[gentoo-user] Problems with ancient ATI graphics card

[gentoo-user] Problems with ancient ATI graphics card

[Helmut Jarausch]

Hi,

this is a bit off topic, since it primarily concerns a laptop running 
OpenSuSe 11.3, but I do need your help and I known there are experts 
here.

This old laptop has a
radeon RV350 (mobility Radeon 9600 M10)  graphics card.

There is an xf86-video-ati driver installed.

Now, when booting with the (default) radeon.modeset=1
the graphics is dead slow (not only for glxgears : 200 frame/s but for 
my OpenGL application (Impressive), as well).

Now, when I replace the option on the kernel command line to
radeon.modeset=0
glxgears is much faster ( about 1800 frames/s )
BUT my OpenGL application (python gtk + opengl)
now freezes the whole machine - only power on/off can revive
it.

Hopefully, someone has an idea on what is going wrong here.

(The hardware is too old for a recent ATI closed source driver 
supporting a recent kernel 2.6.34.x)

Many thanks for your help which is very much appreciated.
Helmut.

Re: [gentoo-user] Problems with ancient ATI graphics card

[Paul Hartman]

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Helmut Jarausch
<jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> this is a bit off topic, since it primarily concerns a laptop running
> OpenSuSe 11.3, but I do need your help and I known there are experts
> here.
>
> This old laptop has a
> radeon RV350 (mobility Radeon 9600 M10)  graphics card.
>
> There is an xf86-video-ati driver installed.
>
> Now, when booting with the (default) radeon.modeset=1
> the graphics is dead slow (not only for glxgears : 200 frame/s but for
> my OpenGL application (Impressive), as well).
>
> Now, when I replace the option on the kernel command line to
> radeon.modeset=0
> glxgears is much faster ( about 1800 frames/s )
> BUT my OpenGL application (python gtk + opengl)
> now freezes the whole machine - only power on/off can revive
> it.
>
> Hopefully, someone has an idea on what is going wrong here.
>
> (The hardware is too old for a recent ATI closed source driver
> supporting a recent kernel 2.6.34.x)
>
> Many thanks for your help which is very much appreciated.
> Helmut.

I have a very similar card in my Gentoo laptop (Mobility Radeon 9700,
I think maybe it's the same as 9600 but clocked higher). I tried KMS
radeon driver but had some issues, maybe it was user-error but when I
disabled KMS everything went back to normal.

Otherwise if you want to stick with KMS all I can think of is to try
different AccelMethod settings in your xorg.conf to see if you get
better performance from one of them. I think maybe you need to disable
console framebuffer as well, in case you're using one.

Re: [gentoo-user] Problems with ancient ATI graphics card

[Helmut Jarausch]

Hi Paul,

it turned out there is a bug in the linux kernel up to and including
2.6.36 concerning
drivers/gpu/drm/radeon
when it comes to all graphics chips like RV350.

Does anybody know about a patch for gentoo-sources-2.6.36 ?

Many thanks for a hint,
Helmut.


On 10/22/10 17:04:24, Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Helmut Jarausch
> <jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > this is a bit off topic, since it primarily concerns a laptop
> running
> > OpenSuSe 11.3, but I do need your help and I known there are 
> experts
> > here.
> >
> > This old laptop has a
> > radeon RV350 (mobility Radeon 9600 M10)  graphics card.
> >
> > There is an xf86-video-ati driver installed.
> >
> > Now, when booting with the (default) radeon.modeset=1
> > the graphics is dead slow (not only for glxgears : 200 frame/s but
> for
> > my OpenGL application (Impressive), as well).
> >
> > Now, when I replace the option on the kernel command line to
> > radeon.modeset=0
> > glxgears is much faster ( about 1800 frames/s )
> > BUT my OpenGL application (python gtk + opengl)
> > now freezes the whole machine - only power on/off can revive
> > it.
> >
> > Hopefully, someone has an idea on what is going wrong here.
> >
> > (The hardware is too old for a recent ATI closed source driver
> > supporting a recent kernel 2.6.34.x)
> >
> > Many thanks for your help which is very much appreciated.
> > Helmut.
> 
> I have a very similar card in my Gentoo laptop (Mobility Radeon 9700,
> I think maybe it's the same as 9600 but clocked higher). I tried KMS
> radeon driver but had some issues, maybe it was user-error but when I
> disabled KMS everything went back to normal.
> 
> Otherwise if you want to stick with KMS all I can think of is to try
> different AccelMethod settings in your xorg.conf to see if you get
> better performance from one of them. I think maybe you need to 
> disable
> console framebuffer as well, in case you're using one.
> 
> 
> 

Re: [gentoo-user] Problems with ancient ATI graphics card

[Jacques Montier]

 Hi all,

I have an old RV350 9600 ATI graphic card and the open source radeon
driver works fine with 2.6.36 kernel.

