Re: [gentoo-user] Question regarding VIDEO_CARDS and unrelated question regarding USE flags

[Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org>]

pk writes:

> Alex Schuster wrote:
> > I have a Radeon HD 3200 and I am using ati-drivers-8.552-r2. Higher
> > versions did not compile. My kernel is 2.6.28-tuxonice-r3, and with
> > newer kernels I was not able to build any ati-drivers at all. That was
> > a while ago. I tried ati-drivers-9.6 a month ago when that came out,
> > and I don't remember what exactly happened, it compiled but it didn't
> > work either.
>
> I'm also using ati-drivers-8.552-r2, but with gentoo-sources-2.6.25-r9
> (I usually skip one kernel release but .27 was initally riddled with
> problems so I skipped it and, well, I will probably not upgrade until I
> hear good news with regards to the open source drivers and the related
> kernel changes - maybe .32?)... I really don't know anything about
> tuxonice kernels, other than it's patches maintained out-of-tree with
> support for suspend-to-disk. I know that there has been problems with
> the suspend in the mainline but again I don't know if tuxonice is
> affected.
>
> As an experiment, you could try a vanilla or gentoo-sources kernel with
> the ati-drivers to see if that alleviates the problems you are having.

I had tried vanilla-sources, with the same results. As expected, there 
should not be much of a difference. I am not using tuxonice suspend 
features, but I intend to do so in the future.


> > fgl_glxgears sort of runs, with 135-170 FPS, but the graphics is
> > distorted - see http://wonkology.org/~wonko/tmp/fgl_glxgears.png .
> > Other OpenGL software
>
> Have you tried different settings in xorg.conf?

No, I did not yet take the time to investigate this further. So many other 
problems :)

> I have this in mine (only the - maybe - relevant stuff shown):
>
> ...
> Section "Module"
>         Load  "glx"
>         Load  "extmod"
>         Load  "dri"
>         Load  "dbe"
>         Load  "type1"
> EndSection
>
> Section "dri"
>     Group 27    # video
>     Mode 0660
> EndSection
>
> Section "Device"
>         Identifier  "Card0"
>         Driver      "fglrx"
>         VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
>         BoardName   "Unknown Board"
>         Option  "mtrr"                  "off"
> # === OpenGL specific profiles/settings ===
> 	Option "Capabilities"               "0x00000000"
> # === Video Overlay for the Xv extension ===
> 	Option "VideoOverlay"               "on"
> 	Option "OpenGLOverlay"              "off"
> 	Option "CenterMode"                 "off"
> 	Option "PseudoColorVisuals"         "off"
> 	Option "Stereo"                     "off"
> 	Option "StereoSyncEnable"           "1"
> 	Option "UseFastTLS"                 "0"
> 	Option "BlockSignalsOnLock"         "on"
> 	Option "UseInternalAGPGART"         "no"
> 	Option "ForceGenericCPU"            "no"
> 	Screen 0
>
> EndSection
> ...
>
> Of course, my settings may be different from your needs.

I added your stuff, that did not make much of a difference. I had an empty 
modules sections, but all of these modules are loaded by default. Except for 
type1, which does not exist.

> > No idea where this comes from, maybe it's not even related to OpenGL,
> > but ip_firegl_write looks like it might be.
>
> Well, I'm no expert but fglrx may be incompatible with tuxonice...

I read there were at least some problems, but only related to hibernating, 
not using OpenGL.

> > And Xorg.0.log shows these lines:
> > (EE) AIGLX error: fglrx exports no extensions
> > (/usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so: undefined symbol: __driDriverExtensions)
> > (EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering
>
> As far as I can tell it seems like it's reverting to software rendering,
> maybe for the AIGLX extension or maybe for all rendering...
>
> > Does that mean I do not have hardware opengl rendering? fglrxinfo
> > shows:
>
> Try:
> glxinfo | grep -i direct
>
> You should get:
> "direct rendering: Yes"
> ...if you have hardware opengl.

I know this command from when I had a NVidia card, and I am missing the 
'YES' in my output of fglrxinfo. But I do not have a 'NO' there either.
CPU usage gets rather high, but not to 100 percent, as I would expect when 
it does all the rendering itself.
But, where does glxinfo come from? I do not have it. I thought it's in the 
drivers package, like nvidia-drivers, and in case of ati-drivers it's called 
a little different.

> I also found this:
> http://bugs.gentoo.org/176441
>
> It's for older ati-drivers but identical error message...

Although the symbol being missed is a different one.

> > I hope with the newer drivers (and perhaps a newer kernel) things will
> > become better. I did not yet take the time to investigate this further.
>
> I've "heard" that newer kernels (>=2.6.29?) are not working with
> ati-drivers. Not sure if this has been alleviated...

I thought I read here that they do, but may give lots of warnings in syslog.

I hope to have some free time this weekend, so I can try to the newer 
drivers. I really like to test the KDE4 desktop effects :)

	Wonko