Changed from ATI X300 to HD2600XT but no acceleration

English Hardware
1

Today I swapped my aged ATI x300 PCI-e video card for a Radeon HD 2600XT, but yast kept showing the card as the x300. So, I then went into runlevel 3, and did a “sax2 -r” which seemed to detect it fine (yast now shows the correct model for the card), but I can’t enable desktop effects in KDE. It shows the following error message:

Sorry - System Settings

Failed to activate desktop effects using the given configuration options. Settings will be reverted to their previous values.

Check your X configuration. You may also consider changing advanced options, especially changing the compositing type.

The forum won’t let me add attachments to this message, so I’ll have to quote the xorg.conf (before and after):

This is my xorg.conf before I swapped the card:

# /.../
# SaX generated X11 config file
# Created on: 2008-12-30T22:29:42+1100.
#
# Version: 8.1
# Contact: Marcus Schaefer <sax@suse.de>, 2005
# Contact: SaX-User list <https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/sax-users>
#
# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (8.1)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
#

*** removed Files ***

Section "ServerFlags"
  Option       "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on"
  Option       "ZapWarning" "on"
EndSection

Section "Module"
  Load         "freetype"
  Load         "extmod"
  Load         "dbe"
  Load         "glx"
  Load         "dri"
EndSection

*** removed keyboard ***

*** removed mouse ***


Section "Monitor"
  DisplaySize  519 324
  HorizSync    30-83
  Identifier   "Monitor[0]"
  ModelName    "2407WFP-HC (Digital)"
  Option       "DPMS"
  Option       "PreferredMode" "1920x1200"
  VendorName   "DELL"
  VertRefresh  46-76
  UseModes     "Modes[0]"
EndSection


Section "Modes"
  Identifier   "Modes[0]"
  Modeline 	"1920x1200" 154 1920 1968 2000 2080 1200 1203 1209 1235 -hsync +vsync
EndSection


Section "Screen"
  DefaultDepth 24
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      15
    Modes      "1920x1200" "1900x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1024" "1600x1000" "1400x1050" "1600x900" "1280x1024" "1440x900" "1280x960" "1366x768" "1360x768" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1280x720" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
    Virtual    3840 1200
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      16
    Modes      "1920x1200" "1900x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1024" "1600x1000" "1400x1050" "1600x900" "1280x1024" "1440x900" "1280x960" "1366x768" "1360x768" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1280x720" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
    Virtual    3840 1200
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      24
    Modes      "1920x1200" "1900x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1024" "1600x1000" "1400x1050" "1600x900" "1280x1024" "1440x900" "1280x960" "1366x768" "1360x768" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1280x720" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
    Virtual    3840 1200
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      8
    Modes      "1920x1200" "1900x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1024" "1600x1000" "1400x1050" "1600x900" "1280x1024" "1440x900" "1280x960" "1366x768" "1360x768" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1280x720" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
    Virtual    3840 1200
  EndSubSection
  Device       "Device[0]"
  Identifier   "Screen[0]"
  Monitor      "Monitor[0]"
EndSection


Section "Device"
  BoardName    "Radeon X300 (RV370) 5B60 (PCIE)"
  Driver       "radeon"
  Identifier   "Device[0]"
  Option       "monitor-DVI-0" "Monitor[0]"
  Screen       0
  VendorName   "ATI"
EndSection



Section "ServerLayout"
  Identifier   "Layout[all]"
  InputDevice  "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
  InputDevice  "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
  Option       "Clone" "off"
  Option       "Xinerama" "off"
  Screen       "Screen[0]"
EndSection


Section "DRI"
    Group      "video"
    Mode       0660
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
EndSection

And this is the xorg.conf after I put the new card in and did a “sax2 -r”:

# /.../
# SaX generated X11 config file
# Created on: 2009-01-19T18:34:58+1100.
#
# Version: 8.1
# Contact: Marcus Schaefer <sax@suse.de>, 2005
# Contact: SaX-User list <https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/sax-users>
#
# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (8.1)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
#
*** removed Files ***

Section "ServerFlags"
  Option       "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on"
  Option       "ZapWarning" "on"
EndSection

Section "Module"
  Load         "dri"
  Load         "dbe"
  Load         "freetype"
  Load         "extmod"
  Load         "glx"
EndSection

*** removed keyboard ***

*** removed mouse ***

Section "Monitor"
  DisplaySize  519 324
  HorizSync    29-83
  Identifier   "Monitor[0]"
  ModelName    "2407WFP-HC (Digital)"
  Option       "DPMS"
  Option       "PreferredMode" "1920x1200"
  VendorName   "DELL"
  VertRefresh  46-76
  UseModes     "Modes[0]"
EndSection

*** removed Modes (sax2 -r added about 100 lines!) ***

Section "Screen"
  DefaultDepth 24
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      15
    Modes      "1920x1200" "1900x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1024" "1600x1000" "1400x1050" "1600x900" "1280x1024" "1440x900" "1280x960" "1366x768" "1360x768" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1280x720" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
    Virtual    3840 1200
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      16
    Modes      "1920x1200" "1900x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1024" "1600x1000" "1400x1050" "1600x900" "1280x1024" "1440x900" "1280x960" "1366x768" "1360x768" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1280x720" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
    Virtual    3840 1200
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      24
    Modes      "1920x1200" "1900x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1024" "1600x1000" "1400x1050" "1600x900" "1280x1024" "1440x900" "1280x960" "1366x768" "1360x768" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1280x720" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
    Virtual    3840 1200
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      8
    Modes      "1920x1200" "1900x1200" "1920x1080" "1600x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1024" "1600x1000" "1400x1050" "1600x900" "1280x1024" "1440x900" "1280x960" "1366x768" "1360x768" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1280x768" "1280x720" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480" 
    Virtual    3840 1200
  EndSubSection
  Device       "Device[0]"
  Identifier   "Screen[0]"
  Monitor      "Monitor[0]"
EndSection

Section "Device"
  BoardName    "Radeon HD 2600 XT"
  Driver       "radeonhd"
  Identifier   "Device[0]"
  VendorName   "ATI"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
  Identifier   "Layout[all]"
  InputDevice  "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
  InputDevice  "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
  Option       "Clone" "off"
  Option       "Xinerama" "off"
  Screen       "Screen[0]"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Group      "video"
    Mode       0660
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
EndSection

I haven’t edited either of these files by hand so if there’s something wrong, it ain’t my fault :slight_smile:

What I don’t understand is how an HD 2600XT can’t show fancy cube effects, etc, and my crappy old X300 showed them fine (although it wasn’t blindingly fast).

And the forum won’t let me post more than 10,000 chars so I’ve removed a few sections that I think might not be too important.

2

I suppose you could say that I’ve technically got acceleration working by installing the new driver from ATI’s repository, but let’s just say that it’s pretty much an unacceptable solution

I know the FOSS driver must be capable of handling desktop effects because my crappy old X300 could do it. I’d be happy with the FOSS driver if only I could get it to work properly.