[Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

superrad · 2009-04-04 23:47:07

Just got a new PC the other day, decided to try a few other distro's on it but nothing felt quite like arch so I'm just getting ready to wipe Fedora and install Arch.
Used to have a SiS card so installing drivers was easy as there only was 1.
Now using a Radeon HD3200 and am a bit confused over which driver to go for, I've done a bit of reading and it seems at the moment only the fglrx driver supports desktop effects for my card but I'm not really that bothered with them (learnt to live without them for years as SiS card couldnt do it) and while using the driver on Ubuntu video playback was pretty bad and kept tearing.
So that leaves the xf86-video-ati or xf86-video-radeonhd. Which would give me least hassle and best performance/video playback with my card? (going to be using KDE if that makes any difference)
Thanks

Last edited by superrad (2009-04-14 22:10:39)

leeyee · 2009-04-05 04:34:35

Upon others have recommendded to me, xf86-video-ati might be better, because radeonhd seems upgrade less often. However i'm currently using fglrx for my HD3470, it has some issues really, such as logout hanging, but if i don't logout often, that's fine.

Opensource drivers for HD3000 series now has no power management, so it might be annoying if using laptop like me, because the fan will keep running. If don't take this into account, it works flawlessly for its opensource essence.

Perry3D · 2009-04-05 09:34:35

Do you need 3D-Acceleration? Then you need the fglrx driver from the AUR.

Otherwise i would suggest to use the open source drivers. They are more stable and there is EXA 2D and XV-Video Acceleration for your Card:
Install these 2 packages from AUR: xf86-video-radeonhd-git and drm-radeon-module-git-r6xx-r7xx.

And for your xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "radeonCard"
        Driver          "radeonhd"
        Option          "AccelMethod" "exa" # default shadowfb
        Option          "DRI" "on
EndSection


...


Section "DRI"
        Group        "video"
        Mode         0660
EndSection

Last edited by Perry3D (2009-04-05 09:35:59)

superrad · 2009-04-05 12:09:55

Thanks I don't need 3D acceleration at the moment and as I'm using Xorg-server 1.6 the fglrx driver is no use at the moment anyway. Wen't for the RadeonHD driver from testing, is there much difference between this version and the git one from AUR?

R00KIE · 2009-04-05 12:53:55

If it is a notebook (or if you need 3D) go with the proprietary ATI drivers, they have some problems but they do provide power management, none of the open source drivers have power management as of yet.
Otherwise give the xf86-video-ati a try and try what Perry3D recommends. Right now I'm using xf86-video-radeonhd-git without any major problems.

Perry3D · 2009-04-05 12:54:13

Yes, i think the EXA and XV Support for r6xx and r7xx chipsets are missing in the testing driver release.

What is the output of xvinfo?

superrad · 2009-04-05 13:51:00

No it's a desktop so don't need power management.

[benji@myhost ~]$ xvinfo
X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
 no adaptors present

What differences will I notice (if any) from using the git drivers? (completely new to all this graphics stuff, sis driver couldnt do anything really)

R00KIE · 2009-04-05 14:22:24

The git drivers have xv and dri support which makes things work a lot smoother, but there is no 3D yet.

Perry3D · 2009-04-05 14:54:30

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_video_extension
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EXA

superrad · 2009-04-05 16:01:31

So all I have to do to switch to the git drivers is install them from AUR, remove the one I'm currently using from testing repo and add those lines to my xorg.conf? (then reboot obviously)

EDIT: Out of curiosity is there anything that the open source drivers can do (or do better) that fglrx can't?

Last edited by superrad (2009-04-05 17:32:52)

Perry3D · 2009-04-05 17:53:14

And you have to install the new drm-modules from here: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24235

R00KIE · 2009-04-05 18:00:52

superrad wrote:

So all I have to do to switch to the git drivers is install them from AUR, remove the one I'm currently using from testing repo and add those lines to my xorg.conf? (then reboot obviously)
EDIT: Out of curiosity is there anything that the open source drivers can do (or do better) that fglrx can't?

From a subjective point of view (and only changing the drivers), watching videos when using xv seems more fluid when using the open source drivers.
Some proprietary software I need to use is more responsive (it's a waveform viewer), there the open source drivers work a whole lot better. Its a matter of giving both a try for some time and then decide.

paolo83 · 2009-04-05 19:19:55

i'm sorry, if i install open driver, what can i do to active xv?

superrad · 2009-04-05 23:22:49

I have installed both the driver and the drm modules from AUR and made the changes to xorg.conf and xvinfo is still giving the same output and moving windows or anything like that is now painfully slow. Any ideas?

vacant · 2009-04-06 08:22:38

Maybe your system is still using radeon.ko and drm.ko from kernel26?

Perry3D · 2009-04-06 10:53:23

vacant wrote:

Maybe your system is still using radeon.ko and drm.ko from kernel26?

You can look at the output of "modprobe -l drm" to check this.

