X1300 for a high resolution 1920x1200 LCD display

[nyc_paramedic]

First, let me explain that I have spent the last couple of days reading numerous threads here and in the AMD/ATI sub forums. I apologize in advance if I missed a thread that would answer my question.

Secondly, it has been years since I researched anything regarding an ATI video card; having forsaken them many moons ago.

I am giving up on NVIDIA, and I need some advice. I am very disappointed in the state of 2D graphics when it comes to NVDIA cards running on Linux. My Thinkpad sub-note (on which I am typing on right now) X41 runs circles around my 7800GTX or my Quadro NVS 285. Alas, Intel does not make any discrete graphics cards. I have been plagued by lagggy window redraws, tearing when switching desktops, and Firefox slowdowns for far too long.

My needs, right now, are for a card that can competently run a high resolution LCD at 1920x1200 in accelerated 2D. Preferably using an open source driver. I don't want to deal with binary blobs any longer.

I am not too concerned with 3D. if I can have open source support to handle the occasional Google Earth, then that would be gravy.

I see that Radeon X1300 PCI Express cards are going for about 20-35 dollars. Will this card handle 1920x1200 competently? I also like the fact that it's a fan-less card.

I keep stressing the resolution 1920x1200 for a reason. Seems that the problems with NVIDIA's 2d drivers are exacerbated with people running higher resolutions. Most don't run monitors in that range, and although they still notice that 2D is somewhat broken, it's *really* noticeable in the higher resolutions.

I run a minimal desktop affair: Debian Sid with Openbox, Firefox, mrxvt terminals. Nothing heavy duty. The machine is Athlon X2 4800+, 2GB Ram, Nvidia Quadro NVS 285 or a 7800GTX.


Another couple of questions I have is: Does the open source driver have 2D parity with the closed ATI driver? Do I use the radeonhd or the ati driver for this particular card?


P.S. I did order a Sapphire Radeon HD 3650 from Newegg last week. It was sent back the following day. The first thing I noticed was that it slightly stretched the POST and BIOS screen so that the text on the the bottom was slightly chopped off. *Not* good for a brand new card. Second, trying the Radeon HD or the ati open source driver, things were not that much better on the desktop. Third, any video clip that I played was corrupted with a gree/purple tint and stretching of the video itself. If I'm gonna pull out my hair trying to get an ATI card working, I'll do it with a cheap used card on eBay and not a brand new $60 card.


Any suggestions would be appreciated. I would love to hear from people running high resolution displays was well!

Nick

[chithanh]

The latest open source drivers support accelerated 2D and 3D up to Radeon X1950. Radeon X1300 and X1550 are dirt cheap nowadays and fully working.

For 2D in 1920x1200, an X1300 card should be more than enough.

Note that if you use nVidia and don't need 3D, the open source nv driver gives good 2D performance with EXA and X.org server 1.4.99.906.

[panda84]

Debian sid should already have ati/radeon 6.9.0 open source driver so the only thing you should do is to check if EXA is enabled.

Make sure that your xorg.conf has: Option "AccelMethod" "EXA" in the "Device" Section.

To make sure it's enabled open /var/log/Xorg.0.log and check for the following lines:
(II) EXA(0): Driver registered support for the following operations:
(II) Solid
(II) Copy
(II) Composite (RENDER acceleration)
(II) UploadToScreen
(II) DownloadFromScreen

I think that's all you need to do.

[nyc_paramedic]

Thanks for the replies. I just won a X1300 on eBay and it will arrive shortly. I will report back as soon as it is up and running.

I'll make sure to enable EXA.

[nyc_paramedic]

The X1300 has finally arrived, and what a refreshing change! 2D acceleration is very smooth and snappy. EXA is enabled and working.

After doing numerous Google searches, I can't get 3D to work. I am running Debian Unstable. Do I need newer Mesa packages from experimental?

I'm so glad to be rid of the Nvidia card. I will chose my next new graphics card wisely.

[GDJacobs]

The X1300 has finally arrived, and what a refreshing change! 2D acceleration is very smooth and snappy. EXA is enabled and working.

After doing numerous Google searches, I can't get 3D to work. I am running Debian Unstable. Do I need newer Mesa packages from experimental?

I'm so glad to be rid of the Nvidia card. I will chose my next new graphics card wisely.

You'll want to start by upgrading your kernel to the latest 2.6.26. Then build new packages for the ati driver and mesa-dri using the Debian experimental repositories. I don't own an r500 personally, so I can't confirm whether 2.6.26 needs a patch for the direct rendering manager.
http://packages.debian.org/source/experimental/xserver-xorg-video-ati
http://packages.debian.org/source/experimental/mesa

If you don't get satisfaction with the vanilla kernel, you can follow the instructions on http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Building to update your kernel DRM.

