ati radeon hd 3450 video "flicker"

greyhat.goon · 2008-09-02 05:43:35

Well, I'm using a radeon hd 3450 card and I get this terrible flickering if try to play videos (avi). Here's some info:

I'm using the proprietary catayst drivers (seem to work well except for the flicker)

[campbell@krum ~]$ sudo pacman -Q | grep catalyst
catalyst 8.8-1
catalyst-utils 8.8-1

[campbell@krum ~]$ uname -a
Linux krum 2.6.26-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Aug 26 21:15:43 UTC 2008 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

After digging through the forums (http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=413997),
someone suggested adding nopat to the kernel command in the grub config (menu) would fix this.

I did this,

[campbell@krum ~]$ dmesg | grep nopat
Kernel command line: root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/52150ae8-3734-4f7a-aaed-cc9a5f6c1c07 ro nopat

However, this is what is happening at boot:

[campbell@krum ~]$ dmesg | grep PAT
PAT support disabled.
ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0xffa0 irq 14
ata2: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xffa8 irq 15
[fglrx] PAT is enabled successfully!

So it look's like PAT is being disabled and fglrx is re-enabling it somehow? Anyone know how to turn it off?

Here's my xorg.conf

[campbell@krum ~]$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 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/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "GLcore"
    Load  "freetype"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option        "Protocol" "auto"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName    "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    Option        "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
    Option        "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
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     "ShadowFB"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "DefaultRefresh"         # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ModeSetClearScreen"     # [<bool>]
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "vesa"
    VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
    BoardName   "Unknown Board"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    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
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
    Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Mode 0666
EndSection

greyhat.goon · 2008-09-02 07:22:29

Well, seems like compiz is related to the problem. I'm running compiz-fusion and
if I change the window manager to either metacity or Xfwm4, the flicker goes away.....

Cosay · 2008-09-02 17:38:54

I don't remember where but I read that even after disabling PAT, fglrx will continue to say PAT is enabled, even though it isn't. In any case, adding "nopat" to the kernel line took care of my problems.

EDIT: On the Phoronix forums, Energyman noticed this too. He posted log files with nopat enable (first post) and pat enabled (second post). There is some differences between the two, so this might be a case of the flgrx driver mis-stating things.

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?p=44340

Last edited by Cosay (2008-09-02 17:46:41)

greyhat.goon · 2008-09-03 02:14:04

Thanks for the info.
With PAT disabled at boot, video is ok as long as I'm not using compiz. NOPAT + compiz = flicker for some reason?

At least I have a way to watch videos now

The Orange Peanut · 2008-09-03 03:27:06

I was under the impression that compiz + fglrx will always cause video flicker, at least until DRI2 support is in the xserver.

Cosay · 2008-09-03 11:26:11

I guess it is a good thing that I am not dependent on eye candy.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-09-02 05:43:35

ati radeon hd 3450 video "flicker"

#2 2008-09-02 07:22:29

Re: ati radeon hd 3450 video "flicker"

#3 2008-09-02 17:38:54

Re: ati radeon hd 3450 video "flicker"

#4 2008-09-03 02:14:04

Re: ati radeon hd 3450 video "flicker"

#5 2008-09-03 03:27:06

Re: ati radeon hd 3450 video "flicker"

#6 2008-09-03 11:26:11

Re: ati radeon hd 3450 video "flicker"

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