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#1 2009-11-03 19:09:11

RaNaN
Member
Registered: 2009-11-03
Posts: 7

Powersaving ati driver?

Hi there,
I really dislike the fglrx ati driver and want so switch to an open source variant.

My problem is: The first time i tried radeonhd it uses about 10 Watt! more than fglrx.
Can I configure them to save power and are they able to save as much(or more?) power than atis proprietary driver?

It would be nice if anybody share his experience smile

Second issue:
I have a mobility radeon 3650, which driver is better for me, ati or radeonhd?
I definitely dont want to play any 3D games, the most important is a fast desktop enviroment with good performance

Thanks in advance
Best regards
RaNaN

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#2 2009-11-03 19:23:28

Wintervenom
Member
Registered: 2008-08-20
Posts: 1,011

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

Try enabling DynamicClocks in your X.org configuration.

Last edited by Wintervenom (2009-11-03 19:24:39)

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#3 2009-11-03 19:29:32

MadTux
Member
Registered: 2009-09-20
Posts: 553

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

RaNaN wrote:

Hi there,
Second issue:
I have a mobility radeon 3650, which driver is better for me, ati or radeonhd?
I definitely dont want to play any 3D games, the most important is a fast desktop enviroment with good performance

Thanks in advance
Best regards
RaNaN

According to the wiki, xf86-video-ati is recommended:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beg … hics_Cards

I use this driver and never had a problem with it, not even with the latest xorg upgrade. It is stable and fast (I don't use 3D, compiz, etc.).

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#4 2009-11-03 20:30:10

R00KIE
Forum Fellow
From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

I believe power saving with the open source drivers is still not on par with the power saving obtained with the binary drivers, the reason is that they (AMD/ATI) couldn't at the time release more info that would allow more power savings, but I guess that eventually it will get sorted out.


R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

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#5 2009-11-03 21:37:15

RaNaN
Member
Registered: 2009-11-03
Posts: 7

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

I use the radeon driver now and power consumption raises from 18 to 25Watt with these options:

        Option      "DRI" "on"
    Option      "DynamicPM" "on"     
    Option      "ClockGating" "on"   
    Option      "AccelMethod" "EXA"
    Option      "EXAVSync" "on"     
    Option      "DMAForXv" "on"
    Option      "ScalerWidth" "2048"
    Option      "EnablePageFlip" "on"
    Option      "RenderAccel" "on"
    Option      "ForceLowPowerMode" "on"

The opensource driver result in a 30% shorter battery runtime, what is really unsatisfying sad

Any ideas how to improve??

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#6 2009-11-04 10:17:50

signor_rossi
Member
Registered: 2007-08-24
Posts: 257

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

I had rudimentary powersaving working until yesterday with the radeon drivers from GIT, which were easily installable from AUR. Today I am not that sure any more if it still works with all these recent upgrades to KMS support and xorg 1.7. Some weeks ago I could keep my old working setup by simply disabling KMS, today with xorg 1.7 update from yesterday I had to enable KMS, otherwise X would freeze on startup. Now my Xorg.0.log says '(WW) RADEON(0): Option "ForceLowPowerMode" is not used' and OpenGL is not working (I used glxgears to guess if power-saving was working, without it GPU temperature would rise quickly to 60°C), so I am not sure anymore.
Anyway, you still could try out radeon from GIT (you find a PKGBUILD on AUR) and enable 'ForceLowPowerMode' in your xorg.conf or any of the other power saving options (DynamicPM, ClockGating) and report back. smile
EDIT: there is a chance that the normal radeon driver has implemented power-saving support at this time, it didn't have it when I switched to the GIT driver).

signorRossi.

Last edited by signor_rossi (2009-11-04 10:46:54)

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#7 2009-11-04 11:58:38

RaNaN
Member
Registered: 2009-11-03
Posts: 7

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

The normal driver is quite new, i tried with the git driver, but there is no difference sad

Does the proprietary driver run with xserver 1.7??

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#8 2009-11-04 13:09:25

signor_rossi
Member
Registered: 2007-08-24
Posts: 257

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

I could get OpenGL working again (posted how to in another thread) and power saving is indeed not active. I might post for help on the Phoronix forum and report back.

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#9 2009-11-04 13:36:20

RaNaN
Member
Registered: 2009-11-03
Posts: 7

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

My xorg log says:

(II) RADEON(0): Dynamic Clock Gating Enabled
(II) RADEON(0): Dynamic Power Management Enabled
(II) RADEON(0): Force Low Power Mode Enabled
(II) RADEON(0): Power Mode Switch

So powersaving seems to be on, but not very efficient.

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#10 2009-11-04 13:40:26

signor_rossi
Member
Registered: 2007-08-24
Posts: 257

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

Thanks for the info, I will try again with the official radeon drivers from extra now, maybe they work with kms.
BTW, did you try enabling only with the option 'ForceLowPowerMode' on at once in your xorg.conf.

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#11 2009-11-04 18:10:51

signor_rossi
Member
Registered: 2007-08-24
Posts: 257

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

I had a look again at some Phoronix forum threads and write down some useful info here in this thread.

DynamicPM goes to a low power mode when the system is idle and dpms kicks in, no savings until then.
ForceLowPowerMode goes to a permanent power saving (of course performance degrading) mode. DynamicPM and ForceLowPowerMode may be enabled at the same time.

EDIT: Have this answer from the dev:
There's no low power options yet with kms.
So we either have to wait again until it is implemented or to disable KMS.

Last edited by signor_rossi (2009-11-04 19:18:22)

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#12 2009-11-05 08:15:42

RaNaN
Member
Registered: 2009-11-03
Posts: 7

Re: Powersaving ati driver?

Ok thanks for the info, I have disabled KMS anyway.
Unfortunatly the power saving is not really good, I have to wait until fglrx works again...

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