AIGLX/Compiz vs ATI vs Composite

chaosmedia · #1 25th October 2006, 07:44 PM

So I'm on of the many who's having troubles getting the Desktop Effects to work on my FC6 with an ATI card (Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition R480 5D4D). I've installed the latest driver (8.29.06) and everything is working fine, except Compiz.. The troubles seem to revolve around the "Composite" option in the "Extensions" section in xorg.conf.

If I enable Composite, the ATI driver won't run proberly and I'll get the MESA GL driver. If I then try to enable desktop effects, I'll get an error stating that my graphics card doesn't support the GLX_SGIX_fbconfig extension.

But if I disable Composite (which the FC6 ATI driver installation guides recommend), I get an "No composite extension" error message from Compiz..

I'm kind of perflexed and don't know what to make of this. Is there a way to make it work?

kai4785 · #2 25th October 2006, 11:03 PM

Unfortunatly ATI's fglrx drivers do not support composite yet, so we can't use compbiz

The "radeon" drivers are "supposed" to work, but I havn't got there just yet. Stupid friggin' ATI.... stupid friggin' Laptop not having nvidia....

*sigh*

chaosmedia · #3 25th October 2006, 11:17 PM

Yeah, I figured as much going through the forums.. But I still don't get why compiz complain about missing GLX_SGIX_fbconfig when I run in MESA GL mode (composite enabled). glxinfo clearly states that GLX_SGIX_fbconfig is among the server glx extension supported by the driver..

So I guess on option would be to run with fglrx and glx instead of aiglx, or am I wrong? What would the cons be with such a solution?

Cheers,
Henrik

***Firewing1*** · #4 25th October 2006, 11:34 PM

If you check out my Compiz howto, I explain the pros/cons of AIGLX and Xgl and also how to install both...
Firewing1

chaosmedia · #5 26th October 2006, 11:27 AM

Firewing1, yeah, I've followed your guide (thanks for it btw), but I guess I browsed through the intro too fast (didn't see the pros/cons part).. However, reading it I guess Xgl is not for me, I'd rather have Aixgl, so I guess my options are:

1) Try the "radeon" driver (which I didn't get to work the last time I tried)
2) Wait for ATI to get their act together and support composite
3) Buy a nVidia card

Does anyone know how the "radeon" driver performs compared to the frglrx one (on a Radeon 850XT Platinum Ed)?

Thetargos · #6 26th October 2006, 11:31 AM

The situation is not better with nVidia either, as you can use compiz and have the effects, BUT (and I've not seen any fix for this) with the beta drivers which support aiglx, you lose window decorations.

chaosmedia · #7 26th October 2006, 11:32 AM

Lovely, I guess it's down to playing the waiting game then (and trying to get the open source driver to work)..

Thanks for the heads up Thetargos!

***Firewing1*** · #8 26th October 2006, 01:24 PM

Thetargos, not true. I've been running the 96xx beta from the start and moved to their final 9626 drivers, and I have Compiz working flawlessly.
As for the performance - fglrx is obviously better, but the radeon driver uses DRI so your FPS isn't that bad at all!
Firewing1

chaosmedia · #9 26th October 2006, 01:39 PM

Firewing1, thanks for the clarification..

I'm kind of new to Linux & FC, but would there be a way to set up Gnome so I could have two sessions available when I log in; one Gnome session using a xorg.conf loading the fglrx driver (when I want to play games), and one session loading the radeon driver (for normal use)?

Thetargos · #10 26th October 2006, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firewing1

Thetargos, not true. I've been running the 96xx beta from the start and moved to their final 9626 drivers, and I have Compiz working flawlessly.

How did you solve the window decorations problem?

***Firewing1*** · #11 26th October 2006, 07:58 PM

Actually, it worked out-of-the-box - What happens when you run 'desktop-effects' from a terminal?
Firewing1

Thetargos · #12 26th October 2006, 08:04 PM

It opens the dialog, and then fills up the terminal window with:

Code:

compiz: pixmap 0x3e000de can't be bound to texture
compiz: Couldn't bind redirected window 0x2a0838d to texture
compiz: pixmap 0x3e000e0 can't be bound to texture
compiz: Couldn't bind redirected window 0x48051be to texture
compiz: pixmap 0x3e000de can't be bound to texture

So that seems to be the problem.

***Firewing1*** · #13 26th October 2006, 08:12 PM

That's normal, I get that too - But still no window decorations?
Can you post:

Code:

rpm -q compiz
gnome-window-decorator --replace &

Firewing1

Thetargos · #14 27th October 2006, 04:21 AM

Hey Firewing1, guess what... I was missing a few tings from the Xorg file: Composite extension enabled, plus a typo in an option which were preventing the pixmaps from being drawn. Thanks a lot for your help and interest, man! Keep up the good work!

kurtie · #15 2nd November 2006, 03:56 PM

Hi,

I've seen that yesterday ATI released a new driver (8.30.3). With previous version (8.26 something) I know for sure that compiz does not work (no Composite support) but anybody knows if new driver supports Composite ?

I am writing this from another box witn Nvidia + AIGLX + beryl, and, damn, it is pretty cool stuff!

. Waiting for ATI drivers to support composite for installing it at home. I tried with radeon driver, and no luck

... when Xinerama is activated, direct rendering is disabled.

Regards,
Kurt.-