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VoidExp

Member

Registered: 2007-05-17

Posts: 10

ATI Radeon drivers problems (both open-source and proprietary)

Hi 2 All!!
I have a problem with my ATI Radeon 9000-series. The open source drivers (xf86-video-ati) don't work very good for me, my monitor's fresh rate isn't "at-top" and the monitor projection is slightly translated to the right (say 8-12 pixels). So I've tried to build the official drivers with ABS, all is gone successfully, except for some worrying warnings, but I thought that it's normal. I have a customized kernel, build through ABS... So, when I've tried to load the fglrx module it says:

# modprobe fglrx
FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/2.6.27-ARCH/video/fglrx.ko): Cannot allocate memory

Please, help me! My machine is slow, I can't run any OpenGL-accelerated application, even Quake III!!! If you can suggest me how to improve the performance and how to resolve problems with open-source drivers, it also would be very good... Thank you and sorry for my poor English please.

cybermage

Member

From: Czech Republic

Registered: 2008-11-19

Posts: 12

Re: ATI Radeon drivers problems (both open-source and proprietary)

I had some problems with installing ATI drivers recently (could not build fglrx module, not even manually, I had to change some installation script), but with latest driver version (8.11 I think) from ati.amd.com was everything fine (I have Radeon 9600 Pro)

Try to do this (and write here the output)
glxinfo | grep vendor
fglrxinfo
In both cases, it should write something like OpenGL...: ATI... if there will be MESA or DRI, that means that you don't have loaded your fglrx module.
If fglrxinfo output will be something like: no permission for...(should be first or second line of the output), then write this somewhere in your xorg.conf:
   Section "DRI"
       Mode 0666
   EndSection

run:
modprobe -a fglrx - and give here the output. If there will be none, run:
lsmod | grep fglrx - to see wheter fglrx module is really loaded in kernel

if you will have no module, you can install one, type:
cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod
sh make.sh
cd ../
sh make_install.sh (as root)
and post any warning or error here at forum, drivers (but not fglrx module) are installed at /usr/share/ati

After installing drivers, you also need to configure your system (notice your system that it's there), commands:
aticonfig --initial (for editing your xorg.conf)
aticonfig --overlay-type=Xv (acceleration support in xorg.conf)

Showing your xorg.conf file here is also good idea, here is mine (sections Device and Screen):

Section "Device"

    #VideoRam    262144
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
    Identifier  "** ATI Radeon (generic)               [radeon]"
    Driver      "radeon"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    Option        "VideoOverlay" "on"
    Option        "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen 1"
    Device     "** ATI Radeon (generic)               [radeon]"
    Monitor    "My Monitor"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     8
        Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
        Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
        Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
    Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    DefaultDepth     24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection