Issues with Newly defined ATI legacy Cards

English Hardware
21

magabooks wrote:

>
> That is good to know I have been waiting to find out if something like
> that could happen. I thought it might be possible that the two would
> conflict even when users where saying that the xorg.conf chooses the
> driver. They made it sound like the other driver just sat there minding
> its own business. That would explain why the system would sometime boot
> up right. A few times only but it happened.
>
> Well its of to kill the fglrx then, whats the worst that could happen.
> rotfl!
>
> A user also said that I might be able to improve video playback by
> setting it to regular in xorg.conf. They thought it might be set to
> opengl.
>
>

Hi magabooks, I got diverted here from “11.2 Blackscreen resolved …”
threads in the install-boot-login forum.

I have an Xpress 200M (5975 chip). I currently have no xorg.conf but can get
my lappy to boot up every once in a while :wink:

hwinfo --gfxcard output indicates that driver info #1 is fglrx.

Strange that, because I don’t have the fglrx driver according to a file
search (I do have 4 FGLRX_DualHead* files in /usr/share/sax/profile and
that’s it) and locate. Xorg.0.log also says it can’t load the fglrx driver:

(EE) Failed to load module “fglrx” (module does not exist, 0)

Could it be that it’s Mesa that’s needs lining up against a wall ? :slight_smile:

“lsof | grep -i dri” indicates that Xorg process is using
/usr/lib64/dri/r300_dri.so and there are some libdri*.so files open too.

Removing Mesa should simply disable 3D support - right?

I don’t have time to try it myself right now - maybe later.

22

I ran “sax2 -r -m 0=vesa” and I have successfully restarted my laptop about
8 times now without any blackscreens, so vesa mode seems to be reliable.

Perhaps someone else has already established this, but I have not noticed
any articles that say so.

I am now looking at updating xorg and mesa.

23

What is showing at driver info #O when you run that command. (could you post you output in this thread we are looking for any and all data that might lead to a fix, your laptop spec would help and is your OS 32/64bit)

have an Xpress 200M (5975 chip). I currently have no xorg.conf but can get
my lappy to boot up every once in a while :wink:

hwinfo --gfxcard output indicates that d**river info #1 is fglrx.

**
Vesa works fine its just a little limited as you know. I have had luck with Sax2 -r -m 0=ati. (don’t try this if you are happy with vesa as it causes the black screens again)

Using this options causes the black screen issue which I am willing to deal with for the time being as I have found away around it. The kdm crashes at startup as you well know. I found out that I could startup in init 3 and then login and launch the kdm from there. Every thing works better after doing this resolution, 3d, and desktop effects. But there are still a few issues such a video playback and gradients aren’t displayed well.

So far it looks like the fglrx that comes on the install cd needs to be black listed. Oldcpu has said that it interferes with the open source radeon driver. I going to remove it and will post if the my system begins to work better.

Thanks

24

ATI Radeon 9800 Series

I have this card in an old server, that shares an monitor, with another system.
The monitor is 22" and there is no way I can upgrade to 11.2 if it works like my
xpress 600m. Before anyone says buy Nvidia I had one in it until last month
when it blew up. But what the heck ATI has good support in opensuse 11.1
no worries. The things you don’t see coming.

The question is would the live cd be an accurate test of how the opensource ATI driver will perform?

25

magabooks wrote:

>
> What is showing at driver info #O when you run that command. (could
> you post you output in this thread we are looking for any and all data
> that might lead to a fix, your laptop spec would help and is your OS
> 32/64bit)

“driver info #0” is showing the driver as radeon. It even does that in Vesa
mode :frowning:

I want to rule out using hwinfo at this time - I don’t know whether to trust
it. I’m having troubles with my laptop so can’t post full output at this
time - could be down to some of the messing about I’m doing with it. May
have to rebuild from scratch again soon. I’m running 64bit 11.2. The lappy
is an HP(Compaq branded) nx6325 - Athlon TL60 dual core (2X 2.0Ghz), 4GB
ram, western digital 320GB hdd (not the original and I totally replaced the
ram about 2 years ago). Windoze XP (32bit) runs fine on the lappy with ATI
9.3 drivers, so I have no known hardware problems with it.

>> have an Xpress 200M (5975 chip). I currently have no xorg.conf but can
>> get
>> my lappy to boot up every once in a while :wink:
>>
>> hwinfo --gfxcard output indicates that driver info #1 is fglrx.
>>
>
> Vesa works fine its just a little limited as you know. I have had luck
> with Sax2 -r -m 0=ati. (don’t try this if you are happy with vesa as it
> causes the black screens again)

I know all too well to my cost :wink: .

>
> Using this options causes the black screen issue which I am willing to
> deal with for the time being as I have found away around it. The kdm
> crashes at startup as you well know. I found out that I could startup in
> init 3 and then login and launch the kdm from there. Every thing works
> better after doing this resolution, 3d, and desktop effects. But there
> are still a few issues such a video playback and gradients aren’t
> displayed well.

yes I agree, it’s better to startup in init 3, login and then go to init 5.

>
> So far it looks like the fglrx that comes on the install cd needs to be
> black listed. Oldcpu has said that it interferes with the open source
> radeon driver. I going to remove it and will post if the my system
> begins to work better.

As mentioned, I don’t have fglrx. I had tried ATI’s Catalyst 9.3 install
the other day (9.3 being the last to support the Xpress 200 series), but I
fell at the first hurdle - 9.3 is too old and has no buildpkg for suse 11.2.

I have tried updated xorg video drivers from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/jobermayr/openSUSE_11.2 but
they’re not working for me yet. I also tried Mesa 7.7 from the same place
but reverted back to 7.6. The newer xorg video drivers let me ctrl-alt-f1
when the blackscreen occurs.
That’s as far as I’ve got with playing with newer drivers. I could be
barking [mad!] up the wrong tree, but just about anything is worth a try at
this time !

I’m now looking at the
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2 repo.
Dates on the .rpm’s there are within the last two days and may just be good
enough to try and use.

>
> Thanks
>
>

26

Steve Barrell wrote:

>
> I’m now looking at the
> http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2 repo.
> Dates on the .rpm’s there are within the last two days and may just be
> good enough to try and use.
>

So far, so good. I have just rebooted 9 times and without an xorg.conf in
place.

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2 has
certainly come to my aid and hopefully you and others too !

Add this repo and in yast gui mode, click the “Repositories” tab, then
select the new repo by name (I called mine simply “X11 - Xorg”). Just above
the package list pane, click “Switch system packages to the versions in this
repository (repo name)” and note that all the xorg-x11-* packages will be
selected for installation. While the versions of the packages are lower than
the released versions, perhaps this was intentional, Proceed to install the
selected packages. I suggest you also rename out of the way or delete
/etc/X11/xorg.conf . When the package installations have completed, reboot.
If you get the same result as I did, you should have a working X session and
be able to login as normal.

27

I updated the base libs and the radeonhd driver, and I can now run glxgears. Before it would hang after 2 secs. I’m still getting some artifacts, but that’s not too bad.

dog:~ # hwinfo --gfxcard                                                                    
25: PCI 100.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)                                         
  [Created at pci.318]                                                                      
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_1002_7142                                           
  Unique ID: VCu0.k4xaQTnCms0                                                               
  Parent ID: vSkL.cutpr6XtQiF                                                               
  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 Radeon X1300/X1550"                                                           
  Vendor: pci 0x1002 "ATI Technologies Inc"                                                 
  Device: pci 0x7142 "Radeon X1300/X1550"                                                   
  SubVendor: pci 0x1462 "Micro-Star International Co., Ltd."                                
  SubDevice: pci 0x0400                                                                     
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff (rw,prefetchable)                                     
  Memory Range: 0xfdef0000-0xfdefffff (rw,non-prefetchable)                                 
  I/O Ports: 0xde00-0xdeff (rw)                                                             
  Memory Range: 0xfde00000-0xfde1ffff (ro,prefetchable,disabled)                            
  IRQ: 16 (5211 events)                                                                     
  I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)                                                               
  Module Alias: "pci:v00001002d00007142sv00001462sd00000400bc03sc00i00"                     
  Driver Info #0:                                                                           
    XFree86 v4 Server Module: radeonhd                                                      
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown                                 
  Attached to: #10 (PCI bridge) 


wake@dog:~> glxgears

*** NOTE: Don't use glxgears as a benchmark.
    OpenGL implementations are not optimized for frame rates >> 60fps,
    thus these numbers are meaningless when compared between vendors.

8770 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1753.844 FPS
28

The newer xorg video drivers let me ctrl-alt-f1 when the blackscreen occurs.

Just to be clear you updated your xorg and this has give you a reliable startup? If that is so I will be following you in that updat very soon.

29

The good news is that the live cd does seem to act as a good tool to tell if your systems is going to boot up fine
while running a legacy card. It has cleared both my old severs Radeon 9800 and my xpress 600m for uses with the
radeon driver.

Magabooks I check to see if gradients failed badly on both machines and they didn’t. The gradient issue with web
browsers seems to be a xpress 200 issue. I also tried a friends Compaq laptop that has xpress 200, it wouldn’t
start kde at all.

So once again I think the live cd is a good testing tool to tell if your system legacy hardware is going to start right
before you install opensuse 11.2. It can’t hurt to give it a try.

30

Model: “ATI Radeon X1300/X1550”

I don’t know that this card used the Radeonhd driver, I didn’t think
that any legacy card used that driver as I had read that it was for
new cards on another forum.

ATI’s Mobility Radeon™ X1300 goes beyond integrated UMA graphics on thin-and-light notebook PCs, enabling 3D gaming, high quality video playback, and longer battery life. Accelerate graphics performance with the dedicated 90-nanometer process Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and ultra-threaded 3D architecture, enhanced with a ring-bus memory controller and native 16x PCI Express® bus interface. Enjoy stunning effects with full DirectX® 9 Shader Model 3.0 support, and render lifelike 3D characters and scenes with any OpenGL® and DirectX 9 game. Integrated with ATI’s Avivo™ High-Definition1 video and display enhancements and ATI Powerplay2 6.0 advanced power management, Mobility Radeon X1300 delivers exceptional value for mobile productivity and entertainment.

I can’t believe that a card that has HD is already legacy.

31

This is a beta howto everything works but we still have issues in several areas. We need further feed back from other owners of the xpress 200m.

Quick install tips:(for those having issues

  1. Make sure grub is installing to either MBR or a partion of your choosing.
  1. If the install fails go back and on the screen that asks if its a fresh install, upgrade, etc: Un-check automated configuration option
    This should get you through a installation on a xpress 200m

After the fresh install has finished you should get a black screen of death on any system running a Xpress 200m, but if you don’t get one it is time to take a victory lap as you are one of the few the lucky and I hate you. It’s not personal you under stand.

At start once you reach grube erase the kernel boot options and put this very advanced start option in.

3

Hit enter and wait until it asks you for your login name. Enter your login and password then enter super user mode.:\

su

You will be asked for the root password. Enter it then enter kdm assuming of course that your now in root/super user mode. Now the kdm should come up login normally and everything should work just fine. (wireless, sound, etc. This isn’t the case if you just type startx after login in as just a user)

Once you have entered kde do a few tests to see that everything is working. (Sound, wireless, etc)

Xorg preparatory steps:

  1. Enter a super user file manager window (you can find them under system in the start menu)
  2. Go to /etc/X11 and remove all xorg.conf, xorg.conf.install and back them up in your home folder. I would also tar.gz them and rename the compressed file to hide them from the system.
  3. Open a terminal and Enter su mode once there enter
init 3

Once you have entered init 3 it is time to run sax2

Sax2 -r -m 0=ati

If this doesn’t work the first time do it again this time from startup don’t enter init 5 just login and enter su and run sax2 with the same options.
Once this is done you will have a brad new xorg.conf file. Repeat the init 3 and kdm steps to login again. You will get one normal startup after every time you do the init 3 and kdm startup don’t ask me why. Would love to know myself, my more advanced linux friends think kdm has a permission issue.

Steve Barrell Reports that he updated his xorg files from the repo’s and has completed 9 startups with no further kdm issues.

I haven’t been able to repeat this fix so I would ask that those brave enough try it and let us know if it works.

So far, so good. I have just rebooted 9 times and without an xorg.conf in
place.

http://download.opensuse.org/reposit.../openSUSE_11.2 has
certainly come to my aid and hopefully you and others too !