[nyc_paramedic]

You'll want to start by upgrading your kernel to the latest 2.6.26. Then build new packages for the ati driver and mesa-dri using the Debian experimental repositories. I don't own an r500 personally, so I can't confirm whether 2.6.26 needs a patch for the direct rendering manager.
http://packages.debian.org/source/experimental/xserver-xorg-video-ati
http://packages.debian.org/source/experimental/mesa

If you don't get satisfaction with the vanilla kernel, you can follow the instructions on http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Building to update your kernel DRM.

Thanks. I think I'll juts wait 'till it hits unstable. I'm in no super rush. 2D is working just fine, which was my biggest concern.

Thanks to all for the replies.

Many thanks to AMD/ATI for open source support.

[nyc_paramedic]

You'll want to start by upgrading your kernel to the latest 2.6.26. Then build new packages for the ati driver and mesa-dri using the Debian experimental repositories. I don't own an r500 personally, so I can't confirm whether 2.6.26 needs a patch for the direct rendering manager.
http://packages.debian.org/source/experimental/xserver-xorg-video-ati
http://packages.debian.org/source/experimental/mesa

If you don't get satisfaction with the vanilla kernel, you can follow the instructions on http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Building to update your kernel DRM.


By the way, what is the fastest card --for 3D-- that I can use with the open source drivers? From what I have read, I can't use anything from the 600 core and beyond, correct?

[bridgman]

Fastest card with open source 3D support today would be something like a 1950XT. The 1950 Pro is maybe 3/4 as fast but quite a bit less expensive if you can find one.

We are making progress on 3D engine support for 6xx/7xx so if you don't find a card at a good price it might be worth waiting a bit.

[nyc_paramedic]

Fastest card with open source 3D support today would be something like a 1950XT. The 1950 Pro is maybe 3/4 as fast but quite a bit less expensive if you can find one.

We are making progress on 3D engine support for 6xx/7xx so if you don't find a card at a good price it might be worth waiting a bit.

Than you sir, for your prompt reply. I just might pick up a x1950 from Newegg for about $40 USD. But rest assured that I will be supporting AMD/ATI's open source efforts by purchasing future cards as soon as that support is available.

I am very happy with the performance of the X1300 and the open drivers.

Thanks again.

Sincrerely,

Nick

[nyc_paramedic]

Fastest card with open source 3D support today would be something like a 1950XT. The 1950 Pro is maybe 3/4 as fast but quite a bit less expensive if you can find one.

I forgot to ask. Is there a 3D performance difference between the open and closed drivers? If so, will that always be the case?

[Melcar]

I forgot to ask. Is there a 3D performance difference between the open and closed drivers? If so, will that always be the case?

On my 9800pro, x800, and 200M, I have seen on average a 30-70% drop compared to fglrx when it comes to pure speed.

[nyc_paramedic]

On my 9800pro, x800, and 200M, I have seen on average a 30-70% drop compared to fglrx when it comes to pure speed.

Ouch.

So even on really old legacy cards, like the 9800, the specs will never be truly open.

[Melcar]

Ouch.

So even on really old legacy cards, like the 9800, the specs will never be truly open.



It's not that the necessary docs. are not there, but rather that the driver is not optimized at the same level as fglrx.

[bridgman]

As Melcar said, it's not a documentation thing, more to do with a few missing things in the current driver architecture. The main "missing link" right now is the lack of a good memory manager in the 3d stack. That is being worked on now (the whole TTM/GEM thing you read about from time to time). After memory management is in place, the next obstacle will probably be a decent shader compiler for GLSL, and there is hope that the work around Gallium will help there.

There's no reason in principle why the open source driver couldn't match the performance of fglrx other than the huge amount of work it would take to get there. I expect that 10-20% of that work will give 60-80% of fglrx performance (assuming Gallium and the LLVM infrastructure around it works through as expected) and that is where the developers are likely to say "good enough" and go work on a different problem instead.

[nyc_paramedic]

As Melcar said, it's not a documentation thing, more to do with a few missing things in the current driver architecture. The main "missing link" right now is the lack of a good memory manager in the 3d stack. That is being worked on now (the whole TTM/GEM thing you read about from time to time). After memory management is in place, the next obstacle will probably be a decent shader compiler for GLSL, and there is hope that the work around Gallium will help there.

There's no reason in principle why the open source driver couldn't match the performance of fglrx other than the huge amount of work it would take to get there. I expect that 10-20% of that work will give 60-80% of fglrx performance (assuming Gallium and the LLVM infrastructure around it works through as expected) and that is where the developers are likely to say "good enough" and go work on a different problem instead.

Thanks for the detailed info. This makes a lot of sense.