Cheers,

--
Jacques


Le 25/10/2010 09:50, Helmut Jarausch a gentiment tapote:

> Hi Paul,
>
> it turned out there is a bug in the linux kernel up to and including
> 2.6.36 concerning
> drivers/gpu/drm/radeon
> when it comes to all graphics chips like RV350.
>
> Does anybody know about a patch for gentoo-sources-2.6.36 ?
>
> Many thanks for a hint,
> Helmut.
>
>
> On 10/22/10 17:04:24, Paul Hartman wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Helmut Jarausch
>> <jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> this is a bit off topic, since it primarily concerns a laptop
>> running
>>> OpenSuSe 11.3, but I do need your help and I known there are 
>> experts
>>> here.
>>>
>>> This old laptop has a
>>> radeon RV350 (mobility Radeon 9600 M10)  graphics card.
>>>
>>> There is an xf86-video-ati driver installed.
>>>
>>> Now, when booting with the (default) radeon.modeset=1
>>> the graphics is dead slow (not only for glxgears : 200 frame/s but
>> for
>>> my OpenGL application (Impressive), as well).
>>>
>>> Now, when I replace the option on the kernel command line to
>>> radeon.modeset=0
>>> glxgears is much faster ( about 1800 frames/s )
>>> BUT my OpenGL application (python gtk + opengl)
>>> now freezes the whole machine - only power on/off can revive
>>> it.
>>>
>>> Hopefully, someone has an idea on what is going wrong here.
>>>
>>> (The hardware is too old for a recent ATI closed source driver
>>> supporting a recent kernel 2.6.34.x)
>>>
>>> Many thanks for your help which is very much appreciated.
>>> Helmut.
>> I have a very similar card in my Gentoo laptop (Mobility Radeon 9700,
>> I think maybe it's the same as 9600 but clocked higher). I tried KMS
>> radeon driver but had some issues, maybe it was user-error but when I
>> disabled KMS everything went back to normal.
>>
>> Otherwise if you want to stick with KMS all I can think of is to try
>> different AccelMethod settings in your xorg.conf to see if you get
>> better performance from one of them. I think maybe you need to 
>> disable
>> console framebuffer as well, in case you're using one.
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: [gentoo-user] Problems with ancient ATI graphics card

[Helmut Jarausch]

On 10/25/10 10:15:46, Jacques Montier wrote:
>  Hi all,
> 
> I have an old RV350 9600 ATI graphic card and the open source radeon
> driver works fine with 2.6.36 kernel.
> 


That depends on the application. e.g. glxgears runs fine while a
PyOpenGL application crashes the whole machine.

See
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28402

You might try
http://impressive.sourceforge.net/

(it needs PIL, PyGames and PyOpenGL)

Helmut.

> 
> Le 25/10/2010 09:50, Helmut Jarausch a gentiment tapote:
> 
> > Hi Paul,
> >
> > it turned out there is a bug in the linux kernel up to and 
> including
> > 2.6.36 concerning
> > drivers/gpu/drm/radeon
> > when it comes to all graphics chips like RV350.
> >
> > Does anybody know about a patch for gentoo-sources-2.6.36 ?
> >
> > Many thanks for a hint,
> > Helmut.
> >
> >
> > On 10/22/10 17:04:24, Paul Hartman wrote:
> >> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Helmut Jarausch
> >> <jarausch@igpm.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> this is a bit off topic, since it primarily concerns a laptop
> >> running
> >>> OpenSuSe 11.3, but I do need your help and I known there are 
> >> experts
> >>> here.
> >>>
> >>> This old laptop has a
> >>> radeon RV350 (mobility Radeon 9600 M10)  graphics card.
> >>>
> >>> There is an xf86-video-ati driver installed.
> >>>
> >>> Now, when booting with the (default) radeon.modeset=1
> >>> the graphics is dead slow (not only for glxgears : 200 frame/s 
> but
> >> for
> >>> my OpenGL application (Impressive), as well).
> >>>
> >>> Now, when I replace the option on the kernel command line to
> >>> radeon.modeset=0
> >>> glxgears is much faster ( about 1800 frames/s )
> >>> BUT my OpenGL application (python gtk + opengl)
> >>> now freezes the whole machine - only power on/off can revive
> >>> it.
> >>>
> >>> Hopefully, someone has an idea on what is going wrong here.
> >>>
> >>> (The hardware is too old for a recent ATI closed source driver
> >>> supporting a recent kernel 2.6.34.x)
> >>>
> >>> Many thanks for your help which is very much appreciated.
> >>> Helmut.
> >> I have a very similar card in my Gentoo laptop (Mobility Radeon
> 9700,
> >> I think maybe it's the same as 9600 but clocked higher). I tried
> KMS
> >> radeon driver but had some issues, maybe it was user-error but 
> when
> I
> >> disabled KMS everything went back to normal.
> >>
> >> Otherwise if you want to stick with KMS all I can think of is to
> try
> >> different AccelMethod settings in your xorg.conf to see if you get
> >> better performance from one of them. I think maybe you need to 
> >> disable
> >> console framebuffer as well, in case you're using one.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 



-- 
Helmut Jarausch
Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
RWTH - Aachen University
D 52056 Aachen, Germany