and add the 'radeon.dpm=1' to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line, so it would look something like:

After you save/quit the text editor, update grub:

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Linux kernel 3.2.0)

Power management was one of the weak spots of the open-source driver prior to kernel 3.11.x. If you have a laptop that's getting too hot, try setting the power management profile to low.

BinaryDriverHowto/AMD - The Wiki page for the proprietary AMD/ATI driver 'fglrx' which also offers 3D acceleration, and works on newer cards than the 'radeon' driver. Since it's closed-source, only AMD can work on it and give efficient support, and the open-source community can generally not help you with problems.

AMDGPU-Driver - The Wiki page for AMD's AMDGPU open source driver for GCN (Graphics Core Next) GPUs

AMDGPU-PRO-Driver - The Wiki page for AMD's AMDGPU-PRO hybrid proprietary/open-source driver for GCN (Graphics Core Next) GPUs

Arch Linux ati driver documentation - includes TV-out information

RadeonFeature - Radeon feature table

CategoryHardware

If you use Boot Camp to run Windows on your Mac, you can visit the AMD website to download the latest version of their drivers for Windows. These Mac computers use AMD graphics:

• 15-inch MacBook Pro models introduced in 2015 or later
• 27-inch iMac models introduced in 2014 through 2017, as well as the 21.5-inch Retina 4K iMac introduced in 2017
• iMac Pro introduced in 2017
• Mac Pro introduced in 2013

Check your version of AMD graphics drivers

1. Start up your Mac in Windows.
2. Take any of these steps:
   
   • Right-click your desktop and choose AMD Radeon Settings.
   • Or click Radeon Settings in the notification area.
   • Or choose AMD Radeon Settings from the Programs menu.
3. In Radeon settings, click the System Tab, then click the Software tab.
4. The version number is shown under Driver Packaging Version.

Download and install the latest AMD graphics drivers

1. In Windows, go to the AMD website, then click Drivers & Support.
2. Select your product from the list, not the menu: First select Graphics, then select Mac Graphics in the next column, then select Apple Boot Camp in the next column.
3. Click Submit to view the list of available drivers.
4. Look for the driver version that supports your Mac model. If it's a later version (higher number) than the version installed on your Mac, click Download.
5. Extract the downloaded ZIP file, then run the Setup app in the resulting folder to install the drivers.