"Ask ATI" dev thread

[NeoBrain]

It would be a feature added to one of the compositing window managers, not something specific to the driver or the hardware. I think border transparency is available today but the Vista UI adds a bit of diffusion/blurring as well as transparency which looks pretty sharp.

Both Compiz and KWin 4 provide that feature, but it has been broken in fglrx since 8 releases or something...
EDIT: Ah well, and it (at least in Compiz) requires OpenGL 2, so no solution for you bridgman, sorry :D

[questioneer]

yep i would love to see the blur effect on ati hardware to.

the kde4 _and_ compiz blur work on nvidia without any problems.

without this effect transparency is practically useless.

(intel drivers are effected by the lack of blur too... -> http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Blur )

[Mr_Ed]

Both Compiz and KWin 4 provide that feature, but it has been broken in fglrx since 8 releases or something...
EDIT: Ah well, and it (at least in Compiz) requires OpenGL 2, so no solution for you bridgman, sorry :D

Broken? Or *removed*?

[Zhick]

Broken? Or *removed*?
Transparent window-decorations are a feature of the window-manager, so it can't be removed from the graphics-driver.
yep i would love to see the blur effect on ati hardware to.
[...] without this effect transparency is practically useless.
Uhm... I'd say _with_ this effect transparency is useless. Isn't it the whole point of transparency to be able to make out the background of a window? So why would you want to blur it?

And am I the only one who thinks the Vista window-decorations are extremely ugly? Call me nostalgic but when I'm stuck on a windows-machine I always enable the "classic-look".

[questioneer]

Uhm... I'd say _with_ this effect transparency is useless. Isn't it the whole point of transparency to be able to make out the background of a window? So why would you want to blur it?



Imagine a transparent window bar over another windowbar, the text doesnt look too nice with another text at the back shining through.

and ofc you can make out whats in the background even if its blurred, its not like transparency is used to read text in the background...

[Mr_Ed]

Now, the (my) focus here is if the compositing window manager (in my case: compiz-fusion) is responsible for the blur ability or the driver.

According to what I read in this thread, the compositing manager should be because the current ATI driver should be mature enough to handle this feature.

I already filed a bug for this in the past:https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=479443

But this bug was closed by the bug maintainer with the following comment:

"Thanks for the report. We are sorry that we cannot help you with your problem, but we are not able to support binary-only drivers. If you would be able to reproduce this issue using only open source software, please, reopen this bug with the additional information, but in meantime I have no choice than to close
this bug as CANTFIX (because we really cannot fix it)."

To me, as a simple user, this feels like no-one is going to solve this.

[NeoBrain]

Blur windows _broke_ somewhere about 8.46. At that point, transparent windows got darkened instead of getting their background blurred. Focus blur seemed to work though IIRC.
Lateron, I guess about 8.11, blur still didn't work, but now it just didn't change anything about the window or its background. Turning on the plugin had the same effect as leaving it disabled (i.e. neither focus nor alpha blur worked).

About the usefullness of blurring transparent windows: It's quite practical in that way, that you can see if something changes in the "lower" windows (e.g. a new chat message) but at the same time the transparency doesn't make reading the text in the topmost window any harder.

[Mr_Ed]

I just tried the open source driver.

When I enable blur in compiz, it makes the windows lag like hell, moving a window takes about 5 seconds and traces of the background keep being visible in the window border after moving a window. Switching between windows (alt-tab) idem ditto. Everything works slow.

1. The "4xBilinear" blur does work.

2. Mipmap make the window borders dissapear.

2. Gaussian doesn't blur at all. And is slow too.

Google-Earth doesnt work with the open source driver.

When DPMS mode is enabled and the screen goes to sleep it will not wake up from it anymore.

Pretty much everything else I do with this driver is al least 50% slower then with the fglrx driver.

i.e. Watching a video on discovery it hicks like hell.

[bridgman]

I already filed a bug for this in the past:https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=479443

But this bug was closed by the bug maintainer with the following comment:

"Thanks for the report. We are sorry that we cannot help you with your problem, but we are not able to support binary-only drivers. If you would be able to reproduce this issue using only open source software, please, reopen this bug with the additional information, but in meantime I have no choice than to close
this bug as CANTFIX (because we really cannot fix it)."

To me, as a simple user, this feels like no-one is going to solve this.

For an fglrx bug, the place to file is http://ati.cchtml.com. Distros can fix bugs in open source drivers but not binary drivers, as they said.

If we're talking about the Compiz blur effect, I think there is already a ticket open on the fglrx tracker; at least now I know what it's talking about ;)

[bridgman]

When I enable blur in compiz, it makes the windows lag like hell, moving a window takes about 5 seconds and traces of the background keep being visible in the window border after moving a window. Switching between windows (alt-tab) idem ditto. Everything works slow.

Sounds like the blur is being done in software, which would be very slow. If it's a GL 2.0 function being used in blur that would make sense; the open drivers should pick up GL 2.0 support once Gallium3D is up and running (Gallium3D was integrated into mesa master recently, which is *great* news).

For the other apps it also sounds like they are taking SW fallbacks; there's a way to disable that but I don't remember the details.

I need to talk to the Google folks; Google is such a big advocate of open source but it seems like they only test their apps on binary drivers, not open source :D

I'm not sure what the latest problem with Google Earth is; will ask around.

Pretty much everything else I do with this driver is al least 50% slower then with the fglrx driver.

i.e. Watching a video on discovery it hicks like hell.

Is that a flash video or something ? I would expect video playback to be faster on the open drivers than on fglrx these days; this should be fixable today.

[Mr_Ed]

Is that a flash video or something ? I would expect video playback to be faster on the open drivers than on fglrx these days; this should be fixable today.

Flash!

