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#1 2008-02-24 13:09:43

danielsoft
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-02-16
Posts: 102

[solved]X11: MGA driver issues: video playback (mplayer) and 3D

Hello,
I am new to Arch, but I am not new to Linux. I installed Arch yesterday, before I was experimenting with it in VirtualBox and -to test the compatibility with my real hardware- I also tried the "Archie" live CD.

But there was one thing that the combination of VirtualBox and Archie could not test: the X Window System itself, because in Archie there was an older and VESA-only version and you could not upgrade it and VirtualBox was, well, virtual.

I have a Matrox card G550, so I installed the xf86-video-mga package. At first it did not work at all (blank screen), but when I switched the console from framebuffer to "normal" text mode it started working, but...

1) the 3D performance (glxgears) is about half of the FPS I got on my previous Linux system
2) when I tried to play video with mplayer, xine or vlc, there was blue screen instead of the picture. - I can send you a screenshot, but it's just a blue box where the picture should be

I discovered, that this bluescreen thing is "solved" with some arcane xorg.conf option I discovered with "man mga" - in fact, I tried each of the options in hope for this to fix:

Option "ShadowFB" "on"

but this thing slows the 3D performance even more, so the OpenGL version of Doom is not playable any more :(

Also the mplayer itself behaves differently than on my old Linux: When I resize the window or go fullscreen, on the old system it resized or fullscreened the entire picture and now just the window is bigger and the picture remains the same. I solved this with -vo sdl, but it seems the picture has poorer quality in this case

at all, I think something is missing in the xorg configuration, because the mplayer and 3D behavior suggest so.

here is my config:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    RgbPath      "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/local"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/artwiz-fonts/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "GLcore"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "glx"
    #Load  "freetype"
    #Load "type1"
    #Load "v4l"
    #Load "drm"
    #Load "type1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
    Option "XkbLayout" "us,cz_qwerty"
    Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
    Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp:switch,grp_led:scroll"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option        "Protocol" "auto"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    DisplaySize      380   300    # mm
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "BNQ"
    ModelName    "BenQ FP91G+"
 ### Comment all HorizSync and VertRefresh values to use DDC:
    HorizSync    30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh  43.0 - 76.0
    Option        "DPMS"
        UseModes "Modes[0]"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "HWcursor"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "PciRetry"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "SyncOnGreen"            # [<bool>]
        #Option     "NoAccel"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "Overlay"                # [<str>]
        #Option     "MGASDRAM"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ShadowFB"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "UseFBDev"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ColorKey"               # <i>
        #Option     "SetMclk"                # <freq>
        #Option     "OverclockMem"           # [<bool>]
        #Option     "VideoKey"               # <i>
        #Option     "TexturedVideo"          # [<bool>]
        #Option     "Int10"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "AGPMode"                # <i>
        #Option     "AGPSize"                # <i>
        #Option     "DRI"                    # [<bool>]
        #Option     "OldDmaInit"             # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ForcePciDma"            # [<bool>]
        #Option     "AccelMethod"            # [<str>]
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "mga"
    VendorName  "Matrox Graphics, Inc."
    BoardName   "MGA G550 AGP"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
    Option "HwCursor" "off" #protoze jinak tam neni
    Option "DRI" "on"
    Option "ShadowFB" "on" #jo ale pomalejsi 3D
    #Option "OldDMAInit" "on"
    Option "AGPMode" "4"
    #Option "TexturedVideo" "on" #nefunguje
    Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Group      "video"
    Mode       0666
EndSection

Section "Modes"
  Identifier   "Modes[0]"
Modeline "640x480"   25.20  640 656 752 800  480 490 492 525 -hsync
 -vsync
ModeLine "1280x1024"  108.00  1280 1328 1440 1688  1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
EndSection


Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 16
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     1
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
        Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
        Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

I use 16bpp because 24bpp is slower...

thank you in advance,

   Daniel

Last edited by danielsoft (2008-03-04 16:21:17)


may the Source be with you

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#2 2008-02-24 15:15:50

danielsoft
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-02-16
Posts: 102

Re: [solved]X11: MGA driver issues: video playback (mplayer) and 3D

further investigation: it seems I am missing the "xv" extension for X - how do I enable it?

[root@zdroj /home/danny]# xvinfo
X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
 no adaptors present

may the Source be with you

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#3 2008-02-24 16:10:17

danielsoft
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-02-16
Posts: 102

Re: [solved]X11: MGA driver issues: video playback (mplayer) and 3D

further further investigation:
it seems that xv and direct 3D rendering are mutually exclusive, i.e. can't have both
either I have
Option "TexturedVideo" "on"
- xv and sdl video, but no 3d rendering
or switch this off and it's the other way around

can anyone help pls?


may the Source be with you

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#4 2008-02-24 22:35:13

danielsoft
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-02-16
Posts: 102

Re: [solved]X11: MGA driver issues: video playback (mplayer) and 3D

the solution was to downgrade the x server and matrox drivers
(I found the old packages at http://mir2.archlinuxfr.org/archlinux/c … i686.old/)

the following packages were downgraded:
xf86-input-keyboard-1.1.1-1.pkg.tar.gz
xf86-input-mouse-1.2.1-1.pkg.tar.gz
xf86-video-mga-1.4.6.1-1.pkg.tar.gz
xorg-server-1.2.0-5.pkg.tar.gz
xorg-xkb-utils-1.0.2-2.pkg.tar.gz


may the Source be with you

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#5 2008-02-29 17:18:10

danielsoft
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-02-16
Posts: 102

Re: [solved]X11: MGA driver issues: video playback (mplayer) and 3D

the older drivers have also problems (see http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=44721 )
so I removed the "solved" status on this post


may the Source be with you

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#6 2008-03-04 16:21:00

danielsoft
Member
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2008-02-16
Posts: 102

Re: [solved]X11: MGA driver issues: video playback (mplayer) and 3D

solved with unofficial drivers
http://forum.tuxx-home.at/viewtopic.php?t=153


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