[ltp] Ati driver's install - "direct rendering: No" - Now radeon driver

[Nate]

Thanks for the couple of replies so far. I've tried to provide as much 
info below as could possibly be needed. My next try will be to post to a 
Xorg oriented forum, but I thought someone here might be able to help 
better, since we likely have similar hardware.

This post has a few parts. If you can help with any of them, please do.

1. I ask that anyone with a valid xorg.conf for dual head using the 
ati/radeon open source driver on a T4* laptop with DRI working, to post 
or send to me their xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log. Even better if you're 
running FC5 and Xorg6.9 or 7.0. To know if DRI is working, do 'glxinfo | 
grep rendering' and see if it says "direct rendering: Yes".

2. I ask for help on my 3 levels of success using the radeon driver for 
dual head. I'm going to link to all 3 sets of xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log 
files on a webserver, and explain them below.

3. Even with DRI working, the performance of X is not great (In fact I 
cannot tell the difference between DRI working and not, except glxgears 
fps improves by nearly 10 times). For example, when changing tabs by 
clicking their names in firefox, I can tell you that first it draws the 
website, then switches the tab, then changes address bar. Also, when 
bringing an app on front of firefox (or vice versa), first the window 
manager draws the window, then the client application fills up the 
window. Lastly, when moving windows around they tend to smear or leave 
copies of themselves as trails. Even if I never get DRI working 
properly, I would like to fix desktop/window manager performance, 
because this is underlying reason I am doing all of this.

As an aside, I found a bug report with the fglrx driver for the R2** 
series ati cards. Ati's update, just around the time that I was trying 
the driver's, broke something for a lot of people. Now instead, I am 
trying to setup the open-source radeon driver for dual head with DRI.

I've had 3 different successes. First, I let system-config-display 
generate an xorg.conf. DRI support did not work with dual head, and 
suggested I used option MergedFB. Everything looks fine, but DRI does 
not work and desktop performance is slow.

http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/xorg.conf.bak200606071519-dual_nodri
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/Xorg.0.log.bak200606071519-dual_nodri
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/glxinfo.bak200606071519-dual_nodri
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/lsmod.bak200606071519-dual_nodri
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/lspci.bak200606071519-dual_nodri

I had 2 partial successes using MergedFB.

I setup MergedFB manually for lcd at 1400x1050 and crt at 1024x768. The 
Xorg log says:
(EE) RADEON(0): Static buffer allocation failed.  Disabling DRI.
(EE) RADEON(0): At least 33075 kB of video memory needed at this 
resolution and depth.
My video card has 32mB, so perhaps it is simply impossible. 
Additionally, my crt screen is too small and pans around even though I 
think Option "MergedNonRectangular" is supposed to take care of this, I 
think. Also, desktop performance is slow.

http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/xorg.conf.bak200606071740_dual_MergedFB_dri_1400x1050-1024x768_ERRORmemsize
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/Xorg.0.log.bak200606071740_dual_MergedFB_dri_1400x1050-1024x768_ERRORmemsize
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/glxinfo.bak200606071740_dual_MergedFB_dri_1400x1050-1024x768_ERRORmemsize
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/lsmod.bak200606071740_dual_MergedFB_dri_1400x1050-1024x768_ERRORmemsize
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/lspci.bak200606071740_dual_MergedFB_dri_1400x1050-1024x768_ERRORmemsize
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/dmesgagp.bak200606071740_dual_MergedFB_dri_1400x1050-1024x768_ERRORmemsize


Finally, I shrinked the resolutions of both lcd and crt to both 
1024x768. This worked with DRI, but, my laptop is not at its native 
resolution and desktop performance is slow.

http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/xorg.conf.bak200606071732_dual_MergedFB_dri_1024x768only
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/Xorg.0.log.bak200606071732_dual_MergedFB_dri_1024x768only
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/glxinfo.bak200606071732_dual_MergedFB_dri_1024x768only
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/lsmod.bak200606071732_dual_MergedFB_dri_1024x768only
http://volvosmith.net/data/Xserverconfig/lspci.bak200606071732_dual_MergedFB_dri_1024x768only

Laurent,
[root@blackbox ~]# rpm -qa | grep mesa
mesa-libGLU-6.4.2-6
mesa-libGL-devel-6.4.2-6
mesa-libGL-6.4.2-6

Thanks,
Nathan

Florian Reitmeir wrote:
> Hi,
>
> make sure you loaded your agp modules agpgart and intel-agp i guess.
> If this doesn't help, please post 'lsmod' and 'lspci' outputs, the two are
> missing in your mail.
>
> On Son, 04 Jun 2006, Nate wrote:
>
>   
>> To try to get 3d support working in FC5 for my Thinkpad T41 with ati
>> radeon 9000, I followed the fedorafaq.org instructions. My system gets
>> an average of 115fps running glxgears. My hope was to get my system up
>> to speed so that my 2d performance is as good as it can be. The
>> following is what I attempted, outputs, and my xorg.conf and X.org log.
>> I'm at a loss because I followed the directions, and then googled for my
>> issue but there were few hits.
>>     
>
>