And I also tried the Adobe hack by creating /etc/adobe/mms.cfg and adding a line:

OverrideGPUValidation=true

in it.

[Mr_Ed]

Here my hw specs: http://www.smolts.org/client/show/pub_752de3ff-9b34-4c55-906b-a6d4365840ca

[Mr_Ed]

I cannot get TV-in working with the open source driver.

I tried several options:

(**) RADEON(0): Option "RageTheatreCrystal" "2950"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "RageTheatreTunerPort" "0"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "RageTheatreCompositePort" "2"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "RageTheatreSVideoPort" "6"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "TunerType" "0"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "RageTheatreMicrocPath" "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/multimedia/ativmc20.cod"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "RageTheatreMicrocType" "BINARY"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "DefaultConnectorTable" "on"
(**) RADEON(0): Option "TVStandard" "PAL"

But the only output I get in xorg.log:

(II) Module exa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.5.3, module version = 2.4.0
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 4.1
(**) RADEON(0): Rage Theatre Crystal frequency was specified as 29.50 Mhz
(**) RADEON(0): Rage Theatre tuner port was specified as 0
(**) RADEON(0): Rage Theatre composite port was specified as 2
(**) RADEON(0): Rage Theatre SVideo Port was specified as 6
(**) RADEON(0): Tuner type was specified as 0
(**) RADEON(0): Rage Theatre Microcode path was specified as /usr/lib/xorg/modules/multimedia/ativmc20.cod
(**) RADEON(0): Rage Theatre Microcode type was specified as BINARY
(==) RADEON(0): Assuming overlay scaler buffer width is 1920
(II) RADEON(0): Cannot access BIOS or it is not valid.
If your card is TV-in capable you will need to specify options RageTheatreCrystal, RageTheatreTunerPort,
RageTheatreSVideoPort and TunerType in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
(!!) RADEON(0): For information on using the multimedia capabilities
of this adapter, please see http://gatos.sf.net.

With previous versions of the driver it was no problem.

Can somebody help me?

[Mr_Ed]

opengl screensaver hangs/crashes system with xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.10.0-2.fc10.i386

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/+bug/106060

I changed my settings from gnome-screensaver-preferences using gconf-editor.
I was using "blocktube" as the preferred screensaver and changed that.

Now, when I start gnome-screensaver-preferences in a terminal I see:

** (gnome-screensaver-preferences:3698): DEBUG: Found best visual for GL: 0x21

[leidola]

Hello!

Is there a time frame, in which we can expect OpenCL from AMD? I mean some kind of roadmap? I'd like to start with GPGPU programming and wonder if I'd start with brook+ or wait for OpenCL. Or use cuda, as it is said to be similar to OpenCL -- I need a new GPU anyways, but I'd prefer to stick to AMD. According to the AMD homepage there will be a migration way to OpenCL when it is ready. Does anybody know about it?

By the way, NVidia has presented this roadmap:

http://www.geeks3d.com/?p=2582&lang=de

Thanks for your help,

Olaf

[wfeltmate]

I would suggest waiting for OpenCL. CUDA is fairly similar, but it will be (for the most part) proprietary to nVidia parts, whereas OpenCL looks to be what will be the industry standard and much more versatile.

[leidola]

Hi!

> I would suggest waiting for OpenCL.
Ultimately I'll switch to OpenCL, but the question is when it will be usable. I guess it will still take half a year (which is too long to wait), but I hope ATi is quicker. That's why I pose this question ;-)

[Michael]

It looks like AMD is getting ready to finally answer these questions... This thread will be locked shortly, so if you have any last minute, relevant questions, ask them now, The answers should be out in April.

[Vighy]

It looks like AMD is getting ready to finally answer these questions... This thread will be locked shortly, so if you have any last minute, relevant questions, ask them now, The answers should be out in April.

ok, so, 2 questions:

one on the fglrx side: (i'm sure an answer has already be given, but i forgot it)
- Is fglrx going to implement KMS? if not, why not?

two on the documentation release plan:
- how is Power Management documentation going? how is the plan to provide it to the public?
- are you thinking about re releasing the r200 docs?

thanks :)

[Vighy]

Dear ATi guys, why did you put a fetch restriction on amd stream sdk!?!?!?
I don't absolutely want to register to you website, just to be able to update my amd-stream-sdk ebuilds!
It's nice to see you ported some new tools to linux, but putting a fetch restriction just keeps interested people away!

that's not the right way to go!!!

Michael, what about writing an article about this horrible decision?? thanks in advance.

[leidola]

Hi!

I read in this forum:
http://forums.amd.com/devforum/messageview.cfm?catid=328&threadid=106811&enterthread=y

and now I've a few more questions:

1. What cards will support OpenCL?

2. What will happen to brook+/cal?

3. How will OpenCL be implemented / will it be based uppon LLVM?

Thanks a lot,
leidla

[bridgman]

I think that's just a consequence of moving from ATI to AMD web site tools, but I can ask about it.

Is there an actual fetch restriction (ie even when you register you can't get the tools for some other reason) or is it just that you don't want to register ?

[Vighy]

I think that's just a consequence of moving from ATI to AMD web site tools, but I can ask about it.

Is there an actual fetch restriction (ie even when you register you can't get the tools for some other reason) or is it just that you don't want to register ?

I don't want to register because, an ebuild cannot login in a web from. (and if it can, it should not! :) )

I made a gentoo ebuild for amd stream sdk 1.3 beta, but now it's not usable any more since it requires a login to download the sources.

the funny thing is that the .tar.gzip files changed name from amdstream to atistream :D and not the contrary :)

[bridgman]

OK, thanks; I'll pass that on.

[Mr_Ed]

Sounds like the blur is being done in software, which would be very slow. If it's a GL 2.0 function being used in blur that would make sense; the open drivers should pick up GL 2.0 support once Gallium3D is up and running (Gallium3D was integrated into mesa master recently, which is *great* news).

