Fedora 11, KMS/Radeon/3D xpress 200m mini review

[groo_pcd]

First of all, i bow before the open source radeon developers, really really nice work done. keep it up.

Now... for the mini review.

I downloaded the nightly build of fedora 11 yesterday (29/04) and it blew my mind, metaphorically speaking.

KMS (mode settings) works as advertised on my 200m (RS482), no bugs here. No flicker when switching between console and X and back again, very impressive. Plymouth also works right after the grub boot.

When i opened my kde desktop, i could check with glxinfo that now opengl version is bumped to 1.4 (really nice, should be able to use vmware 3d acceleration now, since it asks for 1.4 or higher), and xv is using the textured video port (was ATI Radeon Video Overlay dropped?).

best of all dri2 is working!!! no more fighting between composite window managers and opengl apps (ahhh true google earth nirvana).
But there is a catch, at least with my evil 200m, when i activate composite in kde, i lose the xdamage ability, by that i mean that any window isn't updated unless i force it (by moving the window, hovering it with the mouse pointer, doing a switch with the cover switch, etc).
Also, the update with the mouse pointer, only updates the area the mouse hovers, not the entire window.

I hope bridgeman and gang can pinpoint why exactly xdamage isn't being called/synchronized, since it makes the dri2 experience quite useless so far with kde 3d effects and radeon 200m. But it's VERY VERY impressive and promissing. I'm blown away. can't wait for this code to stabilize so i can port it to jaunty :)

Did i also mentioned it's fast? well it is, and at least for 200m isn't any slower :D (i know there are performance regressions, but i couldn't see any measurable slowdown to the naked eye).

AMD gang feel free to mail me if you need additional testing.

Radeon open source drivers are rocking the boat :D

[mpelletier]

Woah!!! Hold on a second... Are you saying that the open source radeon drivers now support some semblance of direct rendering? Do I no longer have to fight with FGLRX drivers? (A frustrating experience in F10 with the catalyst 9.3 release!) Please say yes!!!

[bridgman]

Yep, the open source drivers have supported direct rendering on 3xx/4xx for a couple of years (initially reverse engineered), 5xx for almost a year (with documentation), and 6xx/7xx is being worked on now.

The big news here is really the addition of Redirected Direct Rendering, ie the ability to run a direct-rendered 3D app in a window on a composited desktop. That was sort of the holy grail, in the sense that once that worked it became possible for distros to start shipping with a compositor enabled by default, and for framework developers to start designing a more tightly integrated graphics stack which assumed a compositor was always present.

The other big news is having the 3d driver work with kernel modesetting and with a kernel video memory manager. The lack of a good kernel video memory manager was the primary obstacle for higher levels of GL support including features like VBOs, FBOs and pbuffers.

[mpelletier]

Yep, the open source drivers have supported direct rendering on 3xx/4xx for a couple of years (initially reverse engineered), 5xx for almost a year (with documentation), and 6xx/7xx is being worked on now.

The big news here is really the addition of Redirected Direct Rendering, ie the ability to run a direct-rendered 3D app in a window on a composited desktop. That was sort of the holy grail, in the sense that once that worked it became possible for distros to start shipping with a compositor enabled by default, and for framework developers to start designing a more tightly integrated graphics stack which assumed a compositor was always present.

The other big news is having the 3d driver work with kernel modesetting and with a kernel video memory manager. The lack of a good kernel video memory manager was the primary obstacle for higher levels of GL support including features like VBOs, FBOs and pbuffers.

Clearly this does not work, then on a HD 36XX... I have longed for such a day, but it seems that it is not yet :(

[Pitabred]

Not yet working. But it will ;) I just bought a 4670, gonna put it in with my integrated X1250 so I can test and hopefully submit bug reports and such soon. It's getting there ;)

[SolidSteel144]

Will 3D performance increase with the new kernel memory manager and added OpenGL support?

[bridgman]

The memory manager on its own will probably not make a big difference (it might even slow things down a tiny bit), but having a memory manager makes it possible to implement the missing GL functions, and having those functions available to applications *will* make a big difference in performance with apps that are able to use them.

[nanonyme]

Clearly this does not work, then on a HD 36XX... I have longed for such a day, but it seems that it is not yet :(That'd be the "and 6xx/7xx is being worked on now" part. Waiting for it myself too.

[Xeno]

@groo_pcd, problems with KWin effects it's not just your card, here (Radeon 9550-RV350) happend the same. On the other hand Gnome and compiz works great. It's neat to see gears or video in jelly window. :D
BTW did you manage to run any 3D application with hardware acceletratiopn except glxgears? I've tried with glaxium and gl-117 and both of them use mesa instead.

[ewood]

I do hope that Fedora 11 will bring me 3D support on my PPC and AMD-64 systems with Radeon x800 and x700 chips, respectively. It seems like Fedora has been next to useless in terms of 3D since that Xorg update in Fedora 8 or so.

And actually, no old Linux distro has had support for the Radeon x800 on PPC from what I've seen. I couldn't even get to the installer on my G5. So.. will Fedora 11 finally bring these machines to life?

[nanonyme]

I do hope that Fedora 11 will bring me 3D support on my PPC and AMD-64 systems with Radeon x800 and x700 chips, respectively. It seems like Fedora has been next to useless in terms of 3D since that Xorg update in Fedora 8 or so.

And actually, no old Linux distro has had support for the Radeon x800 on PPC from what I've seen. I couldn't even get to the installer on my G5. So.. will Fedora 11 finally bring these machines to life?Well, I just installed Fedora 11 a few days ago on my iBook (G4) and updated it to release later on. Seems to me that it can do KMS just fine. Though after I decided I want to try the newest code from glisse's post, I found out (glisse told me) that the memory management doesn't yet work on PPC. It's being worked on though. I suspect most of the initial testing was done on x86 targets anyway. That's not to say it couldn't do 3D. That it can do fine. Just might want to disable compositing since seems glxinfo doesn't seem to report DRI2. (The exact device I have on my laptop appears to have a chip from the original r300)

[ewood]

Well, I just installed Fedora 11 a few days ago on my iBook (G4) and updated it to release later on. Seems to me that it can do KMS just fine. Though after I decided I want to try the newest code from glisse's post, I found out (glisse told me) that the memory management doesn't yet work on PPC. It's being worked on though. I suspect most of the initial testing was done on x86 targets anyway. That's not to say it couldn't do 3D. That it can do fine. Just might want to disable compositing since seems glxinfo doesn't seem to report DRI2. (The exact device I have on my laptop appears to have a chip from the original r300)

Well well, I happen to have an iBook G4 as well! Is the r300 the 9200? I believe that's what mine has. I have Fedora 11 release downloading as I type, so before long I will have an answer before me. I am hoping to find out whether I can run things like Tux Racer and other 3D amusements before I actually try installing this beast, however. I hope x86_64 is at least on par with x86, though, as my Radeon x700-equipped AMD machine has been waiting a long time for 3D as well.

The news sounds exciting so far. Fedora is at least poised to get multimedia working properly for me. Right now, GNU/Linux OSes remain a power users' solution which leave me wanting for an alternative to Mac OS and Windows that even I can use. Each Fedora release inches nearer to something I can really use on my various non-Intel platforms, but still it brings some show-stopping bugs. I do hope that 11 will work "well enough" at least!