Hello everyone. Can somebody help me a little bit.
I am using openSuSE 11.3 x64, opensoyrce radeon drivers (Ati Radeon HD 3200)
When i am connecting my TV vie HDMI does recognize the connection but no output on my TV at all.
Do i need something special to get HDMI video output to work with the opensource drivers ?
Thank you !~
You would almost certainly have received more replies than this by now if you were talking about nVidia. However following some research I am optimistic that I may be able to help you. I have no personal direct experience of this problem, although I bear the mental scars from similar battles (I use both nVidia and ATI), so I cannot guarantee you a solution or even that I have got all my facts entirely correct.
Background research: The Ati Radeon HD 3200 integrated chipset provides for HDMI, DVI or DisplayPort, but only one of these can be used at the same time as VGA output for dual display. It not surprising therefore that in The HP Pavilion DV5Z, the ECS A780GM-A motherboard and the ASUS M3A78 PRO motherboard only VGA and HDMI external graphics output sockets are provided. If DVI output is preferred, an HDMI to DVI conversion connector can be used. This might prove significant if you continue to have HDMI problems.
If you decide to follow the troubleshooting algorithm that I propose below, please note that it contains numerous hyperlinks to essential detail and it is advisable not to skip them.
First of all eliminate simple HDMI hardware connection problems.
Next consider whether your HDTV is the weak link. Does it provide adequate EDID information?
Apparently TV manufacturers too often assume that HDMI will be used with other equipment and pay little attention to EDID. This is alleged to be true of Samsung in particular.
How to check EDID:
Connect and switch on the HDTV, boot openSUSE to runlevel 3, login and then type:
startx -- -logverbose 6
Any returned EDID information will be written to the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log (or /var/log/XFree86.0.log).
Next I recommend that you archive a copy of Xorg.0.log to /home/user-id/edid.txt via
cp /var/log/Xorg.0.log edid.txt
so that you can safely examine /home/user-id/edid.txt using gedit(Gnome) or Kwrite(KDE):
[ol]
[li]If HDMI is reported as not connected then this suggests that there is some form of HDMI connector/cable problem i.e. the problem lies in hardware, not in software.
[/li][li]If HDMI is reported as connected and you find extensive EDID about your HDTV (similar to the Philips 170S 17" TFT monitor example in the “How to check EDID” hyperlink above) then the X server should make this information available to the active video driver. If the driver is HDMI capable then HDMI should work and all HDTV video modes should be recognized and available for use. There is evidence that the radeon driver supports HDMI and should handle fully compliant EDID (Some evidence for this can be found here. See “Reference 2a” hyperlink later on for more evidence).
[/li][li] If HDMI is reported as connected but you are unable to identify such information this suggests that your HDTV is not compliant with the current HDMI standard and a work-around is required.
[/li][/ol]
Corresponding possible solutions:
[ol]
[li]Try another HDTV, graphics card or HDMI cable.
[/li][li]If analysis brings you here, you ought to be able to see video displayed on your HDTV already.
[/li]However you may well find that there is no HDMI audio. You might be able to enable this if you create and customise /etc/X11/xorg.conf (see hyperlinked References 2a-e and 3a). Sometimes this works, sometimes not.:?
[LIST=a]
[li]Reference 2a - Here Simon Bridge (guru) recommends the radeon driver for the HD3200, indicating that this supports HDMI video. He also suggests that HDMI audio does not work.
[/li][li]Reference 2b - A brief summary of how to edit xorg.conf (See Reference 3a to create it).
[/li][li]Reference 2c - A lot more detail than Reference 2b.
[/li][li]Reference 2d - An example where the same method did not get HDMI audio working.
[/li][li]Reference 2e - Another failure.
[/li][/ol]
Unfortunately a separate audio connection between your TV and graphics card would probably be muted if HDMI input is selected at the TV end. However a way round this problem might be to use a separate sound system (e.g. home cinema) or a TV with DVI input and a DVI-HDMI converter (the effective difference is that one features audio). Several manufacturers (e.g. LG, NEC, Panasonic and Samsung) produce models which have both HDMI and DVI inputs.
[li]If analysis brings you here, you will have to create (see Reference 3a) and customise /etc/X11/xorg.conf where you tell the radeon driver all about your HDTV’s available display modes. Since this information was not obtained automatically via the EDID method, you have to look up the display mode information yourself and enter it manually. If your TV manual provides a list of available modes, e.g. 1024x768@75Hz you can calculate a modeline (see References 3c-3f) from it using one of two possible terminal commands:
[/li]
cvt 1024 768 75
.... in this specific case cvt returns the following:
# 1024x768 74.90 Hz (CVT 0.79M3) hsync: 60.29 kHz; pclk: 82.00 MHz
Modeline "1024x768_75.00" 82.00 1024 1088 1192 1360 768 771 775 805 -hsync +vsync
or
gtf 1024 1024 786 75
.... in this specific case gtf returns the following:
# 1024x768 @ 75.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 60.15 kHz; pclk: 81.80 MHz
Modeline "1024x768_75.00" 81.80 1024 1080 1192 1360 768 769 772 802 -HSync +Vsync
Apparently cvt has superseded gtf, so use cvt to insert the modeline (complete with the comment line above it) into xorg.conf taking guidance from References 3c-3f.
Caveat: It is theoretically possible to damage a display if it is driven incorrectly (e.g. at too high a frequency) however modern displays should reject (and complain about) an unsuitable setting attempt if you make a mistake. But why take the risk? Take some time for additional research until you are confident that you understand how to get things right.
