ATI Driver problem

English Hardware
#1

I just recently switched to the GNOME desktop from KDE. I have an ATI Radeon HD 5700 card. Now, on the KDE desktop I downloaded the driver, and ran the installation program via the terminal. Reboot. Everything worked fine.

When I switched to GNOME I noticed the same sluggish display problems. So I installed the driver in the exact same manner. But for some reason it seems as though nothing has changed.

My problem is thus: I can literally see the pages loading any time I scroll up or down. The only word I have for it is sluggish. If anything it got worse after I installed the driver. I’ve searched, but between the performance hit and the lack of a concise manner with which to state this problem, I have turned up nothing.

#2

The desktop should have nothing to do with it

#3

Then what could it be? Because the problems I’m having now went away in KDE when I installed the driver. Also, I did look to make sure that I installed the correct version using the ‘uname -a’ command.

#4

Certainly it sounds like it’s as if the driver is not installed
As su - what do you get for this

hwinfo --gfxcard

#5

I ran the commands. Here is the output. Doesn’t seem like the card I have is recognized.

35: PCI 300.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)             
  [Created at pci.318]
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_1002_68b8
  Unique ID: svHJ.Q70JZn1ddJ2
  Parent ID: M71A.dAMzi+DfV5B
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:07.0/0000:03:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:03:00.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "ATI VGA compatible controller"
  Vendor: pci 0x1002 "ATI Technologies Inc"
  Device: pci 0x68b8 
  SubVendor: pci 0x1545 "VISIONTEK"
  SubDevice: pci 0x5770 
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff (rw,prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xf2fc0000-0xf2fdffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0x8e00-0x8eff (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xf2fa0000-0xf2fbffff (ro,prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 255 (no events)
  I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00001002d000068B8sv00001545sd00005770bc03sc00i00"
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #11 (PCI bridge)

Primary display adapter: #35
#6

Have you read thru this
openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users

#7

I’m reading through it now. I looked at the man file for the radeonHD driver that is supposed to come with openSUSE. I didn’t see my card (5770) listed at all.

#8

Terribly sorry for the double post.

Ok, so I have tried

aticonfig --initial

As well as the Sax2 method listed in the link you sent me. Still no success. I then did a Google search of my specific card. I found this post.

How to install ATI Radeon HD 5770 Driver

After following the link to the guide, and then being linked again to the AMD website I find that the drop down boxes to specify what type of hardware I have do not work. They are completely empty of any sort of text or options

#9

I’m not sure I would take that as a sign that they do not or will not work.
And I’m a nVidia man, never had ATI, so I ain’t much use.
Hang around, someone should have a clue.

#10

Ok, this is really odd. I followed the steps in this guide. I tried the same thing on KDE, and encountered the same error; gcc make could not build the rpm package. So I was unable to complete the step where I had to enter the code

sh installer.sh --buildpkg SuSE/SUSE112-IA32

I was never able to enter anything after that. But anyway, I tried again with GNOME, encountered the same error and rebooted. I then re-installed the ATI driver that I downloaded (third time that I have done so, mind you), entered


aticonfig --initial -f

and received this error message

Uninitialised file found, configuring.
Using /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Saved back-up to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.fglrx-3
aticonfig: Writing to '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' failed. Bad file descriptor.

HOWEVER, the card is working. I no longer get slowdown when I scroll web pages, and the GNOME windows actually fade in and out. What’s more, I can see some actual desktop effects occurring.

Now, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but one of the main reasons I switched to Linux was to understand. Does anyone have any idea what happened, and could they please explain?

#11

Were you doing all this from level 3?

#12

No. The only parts that I did from level 3 were the parts of the guide that I linked to that specifically stated to perform in level 3. All others were done in X window using the GNOME terminal.

#13

Take a look at your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file to see what driver is loaded. Look for error messages. Also take a look at your /home/username/.xsesson-errors file and look for error messages. Maybe that will give you a hint. (… don’t post them directly here as they will just clutter the thread … )

#14

I just looked at both of those files. There were no actual error (denoted by EE) messages in the Xorg.0.log file, and I’m afraid I don’t understand much of what is going on the the other. There is one thing that stands out, and I’m only going to post that little snippet.

** (bug-buddy:6356): WARNING **: Couldn't load /etc/xdg/autostart/ksmolt-autostart.desktop: Invalid key name: X-KDE-autostart-condition$e]
#15

I assume ksmolt is just a kde version of smolt, and likely nothing to be bothered about.

What graphic driver did the Xorg.0.log file indicate your PC was using?

#16

I am by no means an expert on understanding these log files, but here is what I found, in respective order as I perused the file

(II) Module ABI versions:
        X.Org ANSI C Emulation: 0.4
        X.Org Video Driver: 5.0
        X.Org XInput driver : 4.0
        X.Org Server Extension : 2.0

(II) LoadModule: "fglrxdrm"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/linux//libfglrxdrm.so
(II) Module fglrxdrm: vendor="FireGL - ATI Technologies Inc."
        compiled for 1.4.99.906, module version = 8.70.3
(II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Version Identifier:8.70.3
(II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Release Identifier: 8.702                      
(II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Build Date: Feb  2 2010 22:48:24
(II) Primary Device is: PCI 03@00:00:0
(WW) Falling back to old probe method for fglrx

There is more on the fglrx driver after this, but the spill is huge. I looked through most of it and it seems like it identified my card.

#17

What packages have you installed?

zypper se fglrx

What I always do is to install two packages: ati-fglrxG02-kmp-desktop and x11-video-fglrxG02 (desktop is my kernel of course).

Then I go to terminal (ctrl + f1) and make aticonfig --initial. Can’t remember if this backup your last Xorg file maybe yes but anyway delete or rename your current Xorg.conf before the aticonfig command just to make sure.