Since switching to Catalyst driver (from Radeon driver) HTML5 video in FF slows everything

6tr6tr · January 28, 2016, 7:08am

I previously used the open source Radeon driver but had crashes when using dual monitors. However, while using the Radeon driver, if I played youtube videos in Firefox, they played without issue and I could move the mouse around, pause the video, resize the video, open other applications and everything was normal.

Immediately after switching to the Catalyst driver (and in the 2 weeks since then, every day) whenever i play a video in Firefox (HTML5 YouTube player) everything slows down:

Moving the mouse can skip frames (mouse disappears for a second)
Pressing pause on the video takes 3-4 seconds before registering
Changing the size of the video is very slow (takes 3-6 seconds)
Opening other apps or the app launcher can take a few seconds before registering

The moment I stop the video and close that tab, everything’s back to normal. This NEVER happened with the Radeon driver. The ONLY change is the Radeon to Catalyst driver. Nothing else on this computer changed.

Linux 3.16.7-21-desktop
openSUSE 13.2 (Harlequin) (x86_64)
KDE 4.14.9

AMD A4-3400 APU with Radeon™ HD Graphics

The computer is the Acer AX1470-UR30P (Desktop)

6tr6tr · February 1, 2016, 6:29pm

Anyone have any ideas? Why would the Catalyst driver run video so poorly compared to the open source driver?

gogalthorp · February 1, 2016, 10:28pm

Are you sure you actually run the driver just because you installed it may be being overridden in xorg.conf or failing to load for some reason and in that case a fallback driver with much less capability would run.

6tr6tr · February 1, 2016, 11:37pm

Running this command:

/sbin/lspci -nnk | grep VGA -A2

I get:

00:01.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Sumo [Radeon HD 6410D] [1002:9644]
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:061d]
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci

Doesn’t that mean it’s running catalyst? Or do I need to check something else?

gogalthorp · February 1, 2016, 11:39pm

Should be yes

6tr6tr · February 2, 2016, 7:37pm

ok, any other ideas of what I could look at to find the cause?

wolfi323 · February 3, 2016, 6:04pm

No.
It only tells that the fglrx kernel module is loaded, it doesn’t say anything about which X driver is used.

Can you please post the full Xorg log, /var/log/Xorg.0.log?

If you have no particular reason to use fglrx, I would suggest to just uninstall it and stick to radeon (which nowadays even surpasses fglrx on some systems), though.

6tr6tr · February 3, 2016, 8:33pm

I switched to Catalyst because using two monitors with only the open source driver kept crashing and had other problems too, after installing Catalyst, the dual monitors have worked perfectly (except for this video issue).

If I post the Xorg log, does it have any identifying info in it?

Here’s some output that should be relevant for Catalyst:


grep '(EE)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
      7922.340] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory

grep '(WW)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
      7922.292] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/misc/sgi" does not exist.
      7922.320] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fglrx
      7922.339] (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@0:1:1) found
      7922.340] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
      7922.341] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev
      7922.341] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa
      7922.347] (WW) fglrx(0): board is an unknown third party board, chipset is supported
      7923.224] (WW) evdev: Logitech USB Receiver: ignoring absolute axes.

When I run ***sudo lspci -k ***I get:


00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h Processor Root Complex
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Sumo [Radeon HD 6410D]
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
        Kernel modules: radeon, fglrx
00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] BeaverCreek HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6500D and 6400G-6600G series]
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
00:07.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h Processor Root Port
        Kernel driver in use: pcieport
        Kernel modules: shpchp
00:10.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB XHCI Controller (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
        Kernel modules: xhci_hcd
00:10.1 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB XHCI Controller (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
        Kernel modules: xhci_hcd
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 40)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB OHCI Controller (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: ohci-pci
        Kernel modules: ohci_pci
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB OHCI Controller (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: ohci-pci
        Kernel modules: ohci_pci
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 13)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: piix4_smbus
        Kernel modules: i2c_piix4
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
        Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH PCI Bridge (rev 40)
00:14.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB OHCI Controller (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 061d
        Kernel driver in use: ohci-pci
        Kernel modules: ohci_pci
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 0 (rev 43)
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 3
        Kernel driver in use: k10temp
        Kernel modules: k10temp
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 6
00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 5
00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 7
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
        Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device 8000
        Kernel driver in use: r8169
        Kernel modules: r8169

wolfi323 · February 3, 2016, 9:51pm

There is no info in there that could identify you in any way.

Here’s some output that should be relevant for Catalyst:

That doesn’t tell anything. We need the whole file.

6tr6tr · February 3, 2016, 9:59pm

Here it is: http://pastebin.com/raw/Xu0Pe8aD

wolfi323 · February 3, 2016, 10:07pm

Looks fine, the fglrx driver is in use and seems to be working.
Not much you can do then I’m afraid, at least I wouldn’t have any idea.

You could check whether libvdpau_va_gl1 is installed, and remove it if it is, or install it if it is not.
Might help, or not.

Oh, and your kernel is outdated. You are using 3.16.7-21, while the current version in 13.2 is 3.16.7-29.
So you should probably update your system.

6tr6tr · February 3, 2016, 10:25pm

How do i do this?

Thanks will do.

wolfi323 · February 3, 2016, 10:34pm

Like with any other package.
Open YaST->Software Management and search for the package, or use “zypper rm libvdpau_va_gl1” to uninstal it and “zypper in libvdpau_va_gl1” to install it. “zypper se libvdpau_va_gl1” will show if it is installed.

6tr6tr · February 3, 2016, 10:44pm

of course! (I had a brain fart). It’s not installed.