ATI radeon graphics

[wildcard36qs]

I am new to this forum, but figured I'd ask in the thread before starting a new one. I have been researching for a long time on older Radeon's and newer distros. I am currently typing from a fresh install of Mint 8 on a Dell D800 laptop that has a mobility Radeon 9000.
Is there anyway to get 3d to work with the open-source driver? Everything is working OK in Mint 8, but no desktop effects and flash videos and the general experience overall is sluggish at best. I can do glxgears with 420ish fps. Running compiz-check nets this:
Gathering information about your system...

Distribution: Linux Mint 8
http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_helena.php
Desktop environment: GNOME
Graphics chip: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000] (rev 01)
Driver in use: radeon
Rendering method: AIGLX

Checking if it's possible to run Compiz on your system...

Checking for texture_from_pixmap... [ OK ]
Checking for non power of two support... [ OK ]
Checking for composite extension... [ OK ]
Checking for FBConfig... [ OK ]
Checking for hardware/setup problems... [FAIL]

There has been (at least) one error detected with your setup:
Error: Software Rasterizer in use

glxinfo:
name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2

client glx vendor string: SGI
client glx version string: 1.4

GLX version: 1.2

OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.6
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20

[jcd]

The open-source driver is installed by default in Linux Mint 8, so (if your hardware is supported) it should work without you doing anything...

I don't know what the message in compiz-check's output really means, and I don't know much about older hardware either, so I can't be of help I'm afraid... If after looking around you still can't figure out anything, start a new thread in the forums here, as well as in Ubuntu's...

(You might also wanna try the new Ubuntu (or Linux Mint 9, once it's out) to see if your hardware is better supported there...)

(I didn't really say anything, did I? )

[paul_l65]

Hi Everyone,
I'm new to this forum and to Mint Linux. I finally made the change from Windows XP to Mint Linux 9 (main edition) yesterday after testing with the mint 4win/wubi install. I did an install on a dedicated HDD with three partions for root /, swap, and /home. My system has 4GB or ram and an ATI radeon HD3650 PCIe video card. After install I did the updates and everything worked fine (including the video card). I activated the proprietry ATI drivers under hardwareand rebooted and the video worked fine. Through I did notice a lag when minimising and then maximising the windows that wasn't there with the deafult open source drivers. I noticed that a few people have mentioned this issue. It did allow the 3D and 2D aceleration on my virual windows XP machine on Virtualbox ver 3.2 where the open source drivers had the 2D option greyed out.

After some googling I found instructions to install the latest 10.6 drivers from the ATI wesite via the terminal. but after the reboot the mint Linux came up in low resolution mode. I went to Hardware and deactivated the restricted drivers and rebooted. This sees to have restored the open source drivers and everything was fine. I then reactivated on the proprietry ATI drivers under hardware and rebooted and the video worked fine (though still with the window snapping lag).

I just wanted to check to see if I need to do any manual clean up to remove any residual ATI 10.6 drivers, or if there are any checks I should do for potental issues.

I think I will leave the manual installs of the ATI drivers alone as it seems to be more trouble than its worth. I have also read about open source RadeonHD linux drivers and was wondering if these are open source drivers that Mint is using by default. If anyone can suggest a remendy for the lag or can explain a bit about the known ATI driver issues it would be appreciated.

Thanks

[zeebo]

Just wanted to add a data point to this conversation. I'm a Mint newbie and recently tried installing Linux Mint 9 on my Thinkpad T60 which has an ATI Radeon x1300 card. I was able to get everything working well on the laptop except the video. It kept crashing on me and leaving me with a frozen screen full of broken lines etc. Worse though, I got concerned because it started to run really hot, especially when doing anything graphical like the mini-golf game I was playing with. I mean it felt like it could burn skin and I was afraid it was gonna melt my system.

Apparently since ATI dropped support for this legacy card my only choice was the open source driver, but for whatever reason it didn't work for me. I'm a bit disheartened by this as I thought one of the great benefits of linux was to be able to run it on older systems, but if we're held up by the need for proprietary drivers by unwilling companies then it kinda causes an issue there.

