Random freeze and lockups with ati-6.10

[Thetargos]

I'm using the default driver in Fedora 10, but still get the random freeze/lockup in my laptop (RS690M based), consistent lockup occurs when using Cairo-Dock and other graphics apps. Apparently this still has to do with EXA acceleration, but I also have seen these happen with XAA. Any pointers?

[bridgman]

Are you running with KMS and memory management, or with nomodeset ?

[agd5f]

There were some issues with the accel code in the ddx that recently came to light. Your best bet it to try ati git master.

[Thetargos]

As far as I am aware, yes, I am running with KMS. I have no other options passed to the kernel regarding graphics (APIC is a whole other story due to the laptop's BIOS).

I'm not sure what do you mean about memory management (TTM/GEM?), and I do not know how to check for those (Xorg.log, maybe?)

I tried recently to revert back to XAA, however for some reason when I start X with the modified xorg.conf file (Option "AccelMethod" "XAA") I get no X display at all... And the system seems to be in a frozen state, maybe I'm using a malformed xorg.conf file, Fedora 10, as many other modern distributions does not rely any longer on an xorg.conf file for the display's configuration, but you can override the auto configuration with one, however, I may seem to be using a malformed one. Should I use "ati" as the driver or "radeon" directly? I'm guessing the file I'm using is missing some parts (location of Xorg modules, etc), will try later.

[slacker]

Is it a hard lockup? If so, it's probably the same I've been getting for ever: http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16198
(Currently testing the last patch attached there)

[Thetargos]

With the 6.10 driver I'm getting a strange problem. I do not seem able to use the XAA AccelMethod any more, I see a message in Xorg.0.log regarding XAA and r300 and upwards not supporting this type of acceleration.

[bridgman]

6.10 is pretty old now, might be worth updating to latest in git. A number of acceleration issues were fixed in between the two.

The XAA message just says that Render acceleration is not supported with XAA -- agd5f only added Render accel to EXA. The change was not "taking render accel away from XAA" but "adding render accel to EXA" (in early 2008).

[Thetargos]

I see... It's been a while since I last used git to update the driver, is there a place where the instructions are posted (so you don't have to post them again?)

[agd5f]

http://www.botchco.com/agd5f/?page_id=2

[Thetargos]

Thanks a lot, agd5f.

Edit

Hmm... I'm having a bit of trouble configuring the driver, it seems... I get this output in the console when the configure part of autogen.sh --prefix=/usr (or ./configure --prefix=/usr, for that matter) is running:


checking for gcc... (cached) gcc
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... (cached) yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... (cached) none needed
checking dependency style of gcc... (cached) gcc3
./configure: line 20833: syntax error near unexpected token `XINERAMA,'
./configure: line 20833: `XORG_DRIVER_CHECK_EXT(XINERAMA, xineramaproto)'

[agd5f]

You need to install the xorg devel packages for your distro.

[Thetargos]

I'm using Fedora 10, and it looks like I have both installed, the utilities and the macros, I'm running x86_64, and only have those packages installed for x86_64, should I need the i386 versions as well? (logic says no, but in practice, I've seen programs say otherwise)

[agd5f]

probably need the xinerama-proto package or something like that.

[Thetargos]

I don't get it... I pretty much installed all the pertinent development packages, but still I get the very same message when trying to configure the driver for building it. Maybe is a pkg-config conflict or something to that end?

Edit

I have these two macro files for aclocal:

/usr/share/aclocal/xorg-macros.m4
/usr/share/aclocal/xorgversion.m4

The macros file does not include any of the macros the configure script makes reference to.

[bridgman]

Do you have xorg-x11-util-macros ?

Until different distros standardize on package names, there isn't much alternative to the build / google / read / load / build / google / read / load / build / google / read / load... cycle.

[Thetargos]

Yes xorg-x11-util-macros actually only installs those two macro files I posted earlier.

I may have been missing the server-devel package, but still I'm getting the same error. The package xorg-x11-server-devel does include an aclocal/xorg-server.m4 file, which DOES include the XORG_DRIVER_CHECK_EXT definition:


cat /usr/share/aclocal/xorg-server.m4 | grep XORG_DRIVER_CHECK_EXT
# XORG_DRIVER_CHECK_EXT()
AC_DEFUN([XORG_DRIVER_CHECK_EXT]

Despite now having that macro defined, I still get the same message, regarding ./configure.

[Thetargos]

I was able to finally build the drivers, I had to compile a git check-out of libdrm and when pointing the driver to the location of this libdrm, it then built. Sorry for the inconvenience, and am now in the process of testing the drivers.

[Thetargos]

Ok, testing the new drives, I can tell that they seem a bit faster on the 2D side, but lack a LOT on the 3D side (if 6.10 were slow as such, these are much slower), I cannot have a composited desktop (metacity's compositor) as the gnome-terminal is rendered useless, and compiz while it does apparently start, I can only see a white screen. OpenGL programs run much, much slower (such as glxgears or some games), however the perceived speed rendering of 2D and movies seems indeed to be faster (there is no longer tear in video-files)

[agd5f]

Ok, testing the new drives, I can tell that they seem a bit faster on the 2D side, but lack a LOT on the 3D side (if 6.10 were slow as such, these are much slower), I cannot have a composited desktop (metacity's compositor) as the gnome-terminal is rendered useless, and compiz while it does apparently start, I can only see a white screen. OpenGL programs run much, much slower (such as glxgears or some games), however the perceived speed rendering of 2D and movies seems indeed to be faster (there is no longer tear in video-files)

Are you sure 3D is enabled properly? xf86-video-ati does not provide 3D acceleration. There is a separate mesa driver for 3D.

[Thetargos]

Ah, that explains it. I'll have to install a new Mesa snapshot. Currently I'm running 7.2, and current snapshot is 7.5 IIRC.