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

Herring42 · Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 9:11 pm Post subject:

I have a feeling you might need to be on the git version of mesa as well. Certainly try the latest masked version media-libs/mesa-7.7-r1

I'm afraid I can't tell, as I just went crazy, and went for it. :-)

As mentioned, the git version work for me!
_________________
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is difficult
to determine whether or not they are genuine." -- Abraham Lincoln

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

Yeah, the latest mesa in portage should be plenty new for your card.

If that doesn't work, then you should try unmasking the latest libdrm too.

But with your card, you don't need all the latest and greatest.

saiko · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2007 Posts: 30 Location: Amsterdam

yep. I am trying to do that but get the same blocking packages libXext and xorg-server like in the previous time.
So following your post i emerged layman, added x11 and according to the ebuild instructions then added " source /usr/local/portage/layman/make.conf " in make.conf
I believe it went well as it pulls the right packages but it get messed up with the above ones.

saiko · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2007 Posts: 30 Location: Amsterdam

I guess i am too tired to even look. You are talking about mesa-7.7-r1 and i am going for mesa-9999. Need to finally go to bed after this whole day's battle.

Still the output is the same though - same blocking packages when

AmonAmarth · l33t Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 727

rufnut · Apprentice Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 252

Hi ppls

Any word whether these drivers support XvBA ?

I have the proprietary drivers and tried mplayer-9999-r21 with the arcon overlay which didn't compile.

There is also an ebuild here of which I am yet to try.

http://www.gentoo-quebec.org/index.php?ID=2429

maybe the open source driver can get it running first?

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

No.

XvBA is only working in the proprietary driver, and will probably remain that way. Thank the movie industry for this.

Open drivers will be getting decode acceleration via shaders, but that is waiting for Gallium3D, so don't expect it for at least half a year, I'd say.

VinzC · Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 8:59 am Post subject:

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

The HD line of Radeons have specialised video decoding hardware, like later nVidia cards. They are called UVD/UVD2.

This is the last part of the hardware that hasn't been opened in terms of specifications. The reason why the specs haven't been opened is that these chips also do DRM on Windows hardware, and there is great fear within AMD that opening too much information will help someone crack the BluRay protection. If this happens, AMD is in deep shit, because they would likely lose the license to make this stuff, which would hurt them dearly (imagine if nVidia were the only manufacturer who could speed up playing HD content, and AMD couldn't sell this stuff anymore).

So the IP related to video decoding is being double-triple-quadruple checked by both the technical and legal guys before it is opened. It likely never will be opened.

If it's not opened, you'll never see open source support for it, obviously. Even the AMD guys don't know if and when these specs will be released, but John Bridgman said that they would try to examine it when more basic stuff (power saving) is working, and see how much can be opened.

A more generic acceleration based on OpenCL and shaders will definitely be implemented in the open drivers (using the 3D engine to accelerate many stages of the decoding process, but not using the specialised hardware). These will speed up decoding considerably, but will probably not bring as much powersaving and speed improvement as the dedicated hardware solution.

Torangan · Apprentice Joined: 21 Mar 2003 Posts: 178

Using KMS and all tools from ~AMD64 I get about half the framerate in glxgears compared to not using KMS. Is there something badly configured or is it just a problem of the drivers? Before the latest -r reversions I had a bug with KMS and before that 1/3 of the framerate.
I'm using 780G chipset graphic and radeon driver.

saiko · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2007 Posts: 30 Location: Amsterdam

What a noob i am ... :oops:

Yes the group was the problem. Never though about it as i was using ati-drivers before with no problem and then just upgraded. Obviously they worked without my account being in the video group. Still i don't think this exercise was pointless as i leaned new things for which i want to thank you all. I appreciate all the help.
_________________
Dell Inspiron E1505 (Intel Core Duo 2GHz, 2GB RAM, SATA 120GB 7200rpm, the rest is standard )

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

glxgears is not a benchmark.

The fact that you're getting lower framerates means that there is an extra memory copy involved (since DRI2 enables redirected direct rendering -- i.e. things are rendered into a buffer and then blitted onto the final image). This makes it possible to use several 3D windows on a composited desktop like KWin or Compiz, and it's a good thing. Glxgears is so ridiculously easy to render on today's hardware that the memory copy becomes a bottleneck.

It does NOT mean that your card is rendering at half the speed. You will notice a much smaller difference when using more complex scenes, like modern 3d games.

The optimisation of the driver performance will likely come as the last step, once everything is working, so expect the performance to change from time to time depending on the latest features being added.

VinzC · Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:46 pm Post subject:

rufnut · Apprentice Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 252

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

The glxgears frame rate is simply measuring the wrong thing.

If you are rendering 1800 frames each second, you are making 1800 extra memory copies each second. This is a relatively quick operation, but there's many of them and they make a large proportion of what the driver is doing. With a game like OpenArena or Nexuiz, which render 100 frames per second, the difference in performance should be much smaller.

That, and the optimisations are still coming.

VinzC · Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 9:26 pm Post subject:

I have synced today and upgraded quite a few packages. Now I'm running mesa-7.7-r1, xorg-server-1.7.4.901 and xorg-x11-7.4-r1. All I had to do was save xf86-video-ati from the first page in this thread. I have 3D working! Yessssssssssss...

Moreover I'm running X without xorg.conf, i.e. no xorg configuration file at all. I'll see tomorrow how it is working with an external monitor.

I just have a little problem with Blender-2.49a and menus/buttons. The focus in menus doesn't follow the pointer and no drop down list seems to work. I'll check that a little later.
_________________
Gentoo addict: tomorrow I quit, I promise!... Just one more emerge...
1739!

pingufunkybeat · l33t Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 610

It's great to see that people need much less effort nowadays to get free 3d acceleration on newer Radeons.

Once the DDX driver is updated, you'll be able to run an accelerated system directly from portage.

VinzC · Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 7:41 am Post subject:

Sannin · Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 7:29 pm Post subject:

Hey

Do you know how radeon + KMS compare to proprietary driver at Opengl games (like World of Warcraft in wine ofc)?

sinister · n00b Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 44

Sannin · Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 8:33 pm Post subject:

derbrain · Apprentice Joined: 09 Apr 2005 Posts: 178

I was using the packages from the x11-overlay, but they got masked by EAPI 3 some time ago. I didn't realize this, and they got automatically downgraded to the main tree unstable drivers (xf86-video-ati-6.12.4-r1, mesa-7.7-r1, libdrm-2.4.18 ), but I still have 3D hardware acceleration (Radeon HD 4200 onboard graphics)

But now my problem is that after resuming from standby (using the hibernate-ram script), the driver gets really slow and causes high CPU load, so I guess it falls back to software acceleration somehow. But the strange thing is that I don't see any errors, compiz still works (unlike before moving to the new drivers).
Can anyone confirm this behavior?

earendilion · Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 5:44 pm Post subject:

Hi,

I do not succeed in compiling a kernel with extra-firware support...
I get this error at compilation :

Herring42 · Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 7:12 pm Post subject:

Your need to ensure the firmware files R600_rlc.bin and R700_rlc.bin are in /lib/firmware/radeon

They don't come with the kernel!
_________________
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is difficult
to determine whether or not they are genuine." -- Abraham Lincoln

earendilion · Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 7:18 pm Post subject:

They are in there :