I gave up and pulled Mint completely off (after spending days setting it up), going back unfortunately to XP where I have no video / heat problems. I'd still like to run Mint on a new desktop I'm planning to get, but now I'm worried about what hardware I should buy since I had this disappointing experience. I guess I could have tried experimenting with older versions that had the older working drivers apparently, but I didn't want to get locked into that earlier version. Anyway just posting my thoughts on this from a relative newbie's point of view.

[Mas Catoer]

Guys.
It wasn't always bad to be newbies. I moved to Linux Mint 9 couple of months ago. See what i found? Things are installed quite instantly including my ATI Card driver. All desktop animation work perfectly. Going to learn more abut Linux.
Happy for that.

[Amd4850]

My Mint 9 installed just fine as well with no problems. But with no means to control the fan using any ATI driver we might as well cook eggs with our chips instead.

I am very close to flashing teh BIOS of my 4850. Still dont know if i should do that as it still might not solve the problem. Even woth the Foss driver the fan does not speed up.

[saltyp]

Hi all,
Love the look and feel of Julia. Great work. Had some hassles (as per usual) getting my 4870 fan speeds to operate correctly. I could not run any pplib commands on a default install 64 bit with the Open Source ATI installed/activated from the System>Drivers>ATI Activate. It has been a common problem for the life of this machine and just about every distro that it has seen. In the past the solution has come from a variety of places. For Julia, the guide from the ATI Unofficial Wiki for an Ubuntu Maverick install worked a treat. No reboots, no kernel mods or updates. Hope this link helps someone. I won't rewrite here and claim any credit, I will say that the only grey area is this line

Code: Select all

$ sh ati-driver-installer-10-11-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/maverick

I can tell you that it is ok to compile for Ubuntu/maverick. Type everything as it appears in the thread. I haven't checked dual monitors yet...that will require a reboot. Heres hoping and good luck

Link=
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Maverick_Installation_Guide#Installing_Proprietary_Drivers_a.k.a._Catalyst.2Ffglrx

Hope this helps and Hussey, you can bounce this post elsewhere if better suited.

Salty

[saltyp]

OK,
Dual monitors works a freaken treat! No need to command line. Hop straight into Control Center>Hardware>ATI Catalyst Control Center (Administrative) and drag your monitors around as you require. I am VERY happy right now. This has never worked for me since Mint 7. It has also never worked on a variety of other distro's. Happy happy, joy joy.
The best I have ever achieved is a functioning spread (big) desktop that loses all MINT branding and drops back to the default Ubuntu Gnome config. Did I say Happy, happy, joy, joy?

[MidnightWatcher]

Hi all,
Love the look and feel of Julia. Great work. Had some hassles (as per usual) getting my 4870 fan speeds to operate correctly. I could not run any pplib commands on a default install 64 bit with the Open Source ATI installed/activated from the System>Drivers>ATI Activate. It has been a common problem for the life of this machine and just about every distro that it has seen. In the past the solution has come from a variety of places. For Julia, the guide from the ATI Unofficial Wiki for an Ubuntu Maverick install worked a treat. No reboots, no kernel mods or updates. Hope this link helps someone. I won't rewrite here and claim any credit, I will say that the only grey area is this line

Code: Select all

$ sh ati-driver-installer-10-11-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/maverick

I can tell you that it is ok to compile for Ubuntu/maverick. Type everything as it appears in the thread. I haven't checked dual monitors yet...that will require a reboot. Heres hoping and good luck

Link=
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Maverick_Installation_Guide#Installing_Proprietary_Drivers_a.k.a._Catalyst.2Ffglrx

Hope this helps and Hussey, you can bounce this post elsewhere if better suited.

Salty

How do these drivers feel in terms of speed when minimizing/maximizing windows? When I activate the ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver it doesn't feel as snappy as the default driver at all.