Add this repo and in yast gui mode, click the “Repositories” tab, then
select the new repo by name (I called mine simply “X11 - Xorg”). Just above
the package list pane, click “Switch system packages to the versions in this
repository (repo name)” and note that all the xorg-x11-* packages will be
selected for installation. While the versions of the packages are lower than
the released versions, perhaps this was intentional, Proceed to install the
selected packages. I suggest you also rename out of the way or delete
/etc/X11/xorg.conf . When the package installations have completed, reboot.
If you get the same result as I did, you should have a working X session and
be able to login as normal.

Disclaimer:
Remember Safe mode has been working for most users because it uses the Vesa Driver, this how to is to test the and use the radeon driver hence the instructions above.

32

With a refresh of the xorg you can get ride of the black screens of death. You can also improve resolution and desktop effect performance. There are still some artifacts with desktop effects. But I am just happy I can boot up without all the extra steps.

Do everything listed above plus adding the repo steve recommends, then do as he said.
Xorg Repo for 11.2

then
select the new repo by name (I called mine simply “X11 - Xorg”). Just above
the package list pane, click “Switch system packages to the versions in this
repository (repo name)” and note that all the xorg-x11-* packages will be
selected for installation.

After doing that reboot and run sax2 -r -m 0=ati again and then type in kdm and login. Restart several times and see if things work for you. (please post if they do)

O remember the devil is in the details when sax2 starts enter the configuration and remember to selection 24bit color. I missed that the first time because I couldn’t see the 16bit next to the number of colors it has. Thus my gradient issue. I will be reworking the howto and re-releasing it for all.

The Credit goes to steve for finding this fix.

Thank You.

33

magabooks wrote:

>
>> The newer xorg video drivers let me ctrl-alt-f1 when the blackscreen
>> occurs.
> Just to be clear you updated your xorg and this has give you a reliable
> startup? If that is so I will be following you in that updat very soon.
>
>

I was referring to the drivers I had tried from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/jobermayr/openSUSE_11.2 and
I then said “but they’re not working for me yet.”

… and they never were!

34

Just to be clear about this thread: Thus far, the above tips are for basic functionality, right?

My Radeon Mobility X600 worked out of the box, and disabling the KDE4 functionality checks did enable compositing as well.

However, there are still many artefacts (e.g. moving a window might leave a line of pixels, etc.) The artefacts can be wiped away, Xsnow-style, but performance is an issue for me: Video-Editing and 3D is much slower than with openSUSE11.1.

Are there any fixes known? Is this the right thread for me to watch? (Since the thread pointed to by oldcpu above seem to be about the non-legacy binary driver.)

35

magabooks wrote:

>
> After doing that reboot and run sax2 -r -m 0=ati again and then type
> in kdm and login. Restart several times and see if things work for you.
> (please post if they do)

I’m wondering why you are running sax2? I did not run sax2 after updating
Xorg and my lappy is still that way and running just fine with xorg.conf and
no more black screens.

>
> O remember the devil is in the details when sax2 starts enter the
> configuration and remember to selection 24bit color. I missed that the
> first time because I couldn’t see the 16bit next to the number of colors
> it has. Thus my gradient issue. I will be reworking the howto and
> re-releasing it for all.

according to my /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and the automatic detection of the
hardware and driver, I am using the Radeon (not RadeonHD) driver and the
…log indicates I am using 24bit colour depth. (is there some other tool
apart from sax2 that displays the colour depth?). Is the only reason you
used sax2 to get 24bit depth? My experience shows it should not be needed,
but of course, YMMV.

>
> The Credit goes to steve for finding this fix.
>
> Thank You.

You’re welcome. It was bugging me and I saw others with the problem and
wanted to see if I could help to find a fix. Unless the SuSE developers have
taken note of this thread, I want to follow up so that they know that the
more recent drivers are helping and that when they’re ready, these drivers
should go into the 11.2 update repository for all to use.

36

magabooks wrote:

>
> After doing that reboot and run sax2 -r -m 0=ati again and then type
> in kdm and login. Restart several times and see if things work for you.
> (please post if they do)

I’m wondering why you are running sax2? I did not run sax2 after updating
Xorg and my lappy is still that way and running just fine with no xorg.conf
and no more black screens.