@superrad: Can you show us your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Teshadael · 2009-04-11 15:07:06

EDIT:
I searched for slow moving windows and found this post first, but I guess http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=69594 would have been better to post in
/EDIT

I've just recently did a full update and I am too having very slow window movement with the radeonhd driver on kernal 2.6.29 with an integrated HD3100.

I've switched to the git driver and updated drm as well.

modprobe -l drm shows:

/lib/modules/2.6.29-ARCH/updates/drm.ko

and modprobe -l radeon shows:

/lib/modules/2.6.29-ARCH/updates/radeon.ko

xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "dbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option        "Protocol" "auto"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName    "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "NoAccel"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "AccelMethod"            # [<str>]
        #Option     "offscreensize"          # [<str>]
        #Option     "SWcursor"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ignoreconnector"        # [<str>]
        #Option     "forcereduced"           # [<bool>]
        #Option     "forcedpi"               # <i>
        #Option     "useconfiguredmonitor"     # [<bool>]
        #Option     "HPD"                    # <str>
        #Option     "NoRandr"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "RROutputOrder"          # [<str>]
        #Option     "DRI"                    # [<bool>]
        #Option     "TVMode"                 # [<str>]
        #Option     "ScaleType"              # [<str>]
        #Option     "UseAtomBIOS"            # [<bool>]
        #Option     "AtomBIOS"               # [<str>]
        #Option     "UnverifiedFeatures"     # [<bool>]
        #Option     "Audio"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "HDMI"                   # [<str>]
        #Option     "COHERENT"               # [<str>]
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "radeonhd"
    Option    "AccelMethod"    "exa"
    Option    "DRI"    "on"
    VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
    BoardName   "Radeon 3100 Graphics"
    BusID       "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Group    "video"
    Mode    0660
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     1
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     4
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     8
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     15
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     16
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

In the Xorg.0.log I found this line:

(WW) RADEONHD(0): DRI support has been disabled at compile time

Is that important?

I want to fix this asap as even scrolling pages in firefox is painfully slow.
Any help is appreciated.

Last edited by Teshadael (2009-04-11 15:14:06)

Perry3D · 2009-04-11 15:54:50

Hmm....
did you ever installed the catalyst driver? It overrides libgl. So you must reinstall it:

pacman -Rd catalyst catalyst-utils
pacman -S libgl

After that recompile the drm module and the radeonhd driver.

Last edited by Perry3D (2009-04-11 16:01:09)

Teshadael · 2009-04-11 21:22:28

I was previously using the catalyst drivers...
I'll give that a shot.

EDIT:
Reinstalled libgl, and recompiled the other two.
I just did a reinstall of the other two, would that reinstall them properly or would I need to uninstall them first?
As it stands now, still no change.

Last edited by Teshadael (2009-04-12 03:02:39)

litemotiv · 2009-04-13 10:10:42

Teshadael wrote:

In the Xorg.0.log I found this line:
(WW) RADEONHD(0): DRI support has been disabled at compile time
Is that important?

yes that's crucial, install these three packages: mesa xf86driproto glproto

then reinstall xf86-video-radeonhd-git, DRI will be compiled now too

Teshadael · 2009-04-13 23:49:09

litemotiv: Thank you! I was missing xf86driproto. Everything is operating smooth again.

superrad · 2009-04-14 11:42:17

Sorry have been away, I had messed up a few things so went for a reinstall, now using Radeonhd from extra repo and it still seems slow at scrolling in epiphany but other than that is much faster than before, still no XV though

Perry3D · 2009-04-14 17:38:57

Radeonhd from extra is version 1.2.5 which provide XV and EXA Acceleration for the new cards. But only if you update the drm modules.
You can do this by installing the drm-radeon-module-git-r6xx-r7xx package from AUR. Or wait till kernel 2.6.30 hits the repos.

superrad · 2009-04-14 22:10:19

Thanks, is now working perfectly with EXA and XV

sjakub · 2009-04-15 18:13:23

Thanks for those tips, I got EXA and XV working on my HD 3200 as well.
Maybe anybody knows if it is possible to get KDE4 Desktop Effects working with this driver as well?

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-04 23:47:07

[Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#2 2009-04-05 04:34:35

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#3 2009-04-05 09:34:35

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#4 2009-04-05 12:09:55

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#5 2009-04-05 12:53:55

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#6 2009-04-05 12:54:13

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#7 2009-04-05 13:51:00

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#8 2009-04-05 14:22:24

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#9 2009-04-05 14:54:30

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#10 2009-04-05 16:01:31

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#11 2009-04-05 17:53:14

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#12 2009-04-05 18:00:52

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#13 2009-04-05 19:19:55

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#14 2009-04-05 23:22:49

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#15 2009-04-06 08:22:38

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#16 2009-04-06 10:53:23

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#17 2009-04-11 15:07:06

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#18 2009-04-11 15:54:50

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#19 2009-04-11 21:22:28

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#20 2009-04-13 10:10:42

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#21 2009-04-13 23:49:09

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#22 2009-04-14 11:42:17

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#23 2009-04-14 17:38:57

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#24 2009-04-14 22:10:19

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

#25 2009-04-15 18:13:23

Re: [Solved] Which driver for Radeon HD3200

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