Testing ati x1650 on Fedora 9

[cjmac87]

first off... I'd like to say i'm a week old fedora user with only a bit of linux knowledge gained form some Ubuntu experience.

Anyhow, I have an ati x1650 card in my computer. My main goal at this point is to get world Of Warcraft running in Wine.

I've already installed once and ended up reformatting because of driver issues.
Is there any way I can test to see if my graphics card is being used.
I've been able to get "Enable Desktop effects" to work, however, upon installing the full version of compiz... problems occured.

Any words of wisdom much appreciated...

[Jman]

glxinfo

will show if direct rendering works, and what extensions are available, some of which may be needed.


http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine

[cjmac87]

That helps a bit, however, I'm still running into a few problems... which from what I gather is an xserver problem all together to the radeon driver compatabilities in the new verson of the fedora 9 xserver.

I've somehow lost desktop effects at this point. I did a quick glxinfo check up.

Unfortunately, I receive this message: direct rendering: No (If you want to find out why, try setting LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose)

and also: Segmentation fault

Any idea on how I can get this configured. I installed the DRIConf package using Add/Remove Software. Not sure what it does.
:

[Hlingler]

Installing driconf was a smart move. Unfortunately, it only works if DRI is enabled and working (else no dri to conf...). Once DRI is enabled, use driconf to tweak settings.

First, even if it's supported by the proprietary 'fglrx' driver (? I don't know ? Check the ATI website), you won't be able to use 'fglrx' since it's incompatible with F9's X11/Xorg at this time. Unless you downgrade the whole X11 Window System to F8. It can be done - see the "Guides and How-Tos" sticky-post. That's if it's even supported.

Else, you're stuck with the open-source driver. 2D driver is 'radeon', 3D driver is r300. What else if anything have you done to configure graphics/video? Post/attach:
> output of (as root user): lspci -vv (only need to see section on VGA)
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf
> /var/log/Xorg.0.log
> Any other relevant info, such as: remotely connected? other 3rd-party software? anything else you did that could impact video/graphics.

V

[cjmac87]

I seem to end up with a <div><div style="margin:20px; margin-top:5px">
<div class="smallfont" style="margin-bottom:2px">Code:</div>
<pre class="alt2" style="margin:0px; padding:6px; border:1px inset; width:640px; height:34px; overflow:auto"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align:left;">glxinfo</div></pre>
crashed system when attempting to downgrade the server, and I prefer upgraded if at all possibly. I did notice there has been a few updates for radeon recently. Hopefully we will not need to downgrade soon.

I did not know the r300 drivers allow for 3d acceleration. I assume those will work for an ati x1600 series graphics card?

I did try downloading the 8.7 ati catalyst drivers... no luck on getting the driver to install correctly, or make a build for Fedora9,

Last i remember I installed some packages, including the latest livna packages. I've edited the xorg configuration as you will see. I don't remember exactly what happened, but my glxgear has changed from 500 fps to 1500fps. I guess I've tweaked at least the 2d graphics to some point.
Take a look and let me knwo if there is nay other important steps I may be able to take.

---

# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# keyboard added by rhpxl
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSectionglxinfo

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
ModelName "LCD Panel 1024x768"
HorizSync 31.5 - 48.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 65.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "radeon"
Option "AccelMethod" EXA
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "enable"</div></pre>
EndSection

----

[Hlingler]

If you're going to use the F9 X11/Xorg, then I suggest that you erase all ATI 'fglrx'-related packages, since they are (A) useless, and (B) will interfere with the other divers. I also assume that either (A) the downgrade failed completely, or (B) you reversed it and have restored F9's X11/Xorg to original state.

There are two drivers, and three components, to all Linux video drivers (though not all three actually exist for all chipsets):
> 2D driver, in your case: package xorg-x11-drv-ati, file /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so. You may specify either 'Driver "ati" ' or 'Driver "radeon" ' in xorg.conf, either way, the /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so will be used.
> 3D driver, in your case: package mesa-dri-drivers, file /usr/lib/dri/r300_dri.so. Chipset x1650 is (allegedly) supported (see: man radeon).
> 3D driver kernel module (kmod), part of kernel package, file r300.ko in kernel tree.

Your xorg.conf looks fine on the surface, but does not help to identify your hardware capabilities nor what's actually going on during X11/Xorg start. Need to see /var/log/Xorg.0.log for that info. Your glxgears framerate is probably high because screen resolution is set to a very low 800x600. Be aware that glxgears is a bad benchmark. Output of:
glxinfo|grep render

is far more important: is DRI enabled or not?

Performance tweaks & etc. can (and must) wait until DRI is enabled and working.