>
> O remember the devil is in the details when sax2 starts enter the
> configuration and remember to selection 24bit color. I missed that the
> first time because I couldn’t see the 16bit next to the number of colors
> it has. Thus my gradient issue. I will be reworking the howto and
> re-releasing it for all.

according to my /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and the automatic detection of the
hardware and driver, I am using the Radeon (not RadeonHD) driver and the
…log indicates I am using 24bit colour depth. (is there some other tool
apart from sax2 that displays the colour depth?). Is the only reason you
used sax2 to get 24bit depth? My experience shows it should not be needed,
but of course, YMMV.

>
> The Credit goes to steve for finding this fix.
>
> Thank You.

You’re welcome. It was bugging me and I saw others with the problem and
wanted to see if I could help to find a fix. Unless the SuSE developers have
taken note of this thread, I want to follow up so that they know that the
more recent drivers are helping and that when they’re ready, these drivers
should go into the 11.2 update repository for all to use.

37

The Xpress 600 seems to be working just fine, most of the issues in this thread deal with the xpress 200m. Which just happens to be heck on earth for those that own one and happen to be linux users.

To answer your question about fixes for the six hundred. No there don’t seem to be any coherent howto’s on fixing the opensource driver with our chipset at least that I have found. I am hopeful that some one will put one out soon. The open source driver for ATI has just taken on a large group of new card that it didn’t have to support before this.

So the newly defined legacy cards will be playing cache up for some time to come. Which means 3d and desktop effects will likely be a little buggy.

About all we can do for now is find a way to ask ATI for support in the area of improving the open source radeon driver for our cards. After all they have start work on the radeonhd driver why not the legacy driver as well?

38

Hello there,
page at ATI - openSUSE has recently (2009 December 5th) been updated.
Now states that the 1-click install dedicated to “Install ATi driver for Radeon 9500 to X1900” is also for openSUSE 11.2.
Could anyone confirm that it really works? I have a Mobility Radeon X1600 (one of the newly defined legacy) but I will have spare time to dedicate to tests only in some days.

faina

39

I have noticed a few things that are different about this driver.

x11-video-fglrxG01 (for Radeon 9500 - X1900)

The new driver is Go2 for the HD cards and the cards that are covered stop just short of the xpress and ATI Radeon X2100 Series cards. I would bet that means xpress 200m is still out of luck, along with all the other xpress series cards. Has anyone tested this driver with an xpress series card?

  • ATI Radeon 9500 Series
  • ATI Radeon 9550 Series
  • ATI Radeon 9600 Series
  • ATI Radeon 9700 Series
  • ATI Radeon 9800 Series
  • ATI Radeon X300 Series
  • ATI Radeon X550 Series
  • ATI Radeon X600 Series
  • ATI Radeon X700 Series
  • ATI Radeon X800 Series
  • ATI Radeon X850 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1050 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1200 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1250 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1300 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1400 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1550 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1600 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1650 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1800 Series
  • ATI Radeon X1900 Series**
  • ATI Radeon Xpress Series (Xpress200)
  • ATI Radeon X2100 Series**

ATI - openSUSE

But all in all this is a good thing as many users will gain support for there chipsets

40

I just ran that one click install. It doesn’t work. I’m using a Radeon X800 Pro. Looking in Xorg.0.log reveals the following:

(II) LoadModule: "fglrx"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//drivers/fglrx_drv.so
(II) Module fglrx: vendor="FireGL - ATI Technologies Inc."
        compiled for 1.4.99.906, module version = 8.59.2
        Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[atiddxSetup] X version mismatch - detected X.org 7.1.5.0, required X.org 7.4.-1.906
(II) UnloadModule: "fglrx"
(II) Unloading /usr/lib/xorg/modules//drivers/fglrx_drv.so
(EE) Failed to load module "fglrx" (module requirement mismatch, 0)
(EE) No drivers available.

I have no idea why there is a one click install for 11.2, since the legacy driver does not support 11.2 version of X, or its version of the kernel.

BTW… as this is my first post, I’d like to say “Hi!” and “Thanks!” to everyone here, as I’ve been lurking for a while.

UPDATE: The official ATI legacy driver (downloaded five minutes ago off of their website) does not seem to have changed recently, and it doesn’t work for 11.2.

UPDATE 2: Doing the one-click install also seems to break dri and glx.