Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-14 17:48:34

As of the current Xorg 7 packages, I can't get AGP DMA working. Here's what Xorg.0.log shows:

[proteus@localhost ~]$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep EE
Current Operating System: Linux localhost 2.6.16-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 12 18:59:19 CEST 2006 i686
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
(EE) VIA(0): Unknown Card-Ids (1565|1200), report this to openchrome-users@openchrome.org ASAP
(EE) VIA(0): [drm] drmAgpAcquire failed 1023
(EE) VIA(0): [drm] Failed to initialize DMA ring-buffer: 1005

The above is with Openchrome drivers, but the same messages are present with both xf86-video-via and xf86-video-unichrome as well. This really annoys the hell out of me, because a) not having AGP DMA means a very large performance reduction when using OpenGL, and b) AGP DMA worked fine when I was using Xorg 6.8, and with earlier Xorg 7 packages (from when Xorg 7 was in Testing). Could someone please explain to me what is not working, why it's not working, and how to get it working again?

lilsirecho · 2006-04-14 18:42:33

HDPARM?

Bysshe · 2006-04-15 00:00:45

I thought hdparm only enables DMA for /dev/hd? Certainly, AGP has it's own DMA channel. Don't it?

[ken@fishing ~]$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep EE 
Current Operating System: Linux fishing 2.6.16-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 12 18:59:19 CEST 2006 i686
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER

xf86-video-unichrome working fine on mine with Xorg7? I just have the problem where every time I do a system upgrade, I have to reinstall the video driver. Like recently, I had to reinstall it after only upgrading
GTK and Firefox. That, to me, didn't make any sense.

Anyway, I can't imagine why yours crapped out it was your thread here:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … =unichrome
...that I used to set up my video driver.

So, at least MAYBE this underscores a legitimate configuration issue, and not that Xorg7 has problems with VIA AGP driver? What are the differences between yours and my system?
My xorg.conf is auto-generated, and I only mucked with the settings pertinent to VIA. I use inittab set to kdm to autostart KDE.

If there's any way I can help, you got it.

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Card0"
        Driver      "via"
        Option      "DisableIRQ"
        Option      "EnableAGPDMA"
        VendorName  "All"
        BoardName   "All"
EndSection

lilsirecho · 2006-04-15 00:05:49

I understood he had changed HDD...so it seemed appropo for hdparm to be interrogated.

Bysshe · 2006-04-15 00:08:51

lilsirecho wrote:

I understood he had changed HDD...so it seemed appropo for hdparm to be interrogated.

Very good point.

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-15 00:27:18

No, not a good point at all, DMA for HDDs and for AGP are different things even if they're both DMA; hdparm is for hard drives, not AGP cards or onboard video. And this is definitely a software problem, because I had AGPDMA support with the old Xorg 7 packages (from when Xorg 7 was in Testing), whether I was using just the Samsung or a two-HDD setup, and now I cannot get it working, whether I'm using just the Samsung or both hard drives. The removal of one piece-of-trash WD budget model doesn't enter into it...

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-16 02:05:34

Would someone please help me here? Seriously, having DRI is hardly useful if your CPU has to work like crazy when using video RAM...

cascat · 2006-04-16 16:18:18

The computer used by my kids has a via chipset. Dmesg indicated that the via_agp module would fail to initialize and would fallback to pci mode. Xorg.log confirmed the problem. DRI failed in glxinfo. 'lsmod' listed the module running though.

I solved the problem by setting 'Plug-n-Play OS' in the BIOS to no.

I am not sure whether my solution will help you but it is worth a check.

cascat

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-16 17:03:59

Thanks, but 'Plug-and-play OS' is already set to "no". Maybe I should try setting it to "yes"? Linux is plug-and-play capable isn't it?

Bysshe · 2006-04-16 18:38:21

Yeah. My only take on non-pnp is for with really old stuff or just a questionable bios. As in, early 90s and beyond. As far as the DMA thing, not being familiar with Linux, but now knowing DMA seems well-handled by the Linux kernel, I thought maybe a HDD jumper situation may have confused the AGP DMA mapping. I couldn't recreate this by purposefully setting jumpers wrong, however. All it would do is prevent IDE drives from being properly recognized. Should have went without saying, but I figured, why not try. Only other thing I can mention is I'm not using patched kernel versions.
Can't seem to be able to break AGP DMA yet.

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-16 20:33:33

Okay I'll try that...

