Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

How To Enable AMD Radeon Dynamic Power Management (DPM) In Ubuntu 13.10

| Date: January 24, 2014 | View Comments | Tags: amd, graphics drivers, laptop, linux, power, tips n tricks, ubuntu


The open source AMD Radeon driver got dynamic power management support with Linux Kernel 3.11. With this, the GPU and memory clocks adjust dynamically based on load, useful for saving power.

This feature is not enabled by default, at least in Ubuntu 13.10 (it will probably be enabled by default in Ubuntu 14.04) so here's how to enable it.

Install MPlayer With VA-API (Hardware Acceleration For Intel / AMD GPUs) Support In Ubuntu

| Date: November 21, 2012 | View Comments | Tags: amd, hardware acceleration, intel, linux, mplayer, smplayer, ubuntu, vaapi, video

VA-API is an open source library/API which enables hardware accelerated video processing. It uses the GPU to accelerate video processing in order to offload the CPU.

Supported hardware includes Intel HD Graphics and G45 chipsets and newer as well as AMD Radeon GPUs (there's also a Nvidia VDPAU backend for VA-API). You can find a list of supported hardware, drivers and video codecs HERE.

Here's an example: on my laptop (Ubuntu), the CPU usage is around 40-50% when watching an 1080p H.264 video using MPlayer without VA-API and around 2-5% when watching the same 1080p video using MPlayer with VA-API. You can see some screenshots below:

AMD (ATI) Catalyst 11.4 Released Just In Time For Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

| Date: April 28, 2011 | View Comments | Tags: amd, ati, catalyst, drivers, linux, ubuntu

ATI Catalyst 11.04

A quick update: AMD has released Catalyst 11.4 with support for X Server 1.10 so all of you who want to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal should now be able to use Unity.

I do not use an ATI graphics card so I can't really tell you how everything works so all I can do is give you a download link:



If you have an ATI graphics card, please let us know your experience with the latest 11.04 in the comments!


Many thanks to WebUpd8 reader _artem_ for the screenshot!
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