Arch Linux

Bralkein

Member

Registered: 2004-10-26

Posts: 354

Open-source Radeon R300 support in X.org/DRI CVS

Hello!

I heard that the 6.9/7.0 release of X.org would bring about experimental open-source support for Radeons > 9200. Since I have a Radeon 9700, and I don't like ATI's crappy binary driver, and I don't want to wait 'til December for the new X.org to be out, I thought I would have a go at building the CVS, and seeing what happens. In order to do so, I used the [URL=http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Building]instructions in the DRI wiki[/url]. Now, everything builds ok, the modules are loaded, the output from glxinfo clearly says that there is direct rendering and that it is coming from the R300 driver, and the software rendering is very much quicker.

However, when I try to run a 3D app like glxgears or an OpenGL screensaver or something, it runs very slowly for literally about one second, then my machine locks up. Afterwards, when I have rebooted, I look in the logs and I can't find any errors or messages of any kind from when the machine locked up.

Now, I realise that this is only a CVS version of an experimental driver, so basically when things go wrong, I get what I deserve. However, I have read many reports of being able to use this driver and having it work well enough to play Quake 2 and TuxRacer and things like that, so I was just wondering if anybody else has tried this, and if not, is anybody else man enough to have a go, just for a lovely experiment to see what happens