[saltyp]

Hia Midnight,
I have no issues with these drivers at all. Very snappy, very smooth. I get some scroll/refresh waves on the log in splash screen but no issue after that. Fan speeds are at 45% and a working temp of about 48C in an ambient of 25-30C. It is actually the best result I have ever had from the Proprietary drivers ever. Whether that is th latest kernel/developers or AMD/ATI is beyond my ability to understand. I'm pushing out of the box Compiz settings at 2 x Viewsonic VA2226w (22inch 16:10 @ 1680x1050 NATIVE). The card is a little old now and likely thats the reason for improved performance/support under linux.
system specs for comparison

AMD Quad 9850 @ 2.4MHz
Gigabyte GA-790FX
KHX (Kingston Hyper) 1066mhz 4x 1GB @ 800MHz
Asus HD4870 1 GB DDR5 (stock speeds)



It was quite an expensive machine when I built it a couple of years ago and still handles any game I throw at it under WIN7 64.

Hope this helps and would have replied sooner but the traffic has meant the forums have been unavailable for me.

[linXea]

Since the open-source 3D driver came into the newer kernels the need for the proprietary FGLRX driver went down. Running compiz, playing high-def movies etc works just as well with the open-source driver as it does with the proprietary one. If you find that your desktop/laptop work sufficient with the open-source driver there is no reason to change it. To get maximum performance the proprietary driver till offer some extra punch but it can be quite hard and time consuming to setup. AIGLX + FGLRX + OPENGL acceleration options and so on. If you're on a older non-HD card you're more or less stuck with the open-source driver.

[telenux]

Which doesn't work. The open source radeon driver in Mint is poorly implemented. Tests with 3D programs don't work.

My interpretation is that Mint (at least w/ Debian edition but from what I have read on the forum) and open source radeon driver (required) doesn't work properly.

[willie42]

make a new post and give the Forums some more info you might get some help setting up your system. thats if you want help.

[telenux]

make a new post and give the Forums some more info you might get some help setting up your system. thats if you want help.

I was trying to help someone else but after I tried it myself, personally, it didn't work.

I have had some troubles before with the radeon OSS drivers in another distro but not to this extent.

If you search the forum with 'radeon', there are scores of posts with problems with 3D and rendering. Also, no one seems to know what cards are supported with which drivers.

Research shows that anything below Radeon 2100 are OPEN SOURCE driver only. No need to discuss installing fglrx drivers with older cards. But, I haven't found any poster who claims the radeon driver works using 3D...

Anyway... good luck to those who can get it working.

[dmhead]

Not a problem, but I'm seeing some interesting behavior regarding the ATI proprietary drivers on my system. I just installed Linux Mint 10 this afternoon, did all updates, installed the proprietary drivers via Menu -> Admin -> Hardware Drivers -> Activate, and then rebooted.

When I click on Menu -> Preferences -> ATI Catalyst Control Center (Administrative), nothing happens. I get no password prompt or anything.
However, the ATI Catalyst Control Center opens just fine... But I'm unable to make changes, of course.
The most interesting part of this is that if I type in the command for the ATI Catalyst Control Center (Administrative) into the cli ("amdxdg-su -c amdcccle"), I do get the password prompt, and everything works just fine.

So, if someone knows a solution, great! If not, maybe this will help someone who is seeing the same issue.

[GerMulvey]

@ dmhead this is working fine in mint 11
There seems to be some lag with the current ati driver - catalyst 11.5/8.85 Once installed and configured there is a noticable stutter while moving windows. However this is far worse in other distros for instance Fedora 15 both kde and gnome 3 yet not in opensuse 11.4

Any ideas?

[mj2469]

..looks a lot like I'm sol from what I see, I like compiz but when I enable the ati drivers (through hardware in Linux) or any other way I can think of I have to recover & use safe graphics....any new solutions... (ps...I'm using Julia (10)

When I installed ATI ccc (linux version) the card still works but it stays in "basic vga mode" and when I open the control center is says "error" Not sure of the exact number-but I'll get it if needed....I can't use compiz effects either-"advanced functions not available-no ati drivers found"...so next step, reboot and see if that's it...no joy, it goes to a blank black screen with normal boot after the splash and logon screen...so....reboot....recovery mode...repair packages...done....reboot normal...same results...reboot...choose load basic vga option...works...
.....uninstall ati drivers & ccc....reboot normal...and works but under "basic vga"....downloaded latest ati & a few older ones...choose "run as admin"...get package errors as if they are the wrong packages...I didn't get them the first time....
...any suggestions???

