[how-to] 3d hardware acc with ati open source driver.

Tariella · Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2010 8:45 am Post subject:

I'm always updating to the latest development versions. I'd like to test this if I knew how. Do I need any special media and how do I verify if it works?

jprobichaud · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 2:30 pm Post subject:

hum, I'm trying to pull everything from x11, but mesa-9999 fails to compile:

jprobichaud · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:40 pm Post subject:

oh well, replying to my own post...

it turned out that I had a pretty old x11 overlay that was pointing to an older git repos (so "git pull" was always up-to-date...) Funny things happened: I uninstalled layman and re-installed it (1.4.x). Syncing x11 gave the same results... delete x11 overlay, re-add it, same thing... what's going wrong...

finally, I notice that everything was going into /var/lib/portage/layman instead of /var/lib/layman... Is my setup that old? anyway, after fixing the layman setup, xorg-server, libdrm, mesa and xf86-video-ati now compile (all at version 9999).

Let's wait for the rest of @world to compile (29 out of 150) and we'll see how it goes

jprobichaud · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:58 pm Post subject:

ok, it's me again...

I have to revert back these changes because qt-gui 4.6.3 or 4.7.0 fail to compile with libX11-9999 (which seems required for mesa and libdrm to be at 9999).

Am I the only one in this situation?

For now, I'm going back to xorg-server-1.9.2.901 and x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati-6.13.2 (i'm not really sure if that will work, but we'll see). I'm on kernel 2.6.36, it that helps.

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

This nonsense is why I don't use x11 overlay.

- Get libdrm-9999, mesa-9999 and xf86-video-ati from the x overlay,
- put them in /usr/local/portage (create the correct dirs: media-libs, x11-drivers, etc.)
- edit mesa and libdrm ebuilds to not depend on libx11-9999 (they do NOT need it)
- digest them and install them

That's what I did. You could also try with the ebuilds in the first post of this thread, but I don't know how current they are now.

You don't need everything related to X from git, that's nonsense.

i92guboj · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 10:26 pm Post subject:

In most situations you shouldn't need git ebuilds anyway. Just use the latest version from x11.

For most people the overlay is no longer needed, though.

Today, mesa 7.9 landed into portage, along with eselect-mesa. Most people can just stick to that.

jprobichaud · >=x11-libs/libX11-1.3.99.901

thanks pingufunkybeat , I may try that later.

To be honest, mesa-9999 does not force libX11-9999, but 1.4 or above:

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

It's true that with the release of Mesa 7.9, you will get decent performance on most Radeon cards, and that messing with git stuff is not necessary anymore.

Also "wife complains things are broken again" is a good reason to stick to stable and released software.

I'm not sure if the KWin 4.5 breakage has been fixed in Mesa 7.9, though.

jprobichaud · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 10:44 pm Post subject:

i92guboj · Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 10:52 pm Post subject:

kwin 4.5 works with mesa 7.9 (that's what git was anyway).

You only need to make sure you disable the functionality checks (depending on your hardware anyway). It's in the advanced tab for the desktop effects dialog in systemsettings.

jprobichaud · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 4:08 am Post subject:

Thanks, it works now.

The kwin compositing effects performance is abysmal (using mesa 7.9 and either libdrm 1.4 or 9999 (from x11) and the latest xf86-video-ati from the official tree of the 9999 version from x11-overlay) and I'm only using a resolution of 1280x1024 (no dual-screen).

I'm using xorg-server-1.9.2.901, without a xorg.conf, with kde 4.5, qt 4.7 and kernel 2.6.36. I've verified that I'm using gallium (from eselect mesa list) and glxinfo | grep -i rend gives:

i92guboj · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 7:37 am Post subject:

As far as I know, gallium should be slower for any modern card. I have no idea about the status for r300 based cards. But on r600 and above you should be using classic, not gallium, unless you want to do some profiling and/or report bugs.

I am not following the thread too closely, so I am sorry if you already tried that.

Lustmored · Apprentice Joined: 28 May 2010 Posts: 206 Location: Poland

I am using r600g (gallium) on my radeon hd3200 with mesa-9999 and it outperformes classic! With classic I had some wrong pixels and effect not working correctly. After switch to gallium all my problems disappeared. And probably gallium will be default for r600 in next mesa.

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

You're using softpipe, which is Gallium3D's software renderer. No wonder it's slow.

Post your xorg log (grep for "EE") and the output of "dmesg |grep drm". Probably something went wrong with drm initialisation.

With r600+ class hardware, classic mesa is more reliable than gallium at the moment. Gallium is faster, though.

jprobichaud · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 2:03 pm Post subject:

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

This looks like the culprit:

[ 1256.835] (EE) module ABI major version (9) doesn't match the server's version (

Are you sure that you're using the latest xorg from portage + the latest libdrm, mesa and xf86-video-ati?

The last three must match. So if you get one from git, get all from git. Or all from portage.

You don't need xorg.conf, unless you want some option which is not default. Don't use it until you get a working configuration.

jprobichaud · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:06 pm Post subject:

ssteinberg · Apprentice Joined: 09 Jul 2010 Posts: 206 Location: Israel

ssteinberg · Apprentice Joined: 09 Jul 2010 Posts: 206 Location: Israel

jprobichaud · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:30 pm Post subject:

Interesting, getting mesa-9999 did help.

So, right now, I have:

Code:

desktop log # eselect mesa list
i915 (Intel 915, 945)
i965 (Intel 965, G/Q3x, G/Q4x)
r300 (Radeon R300-R500)
[1] gallium *
r600 (Radeon R600-R700, Evergreen)
[1] classic
[2] gallium *
sw (Software renderer)
[1] classic
[2] gallium *

and glxinfo reports:

Code:

direct rendering: Yes
...
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RS780
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.10-devel
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20

eselect opengl list gives

Code:

desktop log # eselect opengl list
Available OpenGL implementations:
[1] xorg-x11 *

and, after disabling compatibility checks in kwin effects, disabling the "blur" effects, I get acceptable performance.

Now let's test mplayer with a full screen movie...

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

This looks more like it, and you should have 3d acceleration now. Probably forgot to recompile something at some point.

Fullscreen playback has nothing to do with mesa/gallium, as EXA is in xf86-video-ati. If drm is initialized correctly, it will work just fine. 3d should not be acceptable, it should be really smooth.

Do try something in 3d, like neverball or openarena, to see what sort of performance you get.

jprobichaud · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:54 pm Post subject:

cool, playing a video (using mplayer) works fine and neverball performance is very good!

Even the "Another World" high-res demo (through Wine) is working perfectly (this one was really bad before...)!

Thanks guys for all your help!

Wyatt · Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 5:30 pm Post subject:

Interesting, I seem to have everything configured correctly, (so sayeth glxinfo) but all applications that use 3D, on down to the lowly glxgears seem to segfault immediately. Did I just get a bad HEAD from git or is there some non-obvious config to take care of?

RV610 (HD2400 Pro) #This could be it. I've heard there's not been much testing on this card
2.6.37 KMS
git: mesa, xf86-video-ati, libdrm
xorg-server-1.9.99.901

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

Classic or Gallium?

I updated the kernel and mesa today, and openarena segfaults on start with r600g. Glxgears too. Classic works fine.

I'm assuming it's a small regression which will be ironed out soon.

DaggyStyle · Watchman Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5910

it seems that from the 22nd of last month I cannot complete merge of mesa-9999 does anyone noticed it?
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