For the other apps it also sounds like they are taking SW fallbacks; there's a way to disable that but I don't remember the details.

I need to talk to the Google folks; Google is such a big advocate of open source but it seems like they only test their apps on binary drivers, not open source :D

I'm not sure what the latest problem with Google Earth is; will ask around.



Is that a flash video or something ? I would expect video playback to be faster on the open drivers than on fglrx these days; this should be fixable today.


Just for the record: setting the kernel parameter "nomodeset" has solved a number of issues for me:

Google-Earth doesn't work with the open source driver. => solved!

When DPMS mode is enabled and the screen goes to sleep it will not wake up from it anymore. => opengl screensaver issue with kms enabled => solved!

Pretty much everything else I do with this driver is al least 50% slower then with the fglrx driver. => solved!

-----

But the compiz alpha blur thing still isn't working as aspected,

But without the *blur* effects it is much more useable now. Xvideo plays fine now (also windowed) and everything is a lot more "snappier".

Also, I read on the fedoraproject wiki that the radeon open source driver will support kms and dri2 in the upcoming Fedora 11 release for the older r100, r200 and r300 cards.

So, it seems there still is some future for my *old* hardware here.

Regards,

Eddie.

[Mr_Ed]

i cannot get tv-in working with the open source driver.

I tried several options:

(**) radeon(0): Option "ragetheatrecrystal" "2950"
(**) radeon(0): Option "ragetheatretunerport" "0"
(**) radeon(0): Option "ragetheatrecompositeport" "2"
(**) radeon(0): Option "ragetheatresvideoport" "6"
(**) radeon(0): Option "tunertype" "0"
(**) radeon(0): Option "ragetheatremicrocpath" "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/multimedia/ativmc20.cod"
(**) radeon(0): Option "ragetheatremicroctype" "binary"
(**) radeon(0): Option "defaultconnectortable" "on"
(**) radeon(0): Option "tvstandard" "pal"

but the only output i get in xorg.log:

(ii) module exa: Vendor="x.org foundation"
compiled for 1.5.3, module version = 2.4.0
abi class: X.org video driver, version 4.1
(**) radeon(0): Rage theatre crystal frequency was specified as 29.50 mhz
(**) radeon(0): Rage theatre tuner port was specified as 0
(**) radeon(0): Rage theatre composite port was specified as 2
(**) radeon(0): Rage theatre svideo port was specified as 6
(**) radeon(0): Tuner type was specified as 0
(**) radeon(0): Rage theatre microcode path was specified as /usr/lib/xorg/modules/multimedia/ativmc20.cod
(**) radeon(0): Rage theatre microcode type was specified as binary
(==) radeon(0): Assuming overlay scaler buffer width is 1920
(ii) radeon(0): Cannot access bios or it is not valid.
If your card is tv-in capable you will need to specify options ragetheatrecrystal, ragetheatretunerport,
ragetheatresvideoport and tunertype in /etc/x11/xorg.conf.
(!!) radeon(0): For information on using the multimedia capabilities
of this adapter, please see http://gatos.sf.net.

With previous versions of the driver it was no problem.

Can somebody help me?


this also is solved for me setting the *nomodeset* parameter.

E.

[static_drc]

There is microcode (a "binary blob") in the Radeon driver in the Linux kernel. Because of this, according to the Free Software Definition, the open source Radeon drivers are non-free software.

Has the information about what this microcode does been released by ATI? Is there anything stopping ATI from releasing it?

The microcode appears to only be used to initialize the Radeon command processor. With proper documentation for the microcode, the open source Radeon drivers could be 100% free software. This would allow free software users the opportunity to use many powerful Radeon video cards for 3D graphics in GNU/Linux.

Thank you so much!

[bridgman]

This is one of the few places where I suspect the Free Software Definition is being misapplied, or at least being used in a way which brings unintended consequences. I can't believe that the definition was written to deliberately penalize hardware vendors who load microcode in the driver rather than autoloading it from ROM or permanently storing the microcode on-chip, but that is what is happening right now.

We are documenting all of the programming information required to write 100% free, highly functional and performant drivers. We are not documenting the internal functioning of the hardware, and the microcode images are part of that internal hardware function. No GPU vendor allows modification of the internal microcode, whether it be stored permanently on the chip or loaded at power-up. If I was being told that all microcode was evil and that you were not going to use any chips which run internal microcode unless you had source for that microcode I could understand, but that is not the case here.

The argument, as I understand it, is "since your microcode image is loaded at power-up by the driver then the microcode needs to meet all the rules we apply to the rest of the driver code, even though it is not driver code, is never executed by the CPU, and once it is loaded it is NO DIFFERENT from microcode which had been permanently stored in the chip or autoloaded from ROM".

Honestly I don't see why a microcode image loaded at power-up is any less free than the same microcode stored permanently in the chip. Neither one can be read or understood, neither one allows learning or changing or redistributing the changes, yet apparently one is Good and one is Evil. I can't believe that was Mr. Stallman's intention.

AFAIK most of the older Radeon GPUs can use the 3D engine *without* the command processor, albeit more slowly, since there is a command FIFO which can accept command packets without requiring that the microcode images be loaded. I have mentioned this to a couple of developers but so far there hasn't been much interest. Only the 6xx-and-up parts absolutely require the command processor microcde for 3D.

[energyman]

also - gpu's aren't the only microcode users. If you are anal about that, there are a lot more drivers you couldn't use. SCSI, gb-ethernet, 10gb-ethernet and a couple of others ...

[zeldaman55069]

Bridgman, when ATI says that it is dropping support for R300-R500 support in Catalyst does that include the windows side of the driver?

