Linux AGP support in Catalyst 8.11?

[legume]

However, my presently preferred Linux distribution, Mandriva 2009, stutters too much to be pleasant to use. It was working smoothyl under the geForce 3. I don't know what to think of that. I've used the backports feature to install the latest release of the Radeon drivers - version 8.10.

It could be to do with kernel options or maybe versions.
Some have found that they need to use the kernel boot option

nopat

to cure stuttering with recent kernels.

Things are fine under Kubuntu 8.10. Window movement had been slow under Kwin, but is perfectly responsive under Compiz. However, I was hoping to improve the performance in some minor areas of Compiz (i.e., some minor jerkiness in the rendering of some window transitions). That hasn't happened. The one real problem is that asking the system to shut down often stalls out at a black screen.

Should I attribute all this to the current software landscape and figure the bugs will all be worked out in time? Or should I return this graphics card again while I still can?

I see a delay in maximising windows with compiz. This is because fglrx uses XAA (it's the same if you use XAA on a r500 card with the OSS drivers)

The r500 OSS drivers are nicer in compiz using EXA, and work is in progress for OSS drivers for R600 cards, so in the future you should have a better experience.

Personally I am glad I got my HD3850 as an upgrade from X1600, the games I currently play like etqw,nexuiz and COD4 (in windows) do get a good boost WRT eye candy and in the case of 50 player COD4 servers frame rate as well, even though I only have a 2.1GHZ 32bit single CPU.

[mdmadph]

I have to admit that my results are spotty enough to make me wonder if I should have bothered upgrading the card, or if it was a mistake to move to ATI. My move was from a GeForce3 Ti 200 with 64 MB RAM to a Radeon 3650 with 512 MB RAM.

Don't think the problem has anything to do with ATI -- it's with using a new card + an ATI bus in general. If Nvidia still bothered to produce new AGP cards, I'd guarantee you they'd be having the same problems.

If you were upgrading from a GeForce3 Ti 200, you didn't need to go with something like a 3650 -- anything in the GeForce 7000 or ATI X1000 series would've been enough.

Luckily, though, you can always return the 3650 and get a great used card off Ebay.

[TinkersDamn]

Thanks for all the help, legume and mdmadph! The card is installed and I believe it is working well enough. Unlike my attempt to move to this card in July, the Linux distributions that I use are now able to make use of the card.

However, my presently preferred Linux distribution, Mandriva 2009, stutters too much to be pleasant to use. It was working smoothyl under the geForce 3. I don't know what to think of that. I've used the backports feature to install the latest release of the Radeon drivers - version 8.10.

Things are fine under Kubuntu 8.10. Window movement had been slow under Kwin, but is perfectly responsive under Compiz. However, I was hoping to improve the performance in some minor areas of Compiz (i.e., some minor jerkiness in the rendering of some window transitions). That hasn't happened. The one real problem is that asking the system to shut down often stalls out at a black screen.

Hi,
I've also tried to upgrade an older mobo (dual opteron) with the 3650 AGP and have been trying various distros. I've currently got Mandriva 2009 x64 with graphics (2D) working, but no 3D. Were you able to get 3D going using the fglrx driver? DRI is disabled, so Mesa kicks in by default, and is relatively glacial.

[dgud]

For the first time since I bought the X1950-AGP more than a year ago, I got it running on Fedora 9.

I have a Compaq with a bios without the AGP settings and nothing have worked for me until this relase.

I used the instructions at
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=189227

which worked but an additional link is needed in
ln -s /usr/lib/fglrx/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/fglrx/libGL.so
and re-run
ldconfig

After that my code works, hmm glchess still don't.

Anyway I'm happy

[BlackPak]

Hi,
I've also tried to upgrade an older mobo (dual opteron) with the 3650 AGP and have been trying various distros. I've currently got Mandriva 2009 x64 with graphics (2D) working, but no 3D. Were you able to get 3D going using the fglrx driver? DRI is disabled, so Mesa kicks in by default, and is relatively glacial.

I did get 3D working, just using the Mandriva graphical configuration tools (sorry - I can never remember what the tools are called, and I don't have one of my Mandriva boxes in front of me). Here's what I did: Go to the settings for graphics card. It had already properly identified my card (although only as belonging to a very large group, something like Radeon x1300 and later). I re-select that already properly-set choice of graphics card and proceed. I am then asked if I want to enable proprietary drivers, and I choose to activate said drivers. I am notified that I must log out for the settings to take effect and the logout prompts are provided to me. I do not long out at this point, but close the setting dialog for the graphics card and monitor settings. In the graphical configuration tools, hardware section, next to the settings for graphics card and monitor, there are settings for 3D. I open that dialog, choose the Compiz desktop, and open the advanced settings drop-down, which brings up a choice between native support and XGL. I choose XGL, then log out/restart the X server.

I've found that if you try to run the 3D desktop in Mandriva 2009, with ATI gear, using the native support, it just crashes. XGL has to be selected.