ATI/AMD Proprietary Drivers...

Hi all,

My old computer had run to a halt under Windows XP and so I decided to try out some Linux distros in the hope of making it useful once again.

I found Ubuntu to be full of good features but at the expense of performance, so I opted for OpenSUSE!

I’m glad to say I find OpenSUSE far more responsive but the graphics are quite sluggish in some places still and so I checked for some proprietary drives to my X series ATI card.

I found the official ATI one and tried installing it without success and so after reading a few forum posts I found some interesting articles to the effect of those drivers being unsupported by newer versions of the Linux kernel.

There was a post describing some ATI drivers and it seems that my card ought to benefit from simply the ‘radeon’ one (although ‘radeonhd’ is also available).

Therefore, am I correct in thinking that the best drivers for my card were installed automatically when I installed OpenSUSE or do I need to search deeper to get the best performance out of my card?

Thanks in advance,

Joe

What card are u using?

Give the output of


lspci

please

also specify the openSUSE version and output of


uname -r
hwinfo --gfxcard

On 05/16/2013 03:06 PM, jm1082 wrote:
> am I correct in thinking that the best drivers for my card
> were installed automatically when I installed OpenSUSE or do I need to
> search deeper to get the best performance out of my card?

i can not answer that question (someone who can answer will happen
along), but i can tell you that the current openSUSE is more powerful
than the latest Win, and far far more robust than XP, so it should
not be a surprise to you that yours is not as snappy as maybe you hoped…

which desktop environment did you go for?

if you want a more resource sipping system that the (i’m gussing) KDE
or Gnome you have, try LXDE or Xfce…

of if you wanna see that old machine fly faster than XP did on the
day it was born, give Puppy Linux a whirl…(i’m saying a better video
driver is not gonna make up the difference, probably–the system
requirements for 12.3 are here
http://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/html/openSUSE/opensuse-startup/art.osuse.installquick.html#sec.osuse.installquick.sysreqs
and personally i think it needs to be bumped up some…that is, the
now “recommended” should be called “minimum”)

ymmv


dd
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobile” of operating systems!
http://goo.gl/PUjnL
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Hardware
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Software

@ThePerfectPunk

Here you go…


lspci

mcdonnell@linux-42no:~> /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 760/M760 Host (rev 03)                                                                                                                                                                 
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AGP Port (virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge)                                                                                                                                                    
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS964 [MuTIOL Media IO] LPC Controller (rev 36)                                                                                                                                        
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 IDE Controller (rev 01)                                                                                                                                                         
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7012 AC'97 Sound Controller (rev a0)                                                                                                                                
00:03.0 USB controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev 0f)                                                                                                                                                         
00:03.1 USB controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev 0f)                                                                                                                                                         
00:03.2 USB controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.1 Controller (rev 0f)                                                                                                                                                         
00:03.3 USB controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller                                                                                                                                                                  
00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)                                                                                                                                              
00:05.0 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] RAID bus controller 180 SATA/PATA  [SiS] (rev 01)                                                                                                                                    
00:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CMI8738/CMI8768 PCI Audio (rev 10)                                                                                                                                              
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration                                                                                                                              
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map                                                                                                                                                          
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller                                                                                                                                                      
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control                                                                                                                                                
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV570 [Radeon X1950 Pro] (rev 9a)                                                                                                                                    
01:00.1 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV570 [Radeon X1950 Pro] (secondary) (rev 9a)

please

also specify the openSUSE version and output of


uname -r

mcdonnell@linux-42no:~> uname -r                                                                                                                                                                                                             
3.7.10-1.4-default  
hwinfo --gfxcard
mcdonnell@linux-42no:~> /usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard
25: PCI 100.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)             
  [Created at pci.319]
  Unique ID: VCu0.etTwo2CLjC8
  Parent ID: vSkL.NVv9AfhhZO6
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:01:00.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "ATI RV570 [Radeon X1950 Pro]"
  Vendor: pci 0x1002 "ATI Technologies Inc"
  Device: pci 0x7280 "RV570 [Radeon X1950 Pro]"
  SubVendor: pci 0x174b "PC Partner Limited"
  SubDevice: pci 0xe190 
  Revision: 0x9a
  Driver: "radeon"
  Driver Modules: "drm"
  Memory Range: 0xc0000000-0xcfffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xc000-0xcfff (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xd0030000-0xd003ffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xd001ffff (ro,non-prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 16 (33170 events)
  I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00001002d00007280sv0000174Bsd0000E190bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: radeon is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe radeon"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #10 (PCI bridge)

26: PCI 100.1: 0380 Display controller
  [Created at pci.319]
  Unique ID: NXNs.fnhCiKUGCuB
  Parent ID: vSkL.NVv9AfhhZO6
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1
  SysFS BusID: 0000:01:00.1
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "ATI RV570 [Radeon X1950 Pro] (secondary)"
  Vendor: pci 0x1002 "ATI Technologies Inc"
  Device: pci 0x72a0 "RV570 [Radeon X1950 Pro] (secondary)"
  SubVendor: pci 0x174b "PC Partner Limited"
  SubDevice: pci 0xe191 
  Revision: 0x9a
  Memory Range: 0xd0020000-0xd002ffff (rw,non-prefetchable,disabled)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00001002d000072A0sv0000174Bsd0000E191bc03sc80i00"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #10 (PCI bridge)

Primary display adapter: #25