[bridgman]

Sort of. We're moving the current code off into a legacy branch and then removing 3xx-5xx code from the main driver source tree, so beginning with Cat 9.4 all monthly Catalyst drivers will only support 6xx and up. This applies to all OSes.

Separately, we plan to provide quarterly updates for Windows off the legacy branch, but that will mostly be fixes for security issues and maybe newly released apps/games. No support for new OS releases.

That model won't work with Linux, since :

(a) the equivalent of new OS releases come along pretty much every month so the legacy branch would quickly fall behind, and

(b) most Linux users are not just expecting the current level of fglrx functionality on their 3xx-5xx GPUs but ongoing improvements in areas like video playback, 2D performance and suspend/resume.

We looked at the options and decided that it made more sense to provide ongoing support via the open source drivers than by spending the same effort porting the current fglrx functionality to new OS and kernel versions.

[zeldaman55069]

Thanks for clearing that up for me bridgman!

[rafi]

Hello bridgman, I have a question about the open source drivers and Ubuntu 9.04.

I will have to use the radeon or radeonhd driver since Catalyst 9.4 won't support my x1600 mobility. I use my laptop to work at school, and with fglrx I always set the powerstate option to 1, it saves my battery and keeps my computer quiet (thank you AMD for the auto-powerstate option :love: ).
The question is: Will I be able to do the same thing with the open-source drivers?

The different powerstates seem to be coded in the bios of the card (or something like thats), so maybe it is possible to set the state I want to use in the xorg.conf?

[static_drc]

bridgman, thanks for the quick response. I personally really like everything possible to be free on a system, but I can understand that in some cases there are mitigating circumstances that can prevent this. However, do you know if there are any specific problems with getting the Radeon CP microcode in a non-blob and documented format? Has ATI said they have any problems with this in the past, and has anyone asked them?

Thank you!

[energyman]

@static_drc have you asked Intel about their microcode blob for their cpus?

[static_drc]

@energyman Intel integrated video card drivers have no undocumented binary sections of microcode. They work very well with free software drivers. So do integrated video cards from VIA. As for AGP/PCI cards, the 3dfx Voodoo series works well with free software drivers, but they are not so powerful and are hard to come by nowadays.

Do you know if there are difficulties in the release of the documentation of the Radeon CP microcode? What are the difficulties?

Thank you!

[energyman]

static_drc I said CPU not GPU.

If you are 'Hardcore' about GPUs you have to be hardcore about CPUs as well - which rules out intel. Or AMD (who do the microcode updates via bios), and probably via too.

[bridgman]

However, do you know if there are any specific problems with getting the Radeon CP microcode in a non-blob and documented format? Has ATI said they have any problems with this in the past, and has anyone asked them?

I guess the first thing I should mention is that I work for ATI/AMD and (among other things) organize the technical reviews of information we hope to release.

At the start of the open source graphics project one of the tasks was working out the overall approach -- which areas would be most useful to developers, which areas posed the highest risk for us, and what combination of information would let us support the development of good free drivers without posing an unacceptable risk in the other markets where we sold the same products (ie other OSes). Opening the microcode was identified as one of the highest risk areas, with no apparent benefit (since other GPUs also use microcode in the same way but either hide it on the chip or load it transparently from ROM at power-up).

I don't want to go into details, but the problem in a nutshell is DRM. On other platforms, we are obligated to deliver secure and robust DRM implementations (Digital Rights Management), and that becomes much more difficult if we expose any of the hardware internals other than the driver programming model (registers and command packets). This is also why we have not released information in areas such as the UVD video processor. Again, the risk is not what could be done with Linux, but what could be done with the information on other OSes.

The open source graphics project was basically built on the idea that we could open up enough information to allow the development of fully free drivers *without* revealing enough information -- either directly or by "moving the starting point for reverse engineering" -- to put our products at risk in other markets. So far the project has been well received, and hopefully we can depend on the free software leaders to treat all non-free microcode equally, whether it be loaded by the driver or burned into the chip.

[static_drc]

@energyman I am so sorry! I misread what you said. AMD and Intel CPUs work fine with the Linux-libre kernel, which only contains free software.

Do you know if there are any problems with ATI releasing the documentatin for the Radeon CP microcode? What are the problems?

If this is a difficult question, or if this is not the right place to ask, then please let me know.

EDIT: I'm sorry! My question was answered while I was typing my reply. :) I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my question. I now understand the reasons for keeping the microcode the way it is. I continue to support ATI in how much they contribute to the free and open source software community. Thank you!

[bridgman]

static_drc, I think the reason the CPUs work with Linux-libre is that microcode patches are *usually* applied by the BIOS at system startup, before the kernel runs. Microcode loaders were added to the kernel in order to simplify system maintenance and improve reliability; removing them from the kernel means that the user either runs with older CPU microcode or is forced to flash their BIOS image with a new blob to get the latest microcode.

Taking CPU microcode blobs out of the kernel doesn't get rid of them, it just forces them to be managed in another (less convenient) part of the system.

[nanonyme]

Taking CPU microcode blobs out of the kernel doesn't get rid of them, it just forces them to be managed in another (less convenient) part of the system.
Actually iirc Linux kernel 2.6.29 allows loading of the CPU microcode on-boot via the kernel. I've understood this is a new feature since I didn't see it in the CPU config section earlier but I did notice it there while trying out 2.6.29. (While the AMD microcode didn't even seem to apply for my CPU. Meh) The idea might be that while you do need some kind of microcode to boot at all, you get a more up-to-date version of the microcode when the system starts. If you want to check what I mean, look for symbols MICROCODE_AMD and MICROCODE_INTEL.

[Nille_kungen]

so beginning with Cat 9.4 all monthly Catalyst drivers will only support 6xx and up. This applies to all OSes.

