[solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

nocts · 2009-04-17 00:22:23

After going over the wiki for ATI and installing the catalyst+catalyst utils (9.4) from AUR using yaourt, the device refused to load. Now, I don't have the error on file as I'm not at home. But the question remains: Has anyone gotten this to work?

(*) 4870 HD Radeon card
(*) 9.4 driver + utils from yaurt/AUR (I didn't.. see official 9.4 drivers anyone on the ATI website, how did we get them?)
(*) no xorg.conf used, just startx to automatically detect hardware. And it worked, attempting to use the catalyst-based driver, but only with red bars and blocks on top of the screen
(*) xf86-video-ati and radeonhd both work fine, but obviously the 3d support isn't so hot, and I'm a huge gamer
(*) latest xorg release from pacman -Syu
(*) Yes, I know official support has ceased

Thoughts? Shared ideas? What are we waiting for, ATI's new drivers or a patched fix? Got this working, anyone?

edit: Yes, I've searched the forums. But there's too much scattered information and not enough to really focus on what seems to be the problem and how to resolve it

Last edited by nocts (2009-04-17 21:34:40)

msdark · 2009-04-17 01:00:43

(sorry for my english)
if i don't miss someting.... the kernel 2.6.29 doesn't support the ati propietary driver... i was use catalyst 9.4 and i actualy use xorg-video-ati-git (from aur)...

Good Luck11

b4283 · 2009-04-17 04:36:56

Nope. No luck me here as well.
Currently using xf86-video-radeonhd for now...

Is there any way to get a proper 3d acceleration except for proprietary drivers?

Last edited by b4283 (2009-04-17 04:37:25)

the_isz · 2009-04-17 05:46:30

Hmm... for me, everything except compiz is running fine since the 9.3 driver (also using Radeon HD 4870).

When my girlfriend wakes up, I'll tell her to start my pc so I can ssh to it and post my xorg.conf here.

lman · 2009-04-17 07:03:49

Well, I have a hd 4850, but that's generally the same. Here is my xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Xorg Configured"
    Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
    Option        "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# Additional fonts: Locale, Gimp, TTF...
#    FontPath     "/usr/share/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/75dpi"
#    FontPath     "/usr/share/lib/X11/fonts/latin2/100dpi"
# True type and type1 fonts are also handled via xftlib, see /etc/X11/XftConfig!
    ModulePath   "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/PEX"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/ttf/western"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/ttf/decoratives"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/openoffice"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-bitstream-vera"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/latex-ttf-fonts"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/defoma/CID"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/defoma/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load  "ddc"  # ddc probing of monitor
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "bitmap" # bitmap-fonts
    Load  "record"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option        "AllowMouseOpenFail" "true"
    Option        "AutoAddDevices" "True"
    Option        "Xinerama" "off"
    Option        "Composite" "off"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
    Option        "CoreKeyboard"
    Option        "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option        "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option        "XkbLayout" "us,cz,sk,hu"
    Option        "XkbVariant" ",qwerty,qwerty,"
    Option        "XkbOptions" "grp:shifts_toggle"
EndSection


Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
    Option        "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
    Option        "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    Option        "XAANoOffscreePixmaps" "on"
    Option        "VideoOverlay" "off"
    Option        "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
    Option        "TexturedVideo" "on"
    Option        "TexturedXrender" "on"
    Option        "Textured2D" "on"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
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
        Modes    "1680x1050"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Mode         0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option        "RENDER" "Enable"
    Option        "DAMAGE" "Enable"
    Option        "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

don't forget to run 'aticonfig --initial --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf ' as root after you update your driver or change sthing in xorg.conf
BTW I use catalyst 9.4 from AUR with kernel 2.6.29 and xorg 1.6
Hope it helps...

dispanser · 2009-04-17 10:41:08

Here is the essence of my xorg.conf. catalyst and catalyst-utils (9.4) have been installed via yaourt, and it appears that I have to reinstall both after each update to xorg-server.If I don't reinstall, I get a black screen of nothing when starting up X, and it's not even possible to ssh inside to reboot.

I'm running a HD3200, but I don't thin it will make a huge difference.

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "Configured Monitor"
    DisplaySize 506 315 # 96 DPI @ 1920x1200 (non 4:3 aspect)
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Default Screen"
    Monitor        "Configured Monitor"
    Device        "Configured Video Device"
    DefaultDepth    24
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load    "glx"
    # Load    "dri"
    # Load    "dbe"
    Load    "ddc"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "Configured Video Device"
    Driver    "fglrx"
    # Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
    # Option "DRI" "true"
EndSection

Wintervenom · 2009-04-17 11:00:34

nocts wrote:

After going over the wiki for ATI and installing the catalyst+catalyst utils (9.4) from AUR using yaourt, the device refused to load. Now, I don't have the error on file as I'm not at home. But the question remains: Has anyone gotten this to work?
(*) 4870 HD Radeon card
(*) 9.4 driver + utils from yaurt/AUR (I didn't.. see official 9.4 drivers anyone on the ATI website, how did we get them?)
(*) no xorg.conf used, just startx to automatically detect hardware. And it worked, attempting to use the catalyst-based driver, but only with red bars and blocks on top of the screen
(*) xf86-video-ati and radeonhd both work fine, but obviously the 3d support isn't so hot, and I'm a huge gamer
(*) latest xorg release from pacman -Syu
(*) Yes, I know official support has ceased
Thoughts? Shared ideas? What are we waiting for, ATI's new drivers or a patched fix? Got this working, anyone?
edit: Yes, I've searched the forums. But there's too much scattered information and not enough to really focus on what seems to be the problem and how to resolve it

- I have an Radeon 3100, and it is working beautifully -- much better than any previous Catalyst version.
- The PKGBUILD gets the beta driver from Ubuntu's repositories (AMD/ATi gives them pre-release drivers when they need the support).
- That method usually doesn't work well with Catalyst (or proprietary drivers in general).

nocts · 2009-04-17 21:33:48

Works! And here's how I did it from a fresh install:

pacman -Sy xorg
pacman -Rd libgl
yaourt -S catalyst

The reason for removing libgl is because it seems catalyst-utils already has the version required. Getting rid of it helps us avoid an error during yaourt. After the above I used the xorg file from lman (above) and it worked like a charm. Incredible speeds and response time. What's strange is that everything I tried before using that xorg file failed. X couldn't generate one because of error 11 and so forth. Giving it a PCI location and fine tuning additional options seemed to solve that. I'll look into further tweaking.

Side note: Shutting down X and bringing it back up hangs the system. Go go stressing uptime in the future.

Last edited by nocts (2009-04-17 21:34:18)

b4283 · 2009-04-18 01:21:56

nocts wrote:

Side note: Shutting down X and bringing it back up hangs the system. Go go stressing uptime in the future.

try removing fglrx module before you re-enter Xorg

Soulou · 2009-04-25 20:19:56

Hello,

I've some promble too with this driver, but it's at the kernel level.
I've some strange errors :

Apr 24 14:46:45 Soulou1 kernel: [fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 1898 MBytes.
Apr 24 14:46:45 Soulou1 kernel: [fglrx:drm_alloc] *ERROR* [driver] Allocating 0 bytes
Apr 24 14:46:45 Soulou1 kernel: [fglrx:firegl_init_device_list] *ERROR* Out of memory when allocating device heads
Apr 24 14:46:45 Soulou1 kernel: [fglrx:firegl_init_module] *ERROR* firegl_init_devices failed

So the module is not on the kernel and it doesn't work <_<

P.S. Kernel 2.6.29-1 Xorg 1.6 Catalyst 9.4 Device : Radeon Mobility X2300

Last edited by Soulou (2009-04-25 20:24:10)

Wintershade · 2009-04-27 20:06:59

Is it possible to make the old Catalyst (the 9.3 version) to work onder xorg 1.6?
sorry for potential topic hijacking, but I can't seem to find any material regarding this anywhere...

I'm talking about the catalyst-old package from the AUR; I have a RV350 chip in my ATi card, so Catalyst 9.4 is a no-go for me...
(the good news is, I'm buying nVidia in a month or two)

apadox · 2009-09-09 16:57:07

last question is relevant to my interests

Wintershade · 2009-09-09 17:41:32

I'd love to give you any leads, however all I've found was as follows - get the xorg 1.5 (either a binary from some archive, or compile it from source via ABS) and install the catalyst-old. Catalyst version 9.3 is not compatibile with Xorg 1.6 or newer, and never will be, since the branch is no longer actively developed. Moreover, since it's a non-free piece of software, you are not very likely to find a patch which will make it work with newer Xorg either.

However, there are two elegant solutions.
First, my girlfriend has an ATI X1100 graphics card, and the open-source driver works like a charm for her. The only thing she cannot do is play "advanced" 3D games (i.e. games which are very high on graphical requirements). Since she plays almost no games (an occasional Frozen Bubble, Diablo 2 or similar is enough for her), it fits her needs. OTOH, if you want to play games, you've still got Windows.
The second solution is the one I've applied a few months ago - I've bought a new laptop computer with an nVidia graphics card. Yes, you may say that you lack the funds for it, but look at it this way - your time isn't free either. Instead of wasting your time on making a broken driver work properly (and it's indeed a waste of time, I have seen many Catalyst users, and none of them completely satisfied), save that time and get some decent hardware whose driver developers took their job seriously. No wonder catalyst is no longer in the Arch repos. If I was making a Linux distro, I wouldn't put it in my repos either.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-17 00:22:23

[solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#2 2009-04-17 01:00:43

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#3 2009-04-17 04:36:56

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#4 2009-04-17 05:46:30

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#5 2009-04-17 07:03:49

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#6 2009-04-17 10:41:08

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#7 2009-04-17 11:00:34

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#8 2009-04-17 21:33:48

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#9 2009-04-18 01:21:56

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#10 2009-04-25 20:19:56

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#11 2009-04-27 20:06:59

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#12 2009-09-09 16:57:07

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

#13 2009-09-09 17:41:32

Re: [solved]Catalyst + xorg 1.6 = Has anyone gotten it to work?

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