Catalyst 9.2 Released, Still Fails To Deliver XvBA

[bridgman]

FWIW, Xv performs colour space conversion (from YCbCr to RGB) as well as scaling. Might not seem like much but it does offload a couple of gigaflops/sec of work, which is a big deal for most CPUs (and is a big deal for *all* CPUs if the code isn't making full use of SIMD extensions and multiple cores).

[rahman.duran]

FWIW, Xv performs colour space conversion (from YCbCr to RGB) as well as scaling. Might not seem like much but it does offload a couple of gigaflops/sec of work, which is a big deal for most CPUs (and is a big deal for *all* CPUs if the code isn't making full use of SIMD extensions and multiple cores).

Hmm, thanks bridgman, I didn't know that.

[rahman.duran]

here are the xorg.0.log and xorg.0.log.old (I don't know if the logfile is wiped clean after a reboot, but I imagine it is).

here id the xorg.conf I used (I left out a big block of comments, but that shouldn't matter):

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
        Driver      "radeonhd"
        Option      "AccelMethod" "exa" # default shadowfb
        Option      "DRI" "on"
EndSection

I'll reboot, reproduce the error, and then, before I reboot again, I'll pastebin those logs.

EDIT: I rebooted and looked at the logs. It seems that at the time radeonHD is supposed to be loaded, it thinks that fglrx is already loaded. It is true I have fglrx installed, but I always thought the loading process was done by xorg.conf.
So I'll uninstall fglrx and try again.

you need to wipe out fglrx.

[theviper]

I had to go back to 9.1 because the "black borders" workaround (aticonfig --set-dispattrib=tmds2i,positionX:0 etc.) for 1920x1080 stopped working. Xrandr now says "DFP2" instead of previous "default", and trying to set tmds2i dispattribs with aticonfig ends in error. Doing --query functions I figured out aticonfig now would recognize "dfp" output, but nevertheless I cannot set display attributes for any display name I can think of.

Using HD 3450, HDMI-over-DVI and having the famous underscan (and following hang if you don't reset to amdpcsdb defaults every time you logout) problem. Setting display attributes at every login works with 9.1.
Quite a mess.

If anyone knows how to set the parameters in 9.2, let us know.

Same here ... with 9.2 I was (after a few fglrx versions) able to set the refresh rate without crashing the system.

But the underscan is unbearable ... any1 know how to turn it off?

[MU_Engineer]

So what kind of CPU do you have? Becouse it is nothing to do with XV, there is no acceleration for hd content on amd/ati side neither on fglrx nor foss drivers. It is completely CPU related to play hd videos. So I can't play 1080p videos on my x2 4000+ CPU without frame drops. So if you don't have a fast enough CPU you can't play any hd content both on fglrx and radeon/radeonhd drivers.

I have an X2 4200+ and can play MPEG-2 1080i/1080p video just fine using xv without framedropping (my GPU is a Radeon HD 3850 using fglrx 8.12.) I wonder what the issue is in your system. Where I get into trouble is playing 1080p H.264/MPEG-4 stuff.

[JeanPaul145]

you need to wipe out fglrx.

Did that, installed both the drm driver and the xserver driver, activated radeonhd with the xorg.conf posted earlier...
The performance was abysmal. /
It would give some empty screen on top of the normal desktop if I ever activated compiz.
Next to that, simple things as scrolling or moving windows around was really slow (now I'm talking about metacity). The vesa driver gives a smoother experience IMO.

So there are 2 options: either I didn't do something I should've done (in which case these directions are incomplete) or they just don't work satisfactorily yet with R7xx hardware (it _is_ marked experimental after all).

[bridgman]

JeanPaul, Compiz uses OpenGL for compositing and that will be running software rendering right now (ie don't bother).

When you say performance was abysmal, which kind of operations are you talking about ? If they're anything but 3D (which isn't accelerated yet) can you post X log and dmesg output ?

[rahman.duran]

I have an X2 4200+ and can play MPEG-2 1080i/1080p video just fine using xv without framedropping (my GPU is a Radeon HD 3850 using fglrx 8.12.) I wonder what the issue is in your system. Where I get into trouble is playing 1080p H.264/MPEG-4 stuff.

How about trying h264 mpeg4-avc profiles mpeg2 isn't that much complex for decent x2 CPUs. I get frame drops even if I overclock CPU to 2.6 Ghz.

[rahman.duran]

Did that, installed both the drm driver and the xserver driver, activated radeonhd with the xorg.conf posted earlier...
The performance was abysmal. /
It would give some empty screen on top of the normal desktop if I ever activated compiz.
Next to that, simple things as scrolling or moving windows around was really slow (now I'm talking about metacity). The vesa driver gives a smoother experience IMO.

So there are 2 options: either I didn't do something I should've done (in which case these directions are incomplete) or they just don't work satisfactorily yet with R7xx hardware (it _is_ marked experimental after all).

Are you sure you copy both radeon.ko and drm.ko to proper places? scrolling is fast enough on my hd3200 igp.

[JeanPaul145]

JeanPaul, Compiz uses OpenGL for compositing and that will be running software rendering right now (ie don't bother).

When you say performance was abysmal, which kind of operations are you talking about ? If they're anything but 3D (which isn't accelerated yet) can you post X log and dmesg output ?

I'm talking about simple basic operations like moving a program window or scrolling through something (like a website or a list of contacts, both work far from smooth).

Here are the Xorg.0.log and the dmesg output.
I've taken both snapshots of these logs while having fglrx uninstalled and my xorg.conf set to

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
	Driver      "radeonhd"
	Option      "AccelMethod" "exa" # default shadowfb
        Option      "DRI" "on"
EndSection

@rahman.duran:
Yeah, I just did the whole process again, just to be sure I didn't miss anything on this page. But I followed those instructions to the letter.
You should note that I have a R7xx gfx card, for which the support is still quite incomplete, and I imagine that the HD3200 igp uses the R6xx driver. That might make a huge difference.