Separately, we plan to provide quarterly updates for Windows off the legacy branch, but that will mostly be fixes for security issues and maybe newly released apps/games. No support for new OS releases.

Well doesn't the 9.3 driver add official support for windows7 ?
So windows users get windows7 support before they get "No more new OS support".

[bridgman]

AFAIK the Win7 driver API (WDDM 1.1) is for 6xx-and-up products only since it requires DX10 support.

[bridgman]

Actually iirc Linux kernel 2.6.29 allows loading of the CPU microcode on-boot via the kernel. I've understood this is a new feature since I didn't see it in the CPU config section earlier but I did notice it there while trying out 2.6.29. (While the AMD microcode didn't even seem to apply for my CPU. Meh) The idea might be that while you do need some kind of microcode to boot at all, you get a more up-to-date version of the microcode when the system starts. If you want to check what I mean, look for symbols MICROCODE_AMD and MICROCODE_INTEL.

Yep. My understanding, though, is that a couple of "totally free" Linux projects take the CPU microcode and associated loaders out again.

As you can imagine, there is a lot of debate about this, and some *very* long email threads :D

[Nille_kungen]

AFAIK the Win7 driver API (WDDM 1.1) is for 6xx-and-up products only since it requires DX10 support.

Well i didn't know that.

[PuckPoltergeist]

AFAIK the Win7 driver API (WDDM 1.1) is for 6xx-and-up products only since it requires DX10 support.

Hm, I don't think so:
http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=14218&d=1237391292

[bridgman]

That slide says that the DX10 API can be used on DX9 hardware, which is true. I believe there are actually 5 levels of support within DX10, 3 for DX9 hardware and 2 for DX10 hardware.

AFAIK the Vista-level Aero interface uses DX10L9 when running Win7 on DX9 hardware (and you can do that with a Vista driver).

The full slide set gives some more context :

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/E/6/5E66B27B-988B-4F50-AF3A-C2FF1E62180F/GRA-T515_WH08.pptx

[djdoo]

Sorry to make a question not 'compatible' with the above discussion but can someone tell me why i can use resolution '1440x900' at vista at 75Hz refresh rate and at Linux only at 60Hz??

Details: I connect my Syncmaster T190 monitor via DVI at an HD 3450 card, Linux openSUSE 11.1, Xserver 1.5.2, Catalyst 9.2 installed.

The strange fact is that amdcccle reports 75Hz as maximum refresh rate but at monitor preferences where you set resolution and refresh rate it only lets me choose 60Hz...

Any ideas or knowledge on this??

[djdoo]

Also another one:
Does anyone of you guys managed to set up Hybrid Crossfire at an Xorg 7.4 environment?? (always speaking for xserver 1.5.x)

Cause at opensuse 11 with Xorg 7.3 i set up things at once but now at opensuse 11.1 which uses xserver 1.5.2 and Xorg 7.4 whenever I enable the crossfire chain my PC stops booting when loading X. Doesn't freeze, just stops booting procedure and screen remains black when it supposed to show mouse X cursor you know...

[djdoo]

And a comment for the previous discussion...

Aero just doesn't diserve to be regarded or called a 3D compositing window manager...:mad:

Anyone who have seen or used Compiz, KDE 4's 3D effects or even the good old Beryl understands what I mean...

Just ignore it and use Virtualbox inside a Linux system to install win XP, if you obligatoraly need a windoze environment, and then spin it with Compiz!...;)

[djdoo]

Hey anyone for me guys??:(

[avilella]

Does anybody know what are the current laptops with ati powerxpress?

The ones I've found so far are in this blog:

http://linux-hybrid-graphics.blogspot.com/

Lenovo ThinkPad T500 (ati)
Lenovo ThinkPad T400 (ati)
ASUS M51Ta (ati)
Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Sa 3650 (ati)
MSI PX211 12'' (ati)
HP Pavilion tx2500 (ati)

Anyone?

[cruiseoveride]

Can you post your log please ?

Here is the Xorg.log with latest drivers (9.3 x86_64). http://pastebin.com/f1a072609

Same deal, just a blank screen when you try and start X. None of the catalyst drivers have ever worked. Tried both Ubuntu and Fedora. Distro builds or from the ati-installer.

XP/Vista catalyst works, and so does the open source drivers, so the card should be OK.

AMD 4200+, Asus A8N-Sli, Visiontek HD4870, 2Gb ram, FC10 x86_64

[eugrus]

When UVD for Linux is gonna work?

And is it gonna work whenever at all?

[fbrujan]

Hello all, i am new in the forum
i am having the following: (the screen became black)
"[fglrx] It's not necessary to adjust system aperture on this ASIC" each time the ac-power fail. i have to do Alt+Ctrl+F2 and Alt+F1 to get back my X-session.
Also if i try to log-off the laptop hangup
if i try to switch-user the laptop hangup

This is my fglrxinfo output:

display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon X1200 Series
OpenGL version string: 2.1.8543 Release


this is my dmesg output:

fglrx: module license 'Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY' taints kernel.
[fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 800 MBytes.
[fglrx] vendor: 1002 device: 791f count: 1
[fglrx] ioport: bar 4, base 0x9000, size: 0x100
[fglrx] Kernel PAT support detected, disabling driver built-in PAT support
[fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.59.2 [Mar 13 2009] with 1 minors
[fglrx] GART Table is not in FRAME_BUFFER range
[fglrx] Firegl kernel thread PID: 3477
[fglrx] Gart cacheable size:436 M.
[fglrx] Reserved FB block: Shared offset:0, size:1000000
[fglrx] Reserved FB block: Unshared offset:7ffc000, size:4000
[fglrx] It's not necessary to adjust system aperture on this ASIC
[fglrx] It's not necessary to adjust system aperture on this ASIC
[fglrx] It's not necessary to adjust system aperture on this ASIC
[fglrx] It's not necessary to adjust system aperture on this ASIC


this is my lspci output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (Internal gfx)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Device 7914
00:05.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (PCI Express Port 1)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (PCI Express Port 2)
00:12.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
00:13.3 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
00:13.4 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
00:13.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 14)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series]
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
14:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
14:06.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
14:06.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
14:06.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)


if i remove the fglrx drivers i do not receive the message and everything work properly (except for the video, of course).

