HDMI out with fglrx on a 4650?

[evol262]

For the life of me, I cannot seem to get straight HDMI working with fglrx on a 4650. The system has an onboard 3200, which works as expected, but when I switch to the 4650 (clean install or not), I get no output from HDMI after installing fglrx. As soon as X attempts to start, it starts (and fails) to initialize an HDMI connection, then drops me back. Failsafe X hangs the system once fglrx is installed (currently disabled).

Xorg.0.log indicates that it can't find a screen, and no aticonfig incantation I've tried will get it to initialize (--fore-monitor=tdmsX). The HDMI connector is the only input I've got, and VTs work normally.

It works through a DVI->HDMI adapter, sort of (amdcccle then cannot detect that it's connected to a television, so I can't change the overscan to get it to fill the screen, and I obviously have no audio that way). Straight HDMI works if I disable RandR, but the 1080p is not an option (if I specify the modeline myself, it'll switch, but there's corruption on the right half of the screen in anything above 1440).

Does anybody have HDMI working with a 4650 and fglrx? I'm ready to try openSUSE or Arch just to see if I can get it working, but I'm doubting if it'll make a difference (I'm on Ubuntu 9.04 now, much to my chagrin, but I was hoping to avoid too much manual configuration on the HTPC).

[forum1793]

What mboard do you have.

For mine, gigabyte ma78gm-s2h (I think), I don't know exactly how this could be done. The mboard has pins for front audio wires. I suppose these could be routed to your separate videocard. Better yet is probably the spdif_io port but requires an optional cable and the receiver needs to be able to support digital audio.

My bios doesn't have a disable integrated video option. I can only choose between D-sub/DVI or D-sub/hdmi. D-sub is the std rgb. I don't know that you can force output solely to your discrete video card. You're probably not too concerned about that anyway and it sounds like your on-board options are d-sub/dvi.

My bios does have an option for init first display and I can choose pci, onboard, or PEG (pci-express graphics).

For onboard audio I can only choose enable or disable. Can't direct to any specific ports or formats. That should be done by software/kernel anyway.

So, if it will work, you will have to probably route wires from spdif to new graphics card and then figure how to enable. What does aplay -l and aplay -L show?

Based on what they show you may need to unmute in alsamixer (try alsamxier -c0 and alsamixer -c1. Do both work?).

[evol262]

Audio over HDMI works. It's video over HDMI that does not on the 4650 (as noted, the onboard 3200 works as expected). I played around with it this weekend, and video over HDMI doesn't work on Win7 either once the Catalyst drivers are installed unless I have a DVI monitor hooked up, and turn on the TV once I'm at the desktop (it doesn't pick up otherwise).

[forum1793]

I misread your post. I would think video should be fairly straightforward. If you don't care about audio over the 2nd TV port, why not just use dvi? Does that TV not support dvi?

Have you tried altering your bios settings to use the 4650 instead of the integrated?

Again, what motherboard and what video card?

[evol262]

I do care about audio over HDMI, since it's a HTPC that will not be connected to a monitor (hence, having a DVI monitor connected so I can activate the HDMI after X starts is not an option).

The TV does not have DVI (5 HDMI ports). A DVI->HDMI converter works, sort of, but see the first post.

The BIOS is initializing the 4650, and it works until Catalyst loads (Windows), or on a VT (Linux), even with no other monitors connected.

The motherboard is really irrelevant here. GPU, as noted, is a 4650.

[lbcoder]

DVI to HDMI conversion DOES carry audio.

The card will not see the TV any differently just because it is on a different plug.

Look through your TV's menus... any fairly recent TV should be able to adjust the over/underscan without any help from the GPU -- it is basically assumed that you will want to use the thing as a monitor as well as a TV.

Have you tried the open source driver? It should support your card for all TV-related functions, including Xv, and it should be a whole lot easier to use.

[lbcoder]

Oh, FYI: you'll probably need to re-install whatever distro you use in order to remove the fglrx pollution, otherwise the open source driver probably won't work properly.

DVI to HDMI conversion DOES carry audio.

The card will not see the TV any differently just because it is on a different plug.

Look through your TV's menus... any fairly recent TV should be able to adjust the over/underscan without any help from the GPU -- it is basically assumed that you will want to use the thing as a monitor as well as a TV.

Have you tried the open source driver? It should support your card for all TV-related functions, including Xv, and it should be a whole lot easier to use.

[Kano]

That's a really brutal solution to reinstall. Usually it can be done much smarter, depending on the way you installed fglrx.

[evol262]

Yes, I've tried RadeonHD. It works, but performance is lackluster on the 4xxx series. No, I don't need to reinstall to swap it. No, my DVI->HDMI converter does not carry audio, at least not with RadeonHD.

The TV's a Phillips 32" 1080p LCD. It does not allow me to change the overscan/underscan options.

Beyond which, as the first post notes, EDID is detected incorrectly over DVI->HDMI, and it doesn't bring up all the supported resolutions. If I specify the modeline manually, I can change the resolution, but the right side is corrupted.

In short, DVI->HDMI is not an option, and RadeonHD is not an option until I can get reasonable performance out of it (Xv is utter crap with 1080p anyway).

I'm tempted to just drop an nVidia card in, if I can find a low-profile card with reasonable performance and power draw (which rather rules out the low-profile 9800GT as well as the 9400/9500).

Edit: I'll take it, then, that nobody actually has a similar setup working?

[Kano]

Don't you think that radeonhd requires some options for audio? From man page:

Option "Audio" "boolean"
This option enables the audio hardware, which is responsible for
delivering audio data to the different HDMI capable connectors
and used to communicate with the audio driver of the operation
system. The default is off.

Option "HDMI" "string"
Possible values are "DVI-I_0", "DVI-I_1"..,"DVI-D_0","DVI-
I_1",.., "all". This option enables HDMI-Audio and HDMI-Info
packets on the specified connector. This is the only way
enabling HDMI at the moment, since decoding E-EDID data to check
if monitor supports HDMI is not implemented (yet).