Arch Linux

tuddy

Member

From: Lombard, IL

Registered: 2009-09-27

Posts: 16

old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

Hi All,

It's been a while since I've posted here, I'm loving Arch all over again.  After distro hopping for a while this year I've settled on Arch once again.  I love the minimalistitc and elegant approach and learning about the configuration files and seeings to keep the system going.  Anyway,  I'm having one issue with an old P3 533 system that rests in a i810 motherboard with on-board video.  The system RAM reads 384 MB in the BIOS as well as when the "free" command is issued which is telling me that the video chip-set is getting zero RAM to work with.  Does anyone know if it's possible to adjust the shared RAM with the video using config files in Linux?  The BIOS does not have any option for this, surprisingly.  Thanks in advance

-Pete

alphaniner

Member

From: Ancapistan

Registered: 2010-07-12

Posts: 2,810

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

Are you certain the mobo only has 384MB installed?  Maybe it has 512 and 128 of that is silently reserved for the video.

You could also try this to see if it can report your video RAM.

---

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
-Lysander Spooner

tuddy

Member

From: Lombard, IL

Registered: 2009-09-27

Posts: 16

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

Are you certain the mobo only has 384MB installed?  Maybe it has 512 and 128 of that is silently reserved for the video.

You could also try this to see if it can report your video RAM.

Thanks alphaninner.  Using lscpi -v -s it sows I have 64MB of video RAM and then /var/log/Xorg.... shows I have 32MB.  I don't think either is right since my BIOS shows slots 1 and 2 have 128 and 256 MB, respectively.  free -m shows I have a total of 371 MB physical RAM.  It's not a huge deal but something is definitely not right with the video.  When I try to append vga=773 to the end of my kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst I get an error on boot-up saying it's not a valid mode.  The valid modes top out around 120 x 80!

-Pete

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,606

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

I am quite sure that even on those old things RAM to the graphic card is allocated dynamically. I would search elsewhere for your problems. Which problems are those exactly? And which driver are you using?

And as for that 120 x 80, that's not resolution, it's number of characters. You shouldn't be using vga= anyway, you should be using KMS which will automatically give you a native resolution.

tuddy

Member

From: Lombard, IL

Registered: 2009-09-27

Posts: 16

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

I am quite sure that even on those old things RAM to the graphic card is allocated dynamically. I would search elsewhere for your problems. Which problems are those exactly? And which driver are you using?

And as for that 120 x 80, that's not resolution, it's number of characters. You shouldn't be using vga= anyway, you should be using KMS which will automatically give you a native resolution.

Gusar,

My main issue was slow window rendering and movement i.e., very laggy feeling.  When Win XP was on this machine windows were redered much smoother.  Since I'm running openbox, everything should be pretty snappy but it isn't.  I've run Arch on multiple machinex and this is the only one giving me the issue. I'm not trying make a big deal out of this, it just doesn't seem right and I figured there may be an easy fix or something I may have missed.

Regarding appending vga=771 to the kernel line, I followed the wiki beginner's guide and have been successful with all my other machines except for this one.  If I sjouldn't be using this feature then why is it in the beginner's guide?  I'm usinf xf86-video-intel as my driver and have followed the beginner's guide for all the xorg requirements.

-Pete

458italia

Member

Registered: 2011-02-04

Posts: 20

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

I'm not sure if this is exactly the situation you're facing in this case, but you might want to check your Xorg logs. It sounds like the gpu chip is hanging (as a result of the kms code). Before I was working with an older p4 system with an intel 845g chip that also uses the xf86-video-intel driver. Needless to say once the gpu problem had cropped up everything was rendered slowly because it was being rendered in cpu! Although that might not be the only problem because you also seem to mention the console configuration as well. Could you clarify for us what exactly is being rendered slower for your setup?

davidgurvich

Member

Registered: 2010-02-11

Posts: 118

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

i810 support has been tossed out the window with KMS.  Try disabling DRI in xorg.conf.d driver section.  I get around 10x better performance using software rendering with current xorg on older intel graphics plus number of crashes is reduced.   I haven't tested i810 on recent releases.

I would suggest using an older version of linux, maybe slackware 11 is old enough.  Anything that doesn't use KMS should work better.  Suspend/resume and other features won't work as well.

tuddy

Member

From: Lombard, IL

Registered: 2009-09-27

Posts: 16

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

I'm not sure if this is exactly the situation you're facing in this case, but you might want to check your Xorg logs. It sounds like the gpu chip is hanging (as a result of the kms code). Before I was working with an older p4 system with an intel 845g chip that also uses the xf86-video-intel driver. Needless to say once the gpu problem had cropped up everything was rendered slowly because it was being rendered in cpu! Although that might not be the only problem because you also seem to mention the console configuration as well. Could you clarify for us what exactly is being rendered slower for your setup?

It just feels slow minimizing, maximizing, and re-sizing windows.  It's an old machine, it could just be what is is.  What's throwing me is the lack of a larger console res and the memory not being accounted for.  I'm using this box for practice while studying for my LPIC exams, It will do as is.  Thank you for your suggestions, I appreciate them.

tuddy

Member

From: Lombard, IL

Registered: 2009-09-27

Posts: 16

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

i810 support has been tossed out the window with KMS.  Try disabling DRI in xorg.conf.d driver section.  I get around 10x better performance using software rendering with current xorg on older intel graphics plus number of crashes is reduced.   I haven't tested i810 on recent releases.

I would suggest using an older version of linux, maybe slackware 11 is old enough.  Anything that doesn't use KMS should work better.  Suspend/resume and other features won't work as well.

I will try what you say, thanks.

P.S. I love Arch, I'd rather deal with the slow graphics than move on to something else

458italia

Member

Registered: 2011-02-04

Posts: 20

Re: old i810 mobo with built in video very slow

If you have a few spare dollars, and if this computer supports it, you could always throw in an older pci or agp graphics card that your computer might support whilst maintaining support for the current state of linux & Xorg drivers.