Please help!!!!.

[djdoo]

Now I just installed Catalyst 9.4 at my system openSUSE 11.1, Xorg 7.4, xserver 1.6.1, Radeon HD 3450, Radeon HD 3200...

Yep indeed xserver 1.6 works now as long as Randr 1.2 with or without Texturedxrender option load but the previous problems remain unchanged here...

I stil cannot enable the damn Crossfire chain to make Hybrid Crossfire work!!
For one more time the X freezes upon load...
And Xorg.0.log stops at this line:
CF Ribbon Cable not connect trying SW Crossfire
And the PC freezes for good...

I could enable Hybrid Crossfire with Xorg 7.3 straight away!
Please guys do something for that!
I mean is it so difficult to port Hybrid Crossfire usage for Xorg 7.4??
Xorg 7.3 works fine why not 7.4??:(

After being tired of PC freezes I tried enabling HD 3200 chip via the command:
aticonfig --adapter=all --initial
Then desktop really came for the first time and when you gave:
aticonfig --lsch
Showed the chain enabled and working...
But I was sure something wasn't correct here. I typed:
aticonfig --lscc
And it showed me that I had 2 primary adapters which is very wrong... And of course no sign of the word crossfire at Xorg.0.log file.

If any friend has any ideas or knowledge on this I will be glad to hear anything!

[djdoo]

Oh and something else... I am trying to help people back in Compiz forum to understand the way fglrx now works and communicates with amdpcsdb via aticonfig tool and how to make a better setup for their composited environments...
I just do my best there informing our users by watching the news at Phoronix and from my experience with the various driver versions also.

That's the thread's link http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=6794 and it has become way more popular than I expected it would be in the first place when I created it and a little bit of more official help would be very apreciatted by all of us Compiz community:)
I cannot answer everything only with my experience...
If there is any interest from AMD for these stuff just PM me or post here.

Best Regards
Jim

[bridgman]

Only 76 pages... :D

[cruiseoveride]

Is there any use in reporting bugs here http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=733

[XAKEP]

Hello there !

I am total noob and extremly exited about Ubuntu. I have very powerfull card installed on my system 4870x2 and looks like I am having problems with it.

After installation on Ubuntu I got informed that proprietary drivers are available for my ATI video card and I clicked okay for download and install. After restart right on moment when I would see desktop I see messed up screen and looks like system, freeze too. After that I format hard drive and install Ubuntu again and decided to download drivers from AMD web site. ati-driver-installer-9-4-x86.x86_64.run Installed it via very nice GUI and after reboot EXACTLY same thing happened. I mean even screen looked exactly messed up like before, you know sometimes it get messed up totally randomly ? No this one is same as before. Guys please help me out here I don't know what to do, I also tried to download 9.2 drivers but on install it saying that this version on Ubuntu not supported by 9.2 (something like that)

Here is my system specs I hope you can help out. Right now I am in Ubuntu with no ATI stuff installed I did reformat hdd again cause I could not login again because of messed up screen.


Mobo: Asus P6T Deluxe
CPU: i7 920
RAM: GSkill 1333 3x2gb sticks 6gb total
Video: Asus 4870x2 TRI_FAN design
Monitor: 24' ASUS 1920x1080
PSU: Antex-1000 w1000

I really down know what else to mention all I know is I think If I can remember at some point of time I had Ubuntu few versions before and it worked fine with my card. Again I "THINK". I hope guys you can help.

Thank you very much in advanced !

[cruiseoveride]

... and another one, and another one, and another one bites the dust!

Now i think i know why the called it the "Spider" platform, cos people get stuck in the spider's web.

Can you described "messed up" screen please?

[XAKEP]

Oh absolutely. It looks like Analog TV with no signal, no know dot's all over screen and if needed I can take a picture of screen, basically screen gets corrupted on first sign of a desktop. Please excuse me for my lack of better explanation, English is not my first language and I write what I see.

Thank you

[XAKEP]

Here is video on what is going on + Pictures.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFzRUkQS7_U

Pictures:

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo309/divxclub/04292009036.jpg
http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo309/divxclub/04292009037.jpg
http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo309/divxclub/04292009038.jpg
http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo309/divxclub/04292009039.jpg

This is screen I see. Nothing is working all keys are dead...caps lock or anything else is not working.
I hope it helps.

[MartjeB]

Just work with open-source drivers, really. Who cares about compiz?

[XAKEP]

Are you talking to me ? What is compiz ? And what drivers are available for 4870x2 other than one listed in amd.com

Thanks ...

[ap90033]

I have 4870X2 and any current Linux Distro + ATI Driver 9.4 = NO SCREEN.

Please advise, been asking for OVER a MONTH now on all kinds of forums.

I am at the point I am wishing I would have bought a Geforce GTX 295 instead... sigh

[bridgman]

Does it work with Ubuntu 8.10 ? If so, suggest you stay with that until we announce official 9.04 support.

[ap90033]

Dont know I dont have the Old OS. :) I am looking to run a current OS with the latest KDE I am trying Fedora 11 Preview now, it is supposed to be out in 12 days. Will it work with that?

Sorry I am the type of guy who went to Vista and if something didnt work right I didnt go back to XP, I would just find a work around or replace the component that had the issue.

[cruiseoveride]

I have 4870X2 and any current Linux Distro + ATI Driver 9.4 = NO SCREEN.

