: It was the only way to access hardware-accelerated video decoding (UVD) and official CrossFire support.
For users who successfully installed Catalyst, the benefits were clear: Catalyst Driver Ubuntu 12.10
The saga of the Catalyst driver on Ubuntu 12.10 serves as a historical case study in the challenges of the Linux desktop. It highlighted the fragile dependency on proprietary vendors and eventually fueled the industry-wide push toward more robust, high-performance (like amdgpu ) that define the seamless Linux gaming experience we see today. 10, or more about the evolution of AMD drivers since then? : It was the only way to access
: Catalyst provided superior 3D performance and better power management for Radeon cards compared to the open-source radeon drivers of that era. 10, or more about the evolution of AMD drivers since then
Ubuntu 12.10 also marked a painful transition for owners of older AMD cards (HD 2000, 3000, and 4000 series). AMD moved these chips to a "legacy" driver status that was fundamentally incompatible with the X.Org version in 12.10. This forced a generation of users to either stick with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or migrate to the open-source drivers, which at the time lacked the polish and speed of their proprietary counterparts. Conclusion