Arch Linux

Exershio

Member

Registered: 2008-04-14

Posts: 17

ATI Radeon 9550 + xf86-video-ati = Crash

I just installed the open source drivers (tried from the pacman repo and the one from the GIT repo) and it runs really nice, almost as good as the FGLRX driver (which is a HUGE improvement since I last tried it last year). However, whenever I run a 3d application, after a little while (lighter programs like StepMania take a few minutes, fully 3d intensive programs is within 20 seconds or so), my entire desktop hangs to the point I can't move the mouse or input anything with the keyboard and I am forced to shut down the computer via the power button.

Sometimes the screen goes black and the monitor loses signal, sometimes it leaves the display frozen on the screen. Either way, I can't use my mouse/keyboard and everything just halts.

Any ideas? This doesn't happen with the FGLRX drivers or in Windows XP. I don't really want to use the FGLRX drivers, I'm pretty satisfied with the open source one (besides this problem, obviously). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

edit: Btw, I'm using a Radeon 9550 AGP 8x 256mb (running it as 4x in the xorg config file since my mobo doesnt support any higher than 4x)

Last edited by Exershio (2009-05-12 20:30:38)

Exershio

Member

Registered: 2008-04-14

Posts: 17

Re: ATI Radeon 9550 + xf86-video-ati = Crash

Oops, I forgot. Here's my xorg.conf

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

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option    "DontZap"    "False"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    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  "dri2"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "dri"
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   "Synaps"
    ModelName    "LCD Monitor"
    HorizSync    30.0 - 130.0
    VertRefresh  50.0 - 100.0
    Option        "DPMS"    "True"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Option     "AGPMode"    "4"
        Option     "ColorTiling"    "True"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "radeon"
    VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
    BoardName   "RV350 AS [Radeon 9550]"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 24
    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
        Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Last edited by Exershio (2009-05-13 03:07:31)

LemmingKing

Member

Registered: 2008-10-31

Posts: 2

Re: ATI Radeon 9550 + xf86-video-ati = Crash

Hello, Exershio!

I had the same problem playing the same game with (AFAIK) almost the same video adapter: ATI Radeon Mobility X600
This bug seemes to be fixed in the newest git version of xf86-video-ati. In AUR there is a package which builds the latest git version:
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=19792
But PKGBUILD is rather old, so you have to slightly correct it:
- change _mesaver="7.1" to _mesaver="7.4.1"
- disable patching:
# patch -Np1 -i ${srcdir}/mesa-7.1-link-shared.patch || return 1

After building package you have to manually remove xf86-video-ati (pacman -Rd xf86-video-ati) and then install your package with -f option, because it still replaces some files.
Add loading mesa module to your xorg.conf (don't know, why need this, but it is written in comments to this aur package)

Having done this, I played StepMania for an hour or even more and didn't manage to make it die Also, xmoto didn't hang during startup as it used to (tried ~10 times).
So, this seems to work to me.

Good luck!