ati-drivers-8.27.10-r1 - possible scan rate control problem?

[Mark Knecht]

Michael,
Hi, and again, thanks both for keeping after me to do this and with all your suggestions. It's been a big help.

As of today I have the second machine partially working. These machine have a BIOS config option to enable output to the TV output. Physically the machines have both and S-Video out and a composite video out. It appears with the older driver I was able to get graphic video on both the composite output as well as the S-video output. However with the new driver I am getting all the boot time, text info on both the composite & S-Video outputs but when it switches to X all the graphics video only comes out on the S-Video out. I won't go in to the messy background of my living room set-up but this change forces me to make an input change on the TV to go to an S-Video source instead of the Sony receiver just switching automatically between the set-top box and the Myth TV computer.

So, now the question would be how can I get this driver to put video out on the composite video output instead of, or in addition to, the S-Video output? Here is what I think are the main parts of the new xorg.config file:

Section "Device"

# The chipset line is optional in most cases. It can be used to override
# the driver's chipset detection, and should not normally be specified.
# Chipset "generic"
# The Driver line must be present. When using run-time loadable driver
# modules, this line instructs the server to load the specified driver
# module. Even when not using loadable driver modules, this line
# indicates which driver should interpret the information in this section.
# The BusID line is used to specify which of possibly multiple devices
# this section is intended for. When this line isn't present, a device
# section can only match up with the primary video device. For PCI
# devices a line like the following could be used. This line should not
# normally be included unless there is more than one video device
# intalled.
# BusID "PCI:0:10:0"
# VideoRam 256
# Clocks 25.2 28.3
Identifier "Standard VGA"
Driver "vga"
VendorName "Unknown"
BoardName "Unknown"
EndSection

Section "Device"

#VideoRam 8192
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
Identifier "** ATI Radeon (generic) [radeon]"
Driver "radeon"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Driver "fglrx"
Option "ForceMonitors" "nocrt1,nocrt2,tv"
EndSection


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "** ATI Radeon (generic) [radeon]"
Monitor "My Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
Device "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

I added the ForceMonitors command by hand as it worked on my other machine and I don't totally trust this aticonfig program yet. I looked at aticonfig --help and do not spot any specific options for turning on composite video out. Do you see any?

Anyway, I'm in much better shape today, just not quite as good as I used to be.

Thanks,
Mark

[Michael]

By chance did you try anything with the ATI dynamic display management options? It may possibly yield some success, but it should be worth a shot none the less.

Try aticonfig --query-monitor and you should see all of the connected devices. Then try using aticonfig --enable-monitor= to enable the device connected through S-Video. This will only work if you see the S-Video device under connected monitors.

[Mark Knecht]

Hi again,
After viewing the quality of the video output I'm seeing a LOT of video 'tearing' as a scene changes quickly. It's like the mpeg stuff was only doing part of the frames or something.

This is MUCH worse than the older driver, at least with the setting sI have right now.

QUESTION: What stuff should I be checking on a 9100 IGP to ensure the best performance I can get?

I understand that this chipset doesn't do 3D acceleration. glxgears is giving me only about 100FPS. Everything seems very slow and the video is NOT smooth like the older driver.

Should I be able to do DRI stuff with this device? I'm not clear. I tried to reconfigure the driver and kernel but couldn't find any settings that allowed me to see DRI/DRM enabled.

Thanks again!

- Mark

[Mark Knecht]

By chance did you try anything with the ATI dynamic display management options? It may possibly yield some success, but it should be worth a shot none the less.

Try aticonfig --query-monitor and you should see all of the connected devices. Then try using aticonfig --enable-monitor= to enable the device connected through S-Video. This will only work if you see the S-Video device under connected monitors.

I don't currently have a keyboard attached to the machine. When I log in remotely and run the command it fails:

myth14 ~ # aticonfig --query-monitor
ati_dm: unable to open display `'.
myth14 ~ #


Is there any way for me to do this command across the network? It would make it far easier to communicate back to you as I don't have a browser or any of that stuff on the machine either.

Note: I tried the ForceMonitor "auto" setting. This sends graphic video to an attached CRT but does it at a scan rate the monitor says is out of range. None the less I wasn't interested in using the monitor so I set it back to the nocrt, tv output as per my xorg.config file above.

Thanks,
Mark

[Michael]

I don't believe there are anyways off hand to handle the dynamic displays remotely.

[Mark Knecht]

I don't believe there are anyways off hand to handle the dynamic displays remotely.

OK - thanks. Digging out a keyboard to see what I see when I'm hooked up directly. I'll have to save outputs into files and then scp them back here to provide data back.

Back in awhile.

- Mark

[Michael]

Hi again,
After viewing the quality of the video output I'm seeing a LOT of video 'tearing' as a scene changes quickly. It's like the mpeg stuff was only doing part of the frames or something.

This is MUCH worse than the older driver, at least with the setting sI have right now.

QUESTION: What stuff should I be checking on a 9100 IGP to ensure the best performance I can get?

I understand that this chipset doesn't do 3D acceleration. glxgears is giving me only about 100FPS. Everything seems very slow and the video is NOT smooth like the older driver.

Should I be able to do DRI stuff with this device? I'm not clear. I tried to reconfigure the driver and kernel but couldn't find any settings that allowed me to see DRI/DRM enabled.

Thanks again!

- Mark

Are you using the open-source drivers for the 9100? If not, have you tried thouse out?

You will be best off using the open-source drivers for the R200 generation components.

[Mark Knecht]

OK - thanks. Digging out a keyboard to see what I see when I'm hooked up directly. I'll have to save outputs into files and then scp them back here to provide data back.

Back in awhile.

- Mark

Not much to say here. It just listed 'tv' as the only thing it saw. No clues I can gather about how to get proper X11 video/graphics on the composite video output so far.

- Mark

[Mark Knecht]

Are you using the open-source drivers for the 9100? If not, have you tried thouse out?

You will be best off using the open-source drivers for the R200 generation components.

WRT open-source drivers are you speaking of the radeon driver in the kernel? The last time I went down that path it turned out they didn't have any support the composite video/S-Video outputs. They only worked over the normal VGA output. Has that changed? that would be nice. I don't need any 3D support since these 9100's don't have it in the silicon.

I guess there is also the Gatos drivers but I don't know a thing about them. They are listed as 'testing' in portage so it's no big deal to build them. I'm more concerned about how to build a proper xorg.config file if I was to go that way.

I'm certainly interested in what folks think the options are, but I'm also sort of shocked at how much worse the mpeg performance is on this new ati-driver compared to the one I used a year ago. Bummer...

Thanks!

- MArk

[Michael]

Just a thought, but did you try unplugging the S-Video cable prior to turning the system on? Did composite work then?

Also, as a last resort, are you able to use a S-Video to composite adapter for your home theater setup?