Howto: radeon driver tweaking
Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 6:05 am
Xorg hardware auto-setting chooses sometimes wrong defaults for your GPU. Here are the basics to overcome some common troubles with AMD GPUs using the open-source radeon driver (package "xserver-xorg-video-radeon"). Depending on your actual GPU model, some options may have different default values and/or options may have no effect at all.
1/ Create a device.conf file under the "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d" folder
2/ Add the basic content
and then add
3/ Add the configuration options that will override Xorg auto-detection by editing once again the "device.conf" file
disable unnecessary video sync for performance (tearing will probably appear though)
circumvent the dreaded "black screen with mouse pointer" once logged in your DE
force your GPU to use the best adaptative powersaving mode
if you enabled these 3 lines you will have now something like:
4/ Read the manual: "man radeon.conf" for many more tweaking options that can make your GPU work the way you want.
5/ Check what is going on:
will actually show you which options were loaded and which features were applied or auto-detected
Additional information about the radeon open-source driver features and available settings can be found on Xorg website:
http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
1/ Create a device.conf file under the "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d" folder
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sudo touch /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/device.conf
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sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/device.conf
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Section "Device"
Identifier "my_device"
Driver "radeon"
EndSection
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sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/device.conf
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Option "SwapbuffersWait" "off"
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Option "ColorTiling2D" "off"
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Option "DynamicPM" "on"
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Section "Device"
Identifier "HD6770"
Driver "radeon"
Option "SwapbuffersWait" "off"
Option "ColorTiling2D" "off"
Option "DynamicPM" "on"
EndSection
5/ Check what is going on:
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cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Additional information about the radeon open-source driver features and available settings can be found on Xorg website:
http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature