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#1 2007-11-07 18:01:16

tacita
Member
Registered: 2007-08-22
Posts: 8

AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

I have a x1600pro agp and I can only get 3d acceleration to work if I first boot into windows. Every time after i turn off my PC, i first have to boot into windows or 3d wont work. It also happened with a 9600xt agp card.
I'm wondering if it has happened to somebody else, and if it is because they are agp cards?
It happens connecting with the vga or the dvi outputs of the cards.
Is there a way around this? It gets really annoying having to boot first into windows.
I also think many people having trouble getting they're 3d to work is because of this.

Last edited by tacita (2007-11-07 18:05:45)

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#2 2007-11-07 18:09:52

Cerebral
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From: Waterloo, ON, CA
Registered: 2005-04-08
Posts: 3,108
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Re: AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

I have an AGP 9600XT card, and I haven't noticed this issue.  I use VGA, have AIGLX disabled, and had to disable my dual-head setup for this release however.

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#3 2007-11-07 18:13:18

tacita
Member
Registered: 2007-08-22
Posts: 8

Re: AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

Cerebral: do you have windows installed?
I will check the AIGLX setting. It happened with earlier versions of the fglrx driver and on different distros.

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#4 2007-11-07 18:14:36

MrWeatherbee
Member
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 277

Re: AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

It is a known issue for certain BIOS versions and certain motherboards. I have to do this as well on a machine with a K8NE-Deluxe. I'll dig up a link in a few minutes.

Edit:
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6350

Last edited by MrWeatherbee (2007-11-07 18:16:36)

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#5 2007-11-07 18:16:44

Cerebral
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From: Waterloo, ON, CA
Registered: 2005-04-08
Posts: 3,108
Website

Re: AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

tacita wrote:

Cerebral: do you have windows installed?
I will check the AIGLX setting. It happened with earlier versions of the fglrx driver and on different distros.

Yeah, I do have windows installed. If it's a BIOS issue, that sucks.

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#6 2007-11-07 18:20:44

tacita
Member
Registered: 2007-08-22
Posts: 8

Re: AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

MrWeatherbee: thank you for the link, i have searched high and low (maybe in the wrong places) and didnt find anything before.
Cerebral: yes, but then i guess it is a nice excuse to upgrade. And stay away from the Nforce3.

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#7 2007-11-07 18:36:06

MrWeatherbee
Member
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 277

Re: AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

tacita wrote:

MrWeatherbee: thank you for the link, i have searched high and low (maybe in the wrong places) and didnt find anything before.
Cerebral: yes, but then i guess it is a nice excuse to upgrade. And stay away from the Nforce3.

I congratulate you for making the connection between Windows and 3D functionality in your Linux installation. That's the hardest part to figure out. smile Loss of hair can result wondering why 3D comes and goes without any apparent reason. However, once you know the secret, the behavior is 100% consistent. I rarely notice it because I rarely turn off the PC in question, and once the correct settings are locked-in by a single boot to Windows, 3D acceleration in your Linux distros will remain through any number of reboots. The only thing that requires a repeat of the Windows touch-n-go is when you power-off.

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#8 2007-11-07 19:03:25

MrWeatherbee
Member
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 277

Re: AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

I can't assume that you're able to leave your machine on all the time, so I should mention that buried within the lengthy bug report I posted are examples of people getting good results by switching BIOS versions; for example, BIOS v1006 is shown to work with the Asus K8N-E Deluxe.

The other solution people were attempting was creating a kernel patch, but anything they may have come up with would have to be reworked for newer kernels, if possible at all.

In any case, I'm satisfied with just having to remember to first boot to Windows on this one PC when I [infrequently] power-off the machine. For me, it's preferred to downgrading the BIOS version (though, in practice, I may not notice any difference) or messing with patches.

Last edited by MrWeatherbee (2007-11-07 19:04:51)

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#9 2007-11-08 20:48:00

tacita
Member
Registered: 2007-08-22
Posts: 8

Re: AMD/ATI fglrx and 3d, only after booting first into windows

MrWeatherbee:
Thank you for the advice. Let me assure you that hair pulling has occurred before finding out why it was happening. sad
I agree, the patches path is out of the question, and I'm doubtful about the bios downgrading. Anyway as you said, the behavior is 100% consistent.
So I guess I will stick with the booting into windows, I sometimes have the machine running several days without shutting it down and sometimes not.
As I said before, maybe I'll be using this "problem" as an excuse to upgrade my PC. wink

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