7870 + i5 2500 Some questions

[zoomblab]

Hi, I run Kubuntu 12.04. The only easy way to benchmark that I know is the Mozilla HDACCEL. Previously, with the i5 alone, I was getting 60+ FPS. Now, with the 7870, I am getting 31 FPS.

glxinfo says:

OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x300)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.1
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20

I guess that means just CPU rendering. So I have a couple of questions.

1. How can I configure which video card and driver to run? I would like to revert to the i5 for now.
2. I know that the radeon open source drivers progress fast. However what is the exact procedure to download and install the latest drivers? I read phoronix all the time, I know how to compile simple programs, though linux drivers look like a jungle to me (MESA, KMS, DRM, DRI, DDX, ...). Does an easy to follow guide exists?

[ChrisXY]

OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.

Wat.

I guess that means just CPU rendering.

Yes.

1. How can I configure which video card and driver to run? I would like to revert to the i5 for now.

Either
via driver section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf or some appropriate snippet in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/??.conf
or
just tell the kernel not to load i915 OR not load radeon and xorg will do the right thing without a xorg.conf.

2. I know that the radeon open source drivers progress fast. However what is the exact procedure to download and install the latest drivers? I read phoronix all the time, I know how to compile simple programs, though linux drivers look like a jungle to me (MESA, KMS, DRM, DRI, DDX, ...). Does an easy to follow guide exists?

I don't know about ubuntu but generally you need
1. A kernel with the i915 or radeon module. Most reasonable distribution should have that. Also, one of them should be loaded. Checking with lsmod.
2. libdrm compiled with --enable-radeon and/or --enable-i915. Again, reasonable distributions should have that.
3. mesa with the xorg driver for r600g or i915/i965. Again, should be in ubuntu already.
4. xf86-video-ati and/or xf86-video-intel or xserver-xorg-video-ati or whatever it is called in ubuntu.

I believe a default ubuntu installation should have everything there.
So there seems to be a problem with the radeon driver.
First, check /var/log/Xorg.0.log for obvious errors. Is it trying to load the intel driver? Is it trying to load the r600g driver? Is it failing?
Secondly, install mesa-utils and run

LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose glxinfo | grep render

or something. At the beginning it says what drivers it is trying to load and an error message if it fails.
This is for me:

 ~ % LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose glxinfo | grep render
libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri/tls/r600_dri.so   #fails with no error message, just file not found
libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri/r600_dri.so       #next try succeeds and it is not trying further
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD REDWOOD
    GL_MESA_window_pos, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_conditional_render,

The opengl vendor string says "OpenGL vendor string: X.Org" for me by the way.

If you like to revert to the intel graphics, why not simply remove the radeon 7870 physically? Will save power anyway.

[evolution]

Hi, I run Kubuntu 12.04. The only easy way to benchmark that I know is the Mozilla HDACCEL. Previously, with the i5 alone, I was getting 60+ FPS. Now, with the 7870, I am getting 31 FPS.

glxinfo says:

OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x300)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.1
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20

I guess that means just CPU rendering. So I have a couple of questions.

1. How can I configure which video card and driver to run? I would like to revert to the i5 for now.
2. I know that the radeon open source drivers progress fast. However what is the exact procedure to download and install the latest drivers? I read phoronix all the time, I know how to compile simple programs, though linux drivers look like a jungle to me (MESA, KMS, DRM, DRI, DDX, ...). Does an easy to follow guide exists?

1- Well, I'm note sure which PC do you have, but... If you have a desktop, the easiest way to do it is remove your dedicated ATI card... BIOS will automatically put your Intel IGP as the first graphics card. Alternatively, you can go to the BIOS and you should have an option to select your IGP as your default graphics card... After one of these steps, you should install xf86-video-intel drivers if you don't have them installed...

2- At the moment, there's only very basic support if you want to use FOSS ATI drivers + GCN cards (only KMS works, no 2D/3D acceleration I think), as you can see in this article. I'd recommend you to use Catalyst instead... The drivers are not so bad as some people in these forums will tell you... Check this guide too (if you are going to use Catalyst)...

Cheers

[zoomblab]

@ChrisXY

via driver section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

But my system has no xorg.conf. Can I generate it somehow?

1. A kernel with the i915 or radeon module. Most reasonable distribution should have that. Also, one of them should be loaded. Checking with lsmod.
2. libdrm compiled with --enable-radeon and/or --enable-i915. Again, reasonable distributions should have that.
3. mesa with the xorg driver for r600g or i915/i965. Again, should be in ubuntu already.
4. xf86-video-ati and/or xf86-video-intel or xserver-xorg-video-ati or whatever it is called in ubuntu.

I managed to compile from source 2 and 3. That bumped Mesa up to 8.0.2 but the renderer string remained "Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe".
May I ask, which of these components (1,2,3,4) is the actual 3D driver? My guess is #3; and do I have to compile a whole new kernel each time I want to upgrade Mesa?

@evolution

Thank you. I installed the frglx drivers and I am ok now. Removing the card was not really an option, it worked fine on windows

[ChrisXY]

@ChrisXY
But my system has no xorg.conf. Can I generate it somehow?

X -configure

But nowadays it's better to put a 20-radeon.conf in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ instead of a whole xorg.conf

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf
Section "Device"
    Identifier "r"
    Driver      "radeon"
    Option "ColorTiling2D" "on"
EndSection

I managed to compile from source 2 and 3. That bumped Mesa up to 8.0.2 but the renderer string remained "Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe".

I don't know about the HD 7870. It's possible that the code just doesn't work yet.

May I ask, which of these components (1,2,3,4) is the actual 3D driver? My guess is #3; and do I have to compile a whole new kernel each time I want to upgrade Mesa?

Yes, mesa contains several things... libraries for glesv1, glesv2, egl, openvg, osmesa, g3vdl/vdpau, etc. and then there are things like /usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri/r600_dri.so and /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/r600g_drv.so, these are the actual drivers xorg uses to send 3d thingies to the other parts of the driver.

[AlbertP]

That bumped Mesa up to 8.0.2 but the renderer string remained "Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe".

Southern Islands (Radeon HD 7xxx) support is still in a seperate branch of Mesa. Normal Mesa 8.0.x does not have it included.

About the kernel, you can ask at your distribution what the recommended way of upgrading to 3.4-rc is. Older kernels don't have Southern Islands support yet.

But of course you need none of this when fglrx is installed and working.