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#1 2010-05-02 16:56:10

egan
Member
From: Mountain View, CA
Registered: 2009-08-17
Posts: 273

Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

I have an ATI Mobility Radeon X1300, running Xorg with HAL, and no xorg.conf.

KMS for my card frees about 50MB of RAM over openradeon, which I really like, and I see no problems with performance.

But one really annoying thing keeps happening. I am not sure what it is called, perhaps tearing, but it happens as follows:
Every other row of pixels starts oscillating horizontally with an amplitude of ~10 pixels either way, shredding the image and creating ghosts. I can return the display to normal by blanking the screen: xset s activate
This happens at random times, and aside from visual annoyance, there are no adverse effects.

I don't know if there is anything that can be done, as I know KMS is an experimental technology but any insight would be appreciated.
I know how to disable KMS but I don't like the memory overhead and I like hi-res ttys.

Last edited by egan (2010-07-01 17:12:19)

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#2 2010-06-01 02:31:57

egan
Member
From: Mountain View, CA
Registered: 2009-08-17
Posts: 273

Re: Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

Okay, I guess this isn't technically tearing, since that refers to the display of multiple frames at once?
This isn't a product of showing multiple frames, since none of the frames should ever move side to side.

Unfortunately I cannot get a screenshot of this as they appear normal. I will try to make a graphical representation of the problem to make the problem more clear.

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#3 2010-06-01 03:01:14

egan
Member
From: Mountain View, CA
Registered: 2009-08-17
Posts: 273

Re: Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

Here is my attempt to imitate the problem using GIMP on the Arch logo. This is pretty much what I see, though upon making this I realize that there are frames between the extrema of the horizontal amplitude; the oscillation is less choppy.

show.php?id=3718

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#4 2010-06-01 03:30:21

cesura
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Tallinn, Estonia
Registered: 2010-01-23
Posts: 1,867

Re: Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

egan wrote:

Here is my attempt to imitate the problem using GIMP on the Arch logo. This is pretty much what I see, though upon making this I realize that there are frames between the extrema of the horizontal amplitude; the oscillation is less choppy.

http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=3718

Err...I'm sorry that this isn't really contributing to the thread....but that picture is FREAKIN' AWESOME! tongue

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#5 2010-06-01 06:21:04

tomk
Forum Fellow
From: Ireland
Registered: 2004-07-21
Posts: 9,839

Re: Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

egan wrote:

I know how to disable KMS but I don't like the memory overhead and I like hi-res ttys.

No idea about your problem, but 50MB doesn't seem like a lot to me, and you can get hi-res ttys by using radeonfb, so disabling KMS might be worth considering until the technology matures a bit.

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#6 2010-06-01 13:37:24

egan
Member
From: Mountain View, CA
Registered: 2009-08-17
Posts: 273

Re: Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

I wish I knew the cause of this phenomenon or even its name!

For me, 50MB is quite a bit (that's why I like Arch over Ubuntu) for something with equivalent or lesser functionality. I am happy enough blanking the screen --- I was just wondering if anyone else was experiencing this problem or knew its cause.

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#7 2010-06-01 16:39:21

elric
Member
Registered: 2010-01-14
Posts: 22

Re: Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

I have a ATI x1250 and I had to disable KMS after several random freezes, just not there yet for general use (little is left, though,  plymouth runs).

I also needed to install xf86-video-ati-git in order to get rid of other (many) glitches when running 3d (kwin or compiz).

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#8 2010-06-13 03:55:24

viruzeno
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2009-10-24
Posts: 6

Re: Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

i also have the same issue, only started once i went to .33, so it's more then likely a KMS issue, i also have two vertical lines that appeared at the same time, that only appear in X, my screen is fine as when i put the mouse over them they vanish. guess i'll just wait for the KMS team to work it out.


-ViruZeno
This arch has super cow powers.

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#9 2010-07-01 17:11:59

egan
Member
From: Mountain View, CA
Registered: 2009-08-17
Posts: 273

Re: Problem with ATI KMS [SOLVED]

I haven't had this problem at all with Linux 2.6.34 and Xorg 1.8.

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