Please advise, been asking for OVER a MONTH now on all kinds of forums.

I am at the point I am wishing I would have bought a Geforce GTX 295 instead... sigh

Hope you learned your lesson!

When you say "NO SCREEN", are we talking about 'No Signal' to the screen, or just a black/blank image?

I had the blank screen problem with a HD4870. I was using an AMD Athlon X2 4200+ and an A8N-SLi Premium. I switched to a Phenom X3 and a M4N78-Pro and now i dont get the blank screen

[ap90033]

I had mostly white screen very distorted.

[cruiseoveride]

I had mostly white screen very distorted.

Ok. I think thats a pretty common problem. Can you try Ubuntu 8.04 or Fedora 10.

[ap90033]

I would rather run Fedora 11 I am waiting for it to come out and the preview runs well. Just no 3d. I would think with all the Linux Gurus and the fact that this issue has been around for a while, and is known, that it would be fixed soon.. I mean how hard can it be?

[cruiseoveride]

I would rather run Fedora 11 I am waiting for it to come out and the preview runs well. Just no 3d. I would think with all the Linux Gurus and the fact that this issue has been around for a while, and is known, that it would be fixed soon.. I mean how hard can it be?

No you dont get it. You need to run Fedora 10, or Ubuntu 8.04 or something older. ATi drivers dont work well with new distros.

ATi devs are fucking retards. They wouldn't know what a driver was if it sat on their heads.

[ap90033]

No you dont get it. You need to run Fedora 10, or Ubuntu 8.04 or something older. ATi drivers dont work well with new distros.

ATi devs are fucking retards. They wouldn't know what a driver was if it sat on their heads.

Yes after a month of this crap i get it. ATI sucks, their drivers suck but only in Linux. Work great in Windows.

Sad but true. As a gamer I have to use windows just wish someone would provide an alternative, especially when I see a better one out there in Linux, just no one really can pull it together and get it right.

[mirv]

What's really sad is when some of the older games work better under wine than under windows. Although I should point out that I was using vista, and the games weren't designed for it.
I would be very nice for game companies to start supporting linux - even if it's just one particular distro (Ubuntu or Fedora most likely), I'm sure the community would make it work on others.
I personally have had very few, or no problems with the binary ATI drivers for a long time. Yes, occasionally I have problems, typically related to sitting on bleeding-edge stuff a lot, so it's really my fault. I personally believe that the ATI devs are doing a great job - all games and personal programming I do are on par with windows performance, and I have no 2D issues at all. Even run dual monitors just fine (no xinerama, just a personal preference).
That being said, I've never been able to open amdcccle (not even once). I've seen a few other gentoo 64bit users with the same problem, never heard of any getting it to work.

[energyman]

it works, when installed correctly, and when you never installed the driver without using the ebuilds.

edit: proof. amdcccle, amd64, gentoo:
http://omploader.org/vMW9ldw

[ap90033]

it works, when installed correctly, and when you never installed the driver without using the ebuilds.

edit: proof. amdcccle, amd64, gentoo:
http://omploader.org/vMW9ldw

You have a 3870 and you are running an older kernel. I have a 4870X2 and Fedora 11 has kernel 2.6.29 i think...

k thx buh bye

Anyway, does the 9.5 driver work better?

[albatorsk]

edit: proof. amdcccle, amd64, gentoo:
http://omploader.org/vMW9ldw

Oh, it's not just me? amdcccle really looks like a Motif app from the 80's for everyone?

[wfeltmate]

You people drove me back to windows... i can't believe how negative and rude you guys ALWAYS are. I rarely had any troubles worth worrying over. Video tears a little? Oh well, I can still see it well enough. Wine is slow? Oh hey, turned off some of the 3d effects that didn't add much to the game and it was fine. Compiz doesn't work right? I'll wait until compiz fixes the problem, because it is NOT Ati's fault or problem.

Ati is providing you drivers as a... you know what, it isn't worth it. You won't listen. Heck, you will still likely try to respond to me, even though I am about to tell you that I am deleting my account. Have fun with your negative attitudes, I'm going to go have fun and be happy with friends.

[energyman]

oh look I am using 2.6.29.3 now!
and amdcccle still works.

[mirv]

oh look I am using 2.6.29.3 now!
and amdcccle still works.

I had been tired for my previous post - never heard of anyone with the same problem as I managing to fix it. It was always unresolved in the gentoo forums.
I'm not doubting that it does indeed work on gentoo 64bit, I just can't figure out why it's affecting me, or has affected others. As a result, I can't say that everything has worked for me from ati - though I can say the actual drivers run just fine (and I'm even using 2.6.29).

[energyman]

as I wrote before I suspect some dangling symlink or old file somewhere. amdcccle is a little bit sensitive about such a disturbance.

[mirv]

yes, and I checked all of that, as I also wrote before. I had checked all that when the gentoo issue arose. Everything is linked fine, there are no errors in dmesg or any x log. Tried rewriting my xorg.conf, tried lots of things.
I personally think something is compiled with, or without, a certain use flag, and that's causing the issues.

[ap90033]

You people drove me back to windows... i can't believe how negative and rude you guys ALWAYS are. I rarely had any troubles worth worrying over. Video tears a little? Oh well, I can still see it well enough. Wine is slow? Oh hey, turned off some of the 3d effects that didn't add much to the game and it was fine. Compiz doesn't work right? I'll wait until compiz fixes the problem, because it is NOT Ati's fault or problem.

Ati is providing you drivers as a... you know what, it isn't worth it. You won't listen. Heck, you will still likely try to respond to me, even though I am about to tell you that I am deleting my account. Have fun with your negative attitudes, I'm going to go have fun and be happy with friends.

