[SOLVED] F16->F17 Graphics Resolution Issue with ATI 4550

[sumankundu]

Hello,

I am running my system from F13, every time I upgrade using preupgrade I faces some graphics issues. I have ATI HD 4550 graphics card. Last time going from F15->F16 when I face graphics issues I decided to remove the proprietary driver and use default one. I forgot what I had done that time, but I use nomodeset in the boot options.

3 days back I upgraded from F16->F17, now the similar issue bothering me. I can get only 1600x1200 resolution when my system support 1680x1050. I tried to read everything related to this issue, but could not solve it.

This PC is my labs one, so, I dont need brilliant graphics, but reading is quite troublesome with 4:3 ration in a wide screen monitor. Plus due to this low, unoptimized resolution, the system also running slow. Can anyone help me regarding this.

Output

lspci | grep VGA is

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV710 [Radeon HD 4550]

xrandr -q

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 400, current 1600 x 1200, maximum 1600 x 1200
default connected 1600x1200+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1600x1200       0.0* 
   1280x1024       0.0  
   1280x960        0.0  
   1024x768        0.0  
   800x600         0.0  
   640x480         0.0  
   720x400         0.0

glxinfo |grep -i "\(render\|opengl\)"

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x300)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.3
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_AMD_draw_buffers_blend,

I am trying almost for two days to solve it, I will be great full if anyone help me on this.

[Agent20]

Hi,

Have you tried booting without using "nomodeset"?

To use the radeon open source graphics driver for OpenGL support you need to boot without using "nomodeset".

If you use "nomodeset" as a boot parameter then the system will fall back to the llvmpipe driver which means that OpenGL support is run on the CPU instead of the graphics card.

From my system with an HD4350 card I have run your command and get the following:

$ glxinfo | grep -i "\(render\|opengl\)"
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV710
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.3
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_EXT_vertex_array_bgra, GL_NV_conditional_render,

As you can see the Gallium driver is using the RV710 graphics card (not the llvmpipe driver). I get the correct monitor resolution and GNOME shell runs smoothly.

[sumankundu]

Yes! I had tried without using nomodeset. In fact the output I submitted without using that option. You may see the log file, there it showing without nomodeset.

[george_toolan]

OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.

If this is software rendering then it would also explain the slowliness ;-)

The ATI proprietary driver doesn't support this chip anymore, so you'll have to use the free radeon driver.

[sumankundu]

I have no issues with using free version, I want to use that, but how, I could not able to find out

I have mesa-dri-drivers installed, thought that would do the work. However, it still fall into the software rendering or similar things..

[Agent20]

Do you have an /etc/x11/xorg.conf file that specifies the VESA driver? Try renaming the file if it exists (so that it will not be used) and then reboot again.

If you do not have an xorg.conf file or it still does not work after renaming it then have a look at the dmesg output:

$ dmesg > dmesg.txt

Look through the text file for message lines starting with [drm] and check that you see something similar to these lines:

[    1.252294] [drm] radeon defaulting to kernel modesetting.
[    1.252298] [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.
[    1.256401] [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (RV710 0x1002:0x954F 0x174B:0xE990).

Kernel modesetting needs to be in use for the open source drivers to use the graphics card for OpenGL.

[sumankundu]

In my system, there is no xorg.conf file. Also, I do not get any output for dmesg > dmesg.txt

I tried with radeon.modeset=1, but it did not work either.

[Agent20]

The demsg command I put in the earlier post will not return any output to the terminal, it should create a new file called dmesg.txt in your current directory (the home directory if you have not changed directory). You can then check the file using gedit or whatever editor you like to use. You could also attach it to your next post.

Also, when checking for the xorg.conf file I gave the incorrect directory in the previous post it should be /etc/X11/xorg.conf (with a capital X in X11)

[sumankundu]

here is my dmesg.txt file. There is no [drm] line..

[sumankundu]

regarding xorg.conf file.. I had earlier exp, so I know the actual directory. I tried with, without the config file. Nothing helps.

[Agent20]

The system sees the graphics card when booting (dmesg contains references to PCI device ID 01:00.0 which is the graphics card that you listed in your first post of this thread).

No messages containing [drm] or radeon though. Is the radeon driver still blacklisted from when you were running the proprietary driver?

Check in file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf to see if radeon is listed. If it is then that is the reason why the open source drivers are not loading, you can comment out or delete the "blacklist radeon" line.

[sumankundu]

Thank You so much Agent20. Also, thanks to all who ever tries to help me. It was indeed blacklisted. I remove both readon and readonhd from the blacklist file. Thanks a ton.

I dont know how to change the post subject to [solved]. So, need help on this again.. :P

[Agent20]

I'm glad it is working now. It looks like you found the [solved] already!