Driver option to limit dedicated memory usage?

[dkasak]

Hi people.

I have a very sad story that ends with my onboard video card ( X700 Mobility on an expensive laptop ) not working for any 3D 'stuff'. Here's a copy/paste of what I sent to the xorg list:

- If I start X with DRI enabled with xf86-video-ati, I get a hard lockup - usually instantly, but sometimes after a couple of seconds. I get lots of messages in my X log about "[mi] EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop." and "[mi] mieqEnequeue: out-of-order valuator event; dropping".

- If I start X with xf86-video-ati and DRI disabled ( 'Option DRI 0' in xorg.conf ), X startx fine and works for extended periods ( tested up to 1 day ).

- If I start X with fglrx, and DRI enabled, it works fine. But if I start compiz or anything 3D ( including glxgears ), I get *massive* corruption. Bits of windows are echoed all over the place. Everything works 'fine' other than this. If I kill compiz, everything works normally as with xf86-video-ati and DRI disabled.

The only positive news is that the textured video driver in xf86-video-ati works perfectly, and I believe this uses the 3D chip, so gives me some hope that it's a memory issue and not the 3D chip fried.

I should also note that this is absolutely not a software / config issue. I've installed various versions of Gentoo, Sabayon and Ubuntu, and all exhibit the same behaviour.

So ... the problem is a hardware one. I assume it's either the 3D chip or memory. If it's the 3D chip, there's not much I can do. But if it's memory, I should be able to blacklist part of the memory or something, right? I know that the open-source drivers ( used to / still do? ) allocate half available memory to 2D and half to 3D, and I'm hoping that this is the explanation for why 2D is working and not 3D ( though I suppose this is largely wishful thinking ).

Is there any hope? Are there any driver options for xf86-video-ati, xf86-video-radeonhd or fglrx that would allow me to blacklist part of my video card memory?

Thanks

Dan

[bridgman]

This sounds familiar; did you post about this on IRC a while back ?

This sounds like an AGP bus problem but I was pretty sure that Mobility X700's were PCIE. Do you happen to know which bus your laptop uses ?

[Zhick]

You can add "VideoRam <Value in Bytes>" to your Device-Section.
I have no idea though if this is read/respected by current drivers.

[dkasak]

This sounds familiar; did you post about this on IRC a while back ?

Hi Bridgman. Thanks for the response. And yes, I was asking for help on IRC about this a while back - it was a couple of months back now. I ended up doing a 4-hour git-bisect session, and to my horror I discovered that it wasn't a software issue at all ( and then to check I did about 4 different installs, and finally rebooted into Windows ... which has it's own problems ... it flashes the display on and off for a couple of minutes, and then announces something about acceleration being completely disabled and that things will go slow ).

This sounds like an AGP bus problem but I was pretty sure that Mobility X700's were PCIE. Do you happen to know which bus your laptop uses ?

Yes it's PCIE.