I know exactly how you feel. Windows is currently superior for gaming, but you wont get that through the thick heads of most linux gurus. I have been trying to make some see this point on this forum and others and always get the same attitude. sigh

[energyman]

yes, and I checked all of that, as I also wrote before. I had checked all that when the gentoo issue arose. Everything is linked fine, there are no errors in dmesg or any x log. Tried rewriting my xorg.conf, tried lots of things.
I personally think something is compiled with, or without, a certain use flag, and that's causing the issues.

I can send you my make.conf and xorg.conf if you want to compare.

[mirv]

I can send you my make.conf and xorg.conf if you want to compare.

Please do, although due to a holiday weekend I won't be able to look at it until Monday.

[djdoo]

I know exactly how you feel. Windows is currently superior for gaming, but you wont get that through the thick heads of most linux gurus. I have been trying to make some see this point on this forum and others and always get the same attitude. sigh

Superior for gaming??:eek:

Windows is superior for nothing guys!
Well to be fair maybe for porno spyware and hacker thieves attacks are wonderful as well as viruses from antivirus companies...:p

Linux systems are now becoming real popular and don't take negative opinions as you call them so bad, it is the feeling we all linux fans want from our systems to be as best as they can! Development is synonimus word to linux, and most of the linux gurus go mad cause they know that 98% of the problems caused to the linux distros are from proprietary software such as Catalyst griver is. Cause companies are only after profit and not progress for software and society generally.

[Kano]

Very easy to reset:

rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
touch /etc/X11/xorg.conf
aticonfig --initial

Simple, isnt it ;)

[jamey0824]

you got a simple reset for gmd.conf?

[MartjeB]

sudo rm /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom

Simple, isn't it? ;)

No, joking aside, you should only edit the *-custom file.

[nanonyme]

Development is synonimus word to linux, and most of the linux gurus go mad cause they know that 98% of the problems caused to the linux distros are from proprietary software such as Catalyst griver is.The thing from another perspective: if Linux kernel had a stable API for proprietary modules and ATi had decided to bypass as much of the X.org stack as nVidia, there could be a lot less porting and proprietary driver development could focus on the real issues like stability instead of getting a rewrite on every single kernel version upgrade and X server upgrade. Btw, you probably know you're not being forced to use the proprietary drivers by anyone, right?

[energyman]

people have shown why a stable api for prop. modules is a very bad idea. Please google first before you continue on a track that would HURT linux A LOT So could you stop with the stupid stuff?

or at least read this:
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/stable_api_nonsense.html

think about it thoroughly and then come back.

[Cairo_BR]

Hi ATi users, I have a notebook with a Radeon X1250(RS690M) running on OpenSUSE 11.1 32 bits and the unique fglrx driver that works with this version of OpenSUSE is 8.12, while older than 8.12 didn't built and the newers didn't started X, with just a black screen.
My problem is after logging out or CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACING it shows a strange green/black/blue screen and I must have to restart the PC. BUT it seems that this issue is resolved on the lastest(9.5) version of fglrx:

...
Fixed: Some system may become unresponsive after starting and killing X-server
[SUSE 11.X x86] System no longer fail to respond when executing multiple server generations
...


But UNFORTUNATLY, since 9.4, fglrx isn't compatible with my card anymore. I tried the OpenSUSE 11.0 and luckly it works with all versions from 8.11 to 9.3 I tested, but only 8.11 and 8.12 don't have this issue. I dont want to use an older version of OpenSUSE of migrate to another distro(Debian and Ubuntu worked well with the lastest compatible driver - 9.3).

If someone have had this issue and resolved himself, please "share this knowledge", I only found that it would be a conflict with vesafb, and just. Since I'm not a native speaker, sorry for some eventually mistakes. Thanks for reading my problem!

[nanonyme]

people have shown why a stable api for prop. modules is a very bad idea. Please google first before you continue on a track that would HURT linux A LOT So could you stop with the stupid stuff?

or at least read this:
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/stable_api_nonsense.html

think about it thoroughly and then come back."we are talking about GPL released drivers here, if your code doesn't fall under this category, good luck, you are on your own here, you leech" Well, at least your page is honest with their reasoning. People who write non-GPL kernelspace drivers are in the kernel devs' opinion leaches who don't have to be cared of. Sounds like an awfully biased page.

[energyman]

it is Greg's opinion. And Greg has all the right to think so. You might want to look that guy up. For him sharing and giving back is most important.

Others have written similar stuff.
example?
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=113378006232564&w=2

I hope Arjan van de Ven says you more than Greg Kroah Hartman (udev, pci, usb, driver-staging project and assorted other stuff)

[nanonyme]

*shrug* Of course one solution would be to have the "glue" be fully GPL-compliant and integrated into kernel (and thus kernel developers would be forced to maintain it unless they wanted to prove themselves liers), then have the binary blobs distributed separately, like firmware nodadays is.
I personally believe one of the major reasons why Linux is still so small in desktop market is the fact that develoepers fail to understand that most end-users will not care if everything they use is Free - as long as it works. It is the developers' battle for their own Intellectual Property that we're currently seeing, really. It is their fair right to do so though, of course. Every company does so too.

[mirv]

Users may not care much about the Free aspect - but the kernel devs sure do.
That aside, the ability to change an interface to clean up drivers / do things a (hopefully!) better way is very useful from a programming perspective.

[energyman]

firmware and drivers are two completly different subjects.

[Melcar]

Any plans on implementing profiles to CCCLE like in the Windows driver? Specifically for 3D settings (AA, AF, etc.). This would particularly useful for games (or for any 3D app. really), since changing settings on the fly is far better than having to load up CCCLE. Something that the user can manually load would be enough (no reason to map individual applications).

[Mazur]

"Ask ATI" dev thread. Ok, if this is thread where can I ask something then, Are you going to support us better or still mess around?