A Guide: Enabling 3D Acceleration in X11

cwwilson721 · 04-01-2006, 11:42 AM

Cool. Will add it to top post.

Absolute_P · 04-02-2006, 03:38 PM

Code:

Kernel-specific troubles

Using ATI driver 8.21.7 and earlier with kernel 2.6.15 or later needs a patch. (see table below for detail.) If you can't compile the driver modules with 2.6.15 or later, you should apply this patch instead.

If you do not use one of these patches, you may experience peculiar lockups of X. Try $ fglrxinfo - if your shell hangs at the end of this command, you may have an issue and should try the patch.

Although unproven, there is a substantial amount of user / developer concern that the above patches prevent hard lockups but do not provide full reliability with 2.6.15 and there are larger / redisgn issues preventing compatibility. It seems surprising that ATI would not have implemented such a simple page count fix in their latest two driver releases since kernel 2.6.15 has been available. Given the closed-source nature of the driver, it is difficult to know for sure. As of now only 2.6.14.x kernels are officially supported by the fglrx driver.

I took this section from thinkwiki.org because it relates to my problem with with the shell hanging, I also get hard feeze's with X when i try to logout,reboot,etc.... prior to finding this post the only way i could get around the hanging and so forth was by commenting out the "dri" in my xorgconf file but my problem is i have never applied a patch b4 and so i dont know how, Could some one please tell me how to do this.

Alien_Hominid · 04-03-2006, 12:07 PM

For NVIDIA users:

Quote:

1)Compiling agpgart and drm directly into the kernel does not allow direct rendering support (DRI). Running glxinfo shows direct rendering: no.
2)To get DRI support you must compile latter settings as modules. However, after compiling them as modules and reinstalling nvidia driver, direct rendering automatically becomes yes (without using load "dri").
3)Load "dri" does not affect anything with nvidia drivers. If you load "dri" when using 1) point I mentioned above direct rendering still will be no and everything will work normally. If you do not load "dri", when using 2) point I mentioned above, direct rendering still will be yes (even DRI is disabled in our X configuration) and everything will work normally.
4)There is no change in performance if you use so called direct rendering , or no. Glxgears shows very similar (same) output in fps.
5)Conclusion: direct rendering is automatically used with nvidia drivers, despite which (load or not load "dri") settings are used in xorg.conf and what glxinfo shows.

Additional notice, glxgears and other graphics rendering performance significantly drops with new Xorg (6.9 or 7.0) due to unknown for me issues. Glxgears shown fps number decreases about 3 times. For those, who are aware of this problem, I suggest to use old good 6.8.2.

cwwilson721 · 04-03-2006, 12:12 PM

That is why there are separate sections for i810, NVidia, and ATI. What works for one will not necessarily work for another.

The following cannot be stressed enough:

READ YOUR DOCUMENTATION
READ THE ENTIRE POST

cwwilson721 · 04-07-2006, 12:48 PM

In addition, in post #1, it does state to load drivers and agpgart as modules, not include in kernel

Alien_Hominid · 04-07-2006, 12:50 PM

However, there is no difference if I compile them as modules, directly into the kernel or maybe there even wouldn't be any difference if I excluded them from the list at all.

cwwilson721 · 04-07-2006, 12:56 PM

On my Nvidia Box:

Code:

$ glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes

Why is yours showing different?

True that DRI is not loaded, but glx is.
(As I've said, differences in manu. drivers)

And agpgart is loaded too (as module)

Alien_Hominid · 04-07-2006, 01:07 PM

As I have already said, there is no difference with dri or without it (read my post above). And I can't disable dri now. The only way to do it for me is to recompile the kernel and compile (or maybe remove from) agpgart into the kernel. Option in x.org (commented #load dri) is worthless.
Same output:

Code:

name of display: :0.0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes

Maybe there is no dri effect only for me (NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700), but this also could be true for all nvidia cards users.

cwwilson721 · 04-07-2006, 01:14 PM

Is this after the 'kernel patch'?

And what is the issue? Do you not want dri(3D accel,glx,whatever)working?

Or is this just informational?

I'm just a bit confused...Not your fault. 3000 miles this week.