....also...when the first "linux message" (loading) fiinishes I get [ too many connections...{random numbers} ] ...then it loads fine....odd? problem???....easy fix?...'
....let me know, ok???

Thanks in advance!!!!!!!!!

MJ246969

[den1m]

Since the open-source 3D driver came into the newer kernels the need for the proprietary FGLRX driver went down. Running compiz, playing high-def movies etc works just as well with the open-source driver as it does with the proprietary one. If you find that your desktop/laptop work sufficient with the open-source driver there is no reason to change it. To get maximum performance the proprietary driver till offer some extra punch but it can be quite hard and time consuming to setup. AIGLX + FGLRX + OPENGL acceleration options and so on. If you're on a older non-HD card you're more or less stuck with the open-source driver.

Im running mint on my laptop where its as good as it can get, but on my stationary i boght last year and which i use 95% of the time, im stuck with windows 7 and probably will be until i need to reformat.

It has a ati radeon 5870 graphics card, and it runs much slower than my old laptop under linux. Feels sluggish and i cant get HD movies to play smootly, and flash just plain sucks, last one i tried was mint 10. Couldnt even boot and get an image so i had to install it trough windows SAFE MODE (because i couldnt boot into the reg win, thats why i gave it up and tried mint on it, after all, atleast last year, 5870 was state of the art and could run all new games on max, so windows was a natural choise). Let me add mint was the ONLY one out of 5 different linux distros i even could install on this machine. Now im on mint trough vmware under windows 7 and it runs MUCH better. I tried both open source and propietary, but it made no difference.

I dont know with others here, same experience?

This has to be solved before i even consider running linux bare again.

But... besides the hardware issues on this machine, i love linux mint and its been the OS of my heart since i first tried it 4-5 years back.

[nemmy]

Since the open-source 3D driver came into the newer kernels the need for the proprietary FGLRX driver went down. Running compiz, playing high-def movies etc works just as well with the open-source driver as it does with the proprietary one. If you find that your desktop/laptop work sufficient with the open-source driver there is no reason to change it. To get maximum performance the proprietary driver till offer some extra punch but it can be quite hard and time consuming to setup. AIGLX + FGLRX + OPENGL acceleration options and so on. If you're on a older non-HD card you're more or less stuck with the open-source driver.

Im running mint on my laptop where its as good as it can get, but on my stationary i boght last year and which i use 95% of the time, im stuck with windows 7 and probably will be until i need to reformat.

It has a ati radeon 5870 graphics card, and it runs much slower than my old laptop under linux. Feels sluggish and i cant get HD movies to play smootly, and flash just plain sucks, last one i tried was mint 10. Couldnt even boot and get an image so i had to install it trough windows SAFE MODE (because i couldnt boot into the reg win, thats why i gave it up and tried mint on it, after all, atleast last year, 5870 was state of the art and could run all new games on max, so windows was a natural choise). Let me add mint was the ONLY one out of 5 different linux distros i even could install on this machine. Now im on mint trough vmware under windows 7 and it runs MUCH better. I tried both open source and propietary, but it made no difference.

I dont know with others here, same experience?

This has to be solved before i even consider running linux bare again.

But... besides the hardware issues on this machine, i love linux mint and its been the OS of my heart since i first tried it 4-5 years back.

I'm having the same issue with my 5870 card. The lag is driving me nuts.

Does anyone have a solution yet? I would hate to switch back to windows.

[rich_roast]

Outside of joining the xorg team or throwing money at them, I can't think of anything. There's that driver or there's ... vesa. If you need some of the capabilities of the graphics card you can only get in Windows then I'd suggest dual booting. You wouldn't be the first who boots into Windows for a game or to crunch a 3d render. For all other purposes the radeon drivers work fine -- or at least they do for many.