[LIST=a]
[li]Reference 3a - Advance to the section titled Creating the xorg.conf file and pick the option titled For all openSUSE versions (including 11.3).
[/li][li]Reference 3b - Although at the beginning this looks as if it is all about xrandr, this also describes of how you can use cvt to generate modeline information which you then add to xorg.conf, so I recommend that you focus on the use of the cvt command in the “Adding undetected resolutions” section and the section “Setting resolution changes in xorg.conf”. You may even decide that you prefer the xrandr method. It is up to you. I will not attempt to further expand the xorg.conf topic here for two reasons: (a) this post would go on for much longer than it has done already (b) I haven’t got to grips with everything myself yet.
[/li]However, I hope I have given you sufficient pointers to enable you to fill in the gaps via your own research.
[li]Reference 3c - A useful guide about modelines.
[/li][li]Reference 3d - More useful stuff about TV’s and adding modelines.
[/li][li]Reference 3e - A simplified insight into the modeline structure.
[/li][li]Reference 3f - A more advanced version of 3e. Also read this.
[/li][/LIST]
[/LIST]
[INDENT][INDENT]Unfortunately you may still find that there is no HDMI audio. You might be able to enable this if you create and customise /etc/X11/xorg.conf as described in hyperlinked References 2a-e and 3a. Sometimes this works, sometimes not.:?[/INDENT][/INDENT]
To anybody:
If you spot any mistakes or omissions or can add anything useful, please contribute. I have a thick skin and I am always ready to learn.
Terry.
Mistake #1: Reference 2e amounts to just a Dutch Ubuntu forum duplication of Reference 2d by the same Ubuntu user, “Eukatech”.
Waw, this is a true reply to my question.
Thank yo very much, i will investigate it as you recomend !!
THANK YOU
Wow!
Hi Bloggs_J, can I try your solution with my nvidia card? I have the output on the TV, but no sound at all. HDMI is really a mess in linux world…
My solution? The real credit should be attributed to the sources hyperlinked in my post on the 14th of November. But thanks anyway.
Your question appears to ask: "Would the inclusion of
Option "Audio" "true"
Option "HDMI" "all"
in xorg.conf enable HDMI audio with a nVidia graphics card instead of an ATI card?".
Well if it doesn’t, there is strong evidence that ALSA is behind the failure.
The next paragraph summarises my interpretation of the key information from the internet. References follow it.
If you are lucky, the ALSA database will already contain sufficient information about your audio hardware for HDMI audio to work. If you are unlucky, HDMI audio will not work unless you are expert enough to hack the ALSA system.
This interpretation is based on evidence found here:
A question you might ask: How often does ALSA update its information about audio hardware with respect to HDMI audio?
My answer: I have no idea. I know nothing about the ALSA team’s priorities or how big a blip HDMI is on their radar.
Postscript
Since I do not actually use HDMI capable graphics cards (I settled for DVI/D-sub/S-video) I hardly feel qualified to contribute anything further on this topic. I hope that something here might be of interest however.
Daax, I suggest that you might be better off starting a new submission with a title which better reflects your specific problem/interest with nVidia in the title. That way you should attract the attention of a large number expert nVidia devotees and increase the chance of getting a better answer or the definitive solution.
Once again to anybody:
If you spot any mistakes or omissions or can add anything useful, please contribute. I have a thick skin and I am always ready to learn.
Terry.
(To Daax) An afterthought justifies one more post from me.
It appears that you can check whether ALSA supports HDMI for your audio hardware quite easily on the ALSA wesbite by entering the term “hdmi” or a more selective example “hdmi intel” into their search box.
Here is a small extract from the search results using the search term “hdmi intel”:
Page text matches
- Changes v1.0.14rc3 v1.0.14rc4 (65,964 bytes)
78: - Add description of imac-intel model
98: - hda-intel - Add ATI RS780,R600 HDMI audio support
99: - snd_hda_intel: fix for intel imac
101: - hda-intel - Merge hda-codec module to a single module
124: - HDA-Intel: Fix headphone squeal on Conexant audio- Changes v1.0.13 v1.0.14rc1 (136,397 bytes)
172: - hda-intel - Disable MSI support as default
175: …Add description about spdif_aclink option for snd-intel8x0
220: - hda_intel: add ATI RS690 HDMI audio support
232: - snd_hda_intel 3stack mode for ASUS P5P-L2
246: + HDA Intel driver- Changes v1.0.11 v1.0.12 (169,038 bytes)
290: - Fix description of snd-hda-intel driver in document
344: - hda-codec - Fix headphone output for some Intel 945 systems
356: - [snd-hda-intel] fix sound on some Asus W6A chips
357: - hda-codec - add missing device ids for Intel 945 boards
358: - hda-codec - Add support for new Intel boards with Stac9227 codec- Changes v1.0.11 v1.0.12rc1 (74,208 bytes)
141: - Fix description of snd-hda-intel driver in document
174: - hda - Add support for the ATI RS600 HDMI audio device
175: - Added patch_atihdmi.c to alsa-driver tree
177: + HDA Intel driver
178: - hda-intel - Fix race in remove
I suggest you might at least explore SoundCards in the Navigation panel on the home page of the ALSA website and then pick the appropriate vendor from the Vendors page. Next pick the appropriate set of details from the Soundcard List. It goes beyond my comfort zone so this really is my last post here.
Terry.
Thanks for the tip.
I’ll check that for sure. 