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-16 20:57:37

Nope, doesn't work. :x

Bysshe · 2006-04-17 18:16:36

I know I'm not really of much help, but so far, the best I can reckon is this (but there doesn't seem to be anyone else helping yet):

I assume you've regenerated xorg.conf a few times. I know I used the hwd method and changed the driver to via, followed your guide, etc. But I fail to understand, like you, as well, it doesn't seem like it could be changing anything useful. From the error, it starts at "Unknown Card Ids", which probably is the trigger for the messages following it. Xorg-server somehow thinks there's a specific card type in there, and then it finds the ID is generic non-matching when it runs through xorg.conf? Right? What's special about your kernel and xorg?

Me, I've been trying to recompile xorg-server, but it seems to be missing something all the time, and haven't yet found what all it needs to compile.
Would it do any good to actually pacman -Syu, pacman uninstall xorg, clear the pacman cache, and then reinstall it? Maybe when you first did it, the servers somehow made you miss a non-critical package, but it's some package that is needed for AGP DMA, and it's just not budging without getting pacman to relearn the database.

Is it using OpenGL, but no AGP DMA?

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-17 19:02:52

Wait a minute... HWD? I've been using X -configure, and there's not really much difference between those... But what the hell I'll try HWD. Just a sec...

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-17 19:51:59

Nope, that doesn't work either.

For what it's worth, I always got the "Unknown Card-Ids" message, even with the Testing version of Xorg 7, and with Xorg 6.8.2 - and AGPDMA works perfectly for both of those.

Now, I tried doing X -configure to create the config file and not getting rid of the vendor/model "information":

VendorName  "Unknown Vendor"
BoardName   "Unknown Board"

That gets rid of the "failed to initialize ring buffer" error, but AGPDMA is still not enabled:

Current Operating System: Linux localhost 2.6.16-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Apr 12 18:59:19 CEST 2006 i686
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
(EE) VIA(0): Unknown Card-Ids (1565|1200), report this to the driver maintainer ASAP
(EE) VIA(0): [drm] drmAgpAcquire failed 1023

And now, here's something I should have noticed a while ago... Check out these (edited for clarity) screenshots of xorgcfg in textmode:

In Xorg 6.8.x, VIA cards were listed where the red line is pointing. Now they're not listed there, or anywhere in xorgcfg.

Likewise, the "via" driver is simply not listed; again, it was in Xorg 6.8.x, even after the installation of the necessary DRI snapshots for VIA hardware.

Note that the above is observable with any of the available Unichrome drivers installed - xf86-video-via, xf86-video-unichrome, and xf86-video-openchrome all produce the same results.

Also, I can't confirm this for xorgcfg's graphical mode, for the simple reason that the graphical mode just crashes:

[root@localhost ~]# xorgcfg
Warning: Cannot convert string "menu10" to type Pixmap
Warning: Cannot convert string "menu10" to type Pixmap
Can't create rules structure

Think this strange stuff has any bearing on the AGPDMA situation?

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-17 21:34:10

Hmm, just found this thread and realized that I'm loading via.ko manually in rc.conf... Maybe it's getting loaded before everything else that way. Damn, just a sec.

Edit: Got it! The problem was via getting loaded before via-agp... I forgot that uevents activates after the manually loaded modules. I think I'm going to file a bug on this...

Strangely, though, I didn't get the usual 100 FPS framerate increase in glxgears. Weird.

Bysshe · 2006-04-17 22:57:27

And there it was, as I was trying to keep my install as simplified as possible for the time being since I'll be handing this machine over to someone else, therefore all my modules are auto-load. Glad you got it, dude.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-04-14 17:48:34

Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#2 2006-04-14 18:42:33

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#3 2006-04-15 00:00:45

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#4 2006-04-15 00:05:49

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#5 2006-04-15 00:08:51

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#6 2006-04-15 00:27:18

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#7 2006-04-16 02:05:34

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#8 2006-04-16 16:18:18

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#9 2006-04-16 17:03:59

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#10 2006-04-16 18:38:21

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#11 2006-04-16 20:33:33

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#12 2006-04-16 20:57:37

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#13 2006-04-17 18:16:36

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#14 2006-04-17 19:02:52

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#15 2006-04-17 19:51:59

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#16 2006-04-17 21:34:10

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

#17 2006-04-17 22:57:27

Re: Cannot enable AGP DMA for VIA hardware

Board footer