V

[cjmac87]

i must admit i dont know how to post the other file properly in the forum.

any help with that might also be useful.

and no DRI is not enabled apparently... however i dont know how to change that

[Hlingler]

OOPS! I missed the target a little bit there: apparently, your chipset is supported (sort of) by the all-new (and far-from-complete) RADEONHD driver (xorg-x11-drv-radeonhd). I didn't think that package was installed by default.... You have become an unwitting guinea pig for X11/Xorg. Interview at 11:00.

A quick glance at the top of 'man radeonhd' should suffice:
> No 3D support. Forget about WoW for now.
> No TV, Component, HDMI connector support. I'm surprised you got any GUI at all.
> Suspend & Resume untested (read: "will cause crashes/lock-ups").
> A curious history of malfunctioning if 'fglrx' has been previously installed. Hm.

The first sign of trouble in Xorg.0.log:

(II) RADEONHD(0): Unknown card detected: 0x71C6:0x174B:0x0840.
	If - and only if - your card does not work or does not work optimally
	please contact radeonhd@opensuse.org to help rectify this.
	Use the subject: 0x71C6:0x174B:0x0840: <name of board>
	and *please* describe the problems you are seeing
	in your message.
(--) RADEONHD(0): Detected an RV530 on an unidentified card

I suggest you take a few moments at some point soon to do so.

Not sure if these are problems:

(WW) RADEONHD(0): rhdAtomAllocateFbScratch: FW FB scratch area not located at the end of VRAM. Scratch End: 0x1005000 VRAM End: 0x20000000
(II) RADEONHD(0): Cannot get VRAM scratch space. Allocating in main memory instead
[...]
(WW) RADEONHD(0): RandR: While switching off TV_SVIDEO: output DAC B is also used by DVI-I_2/analog - ignoring
(WW) RADEONHD(0): RandR: While switching off TV_SVIDEO: output DAC B is also used by DVI-I_2/analog - ignoring

However, this certainly is:

(II) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI capable
(II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized /usr/lib/dri/swrast_dri.so
(II) GLX: Initialized DRISWRAST GL provider for screen 0

Basically: it failed to meet requirements, and X11/Xorg fell back to a software renderer.

At this point, you must decide how to proceed. As far as I can tell, your options:
> Use as is.
> Downgrade X11 and install 'fglrx' driver, or just re-install entire OS with F8.
> Attempt to tweak/play/cajole this thing into some sort of useful state. Could be a lot of work.
> Un-install xorg-x11-drv-radeonhd and hope that the regular radeon driver supports the chipset adequately. I'm not entirely sure that it does at this point, though. Probably the easiest thing to try though.

Your call.

V

[cjmac87]

I did manage to find this: http://www.x.org/wiki/radeonhd%3ADRI...ae576e023e97ad

Installed al of it... I thnk... didnt do much of anything as far as I can tell.

Anyways... I'll keep trying for a but longer..

[Hlingler]

Originally Posted by cjmac87

I did manage to find this: http://www.x.org/wiki/radeonhd%3ADRI...ae576e023e97ad

Installed al of it... I thnk... didnt do much of anything as far as I can tell.

Anyways... I'll keep trying for a but longer..

Well, first of all, the xorg-x11-drv-radeonhd package from Fedora is already very current. Also, all of the various softwares that are required to be built, and their configuration, are quite complex, if they're to be of any real benefit to you. The "instructions" provided on that page are convoluted and confusing, and may be incomplete - I became cross-eyed trying to read them and didn't finish. But I've built such stuff successfully, and getting it all right isn't easy.... And even so, the code is clearly such that it's functionality will be limited.

Good Luck,
V

[cjmac87]

I ended up using the guide for the Fedora 8 downgrade.
Seems to be working better but still have some problems... however... direct rendering is working with it.
I guess thats the only option.... however, it still seems a bit unstable. compiz did, however, run until a blank screen came up.. no 3d cube effects either which is a disappoint.
I'll keep working on it, thanks for the help. Anyother suggestions are welcome/

[Hlingler]

Now that you've downgraded X11/Xorg, did you install the ATI FGLRX driver? I'm still not sure if that chipset is supported.... If it is, recommend using the RPMs from Livna repo, not that d#*&%d ATI binary installer. You'd need the F8 driver packages, with F8 X11.

Consider visiting the "Guides and How-Tos" forum here, where you'll find two very useful sticky-threads: one on ATI/FGLRX, and one on Compiz-Fusion, both by leigh123@linux. Consider using the unofficial C-F packages from his repo, as they are more current than "stock" stuff. And expect some problems from "beta" software like C-F, especially when using a downgraded X11 Window System.

Good Luck,
V