Alien_Hominid · 04-07-2006, 01:49 PM

No. I haven't done any patch. I've was looking for bootsplash but I didn't find any suitable for my kernel version.
Before doing these things with DRI, I managed to have around 3000 fps glxgears performance. OH, that's great, I thought.

But if I somehow made DRI work, maybe I would get even more (it's never enough for me) fps. So I looked into your post. Hah,I said, cwwilson says that I need to compile agpgart as module but I have it directly compiled. So that's even better.

I edited xorg.conf, added load "DRI",ran killall X and then startx. There weren't any errors so I thought everything was working normally . Yahoo! Dri wait, alien comes to you.

Then I ran glxinfo and got output - direct rendering: no. Wtf? Why it is not working? Maybe (it's unbelievable

) cwwilson was right.

So I recompiled the kernel with agpgart as module. Glxinfo output - direct rendering: yes. Finally, hahaha, I started laughing, come here my 5000 fps. Greetz fly out to cww.

Windows will never reach this level. Now lets try glxgears. But I've got around 3000 too.

S**t. It's not working. Hmmz, and what will happen if I disable dri at all. Maybe I will get only 600 fps. Oh, that's interesting. Let's try it. Edited xorg.conf, #load "dri", killall X, startx, glxinfo output - direct rendering: yes. What a piece of s**t that dri????? It doesn't even work, that crap (that's my thoughts, only in Lithuanian). But maybe my glxgears performance dropped down - that would be a proof. Ran glxgears. No way, it's still 3000. So what was the point of this (rhetorical question)?
Conclusion (in reality it's only my opinion): dri does not affect anything when using nvidia - it's worthless with nvidia drivers.

Sorry for the chaos of thoughts.

cwwilson721 · 04-07-2006, 03:38 PM

Nvidia may use a different renderer.

I don't know what the actual mechanics of Nvidia drivers are, I just know that on my Nvidia box, without the Nvidia drivers, I get ~1000fps. With the Nvidia, it's over 6000

The purpose of the post started as an explanation of how to get DRI/3D acceleration working with the i810 chipset. It has since gained alot of other info on other chipsets. As the info gets posted, I add to the original post. It has morhed into a catch-all for video in X.
But the benifits seem to be striking a chord. As is seen on other posts, ATI is a big problem to even get working. But Nvidia, just run and go.

DRI is not used w/Nvidia. ATI uses fglrx. The stock drivers in X use DRI.

As far as more acceleration in Nvidia, anybody have any ideas?

Old_Fogie · 04-07-2006, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Absolute_P

[CODE]Kernel-specific troubles

Using ATI driver 8.21.7 and earlier

Aboslute_P, I'm going to start getting into trying to figure this out too. I had one freeze up here on slack 10.2 w/2.6.10 kernel and ati 8.19 drivers. I get DRI. When I ran Mepis I had it alot, but that's debian and (cough cough cough) that crashes all the time anyway. I want to start playing with these 20 series drivers and get em' working here.

What kernel version are you using? and what version drivers did you use? And have you tried applying this patch yet? What did you find. If you want to email me directly we can work on this together and post our results so as not to bog down this post.

Actually that's open to anyone here with an ATI card who want's to get the high series 2.6.1X kernels with ATI 8.20 series drivers going. I'd like to get this hashed out so we can put up a sticky for that and help end this madness please jump in

Thanks.

cwwilson721 · 04-07-2006, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Old_Fogie

Actually that's open to anyone here with an ATI card who want's to get the high series 2.6.1X kernels with ATI 8.20 series drivers going. I'd like to get this hashed out so we can put up a sticky for that and help end this madness please jump in

Actually, that's for anyone and any chipset.
The madness HAS gone on too long.
As I said before, this started as a post for the Intel series chips, then it kinda morhed into this. I figure the more info, the better.

Old_Fogie · 04-08-2006, 02:03 AM

well i got them working 2.6.10 kernel i made b4. not without pain; and having to run "ye ole" e2fsck (scandisk in my brain) a few times.

my preliminary 1 time trial says...change your display from vesa to radeon generic...then install the 32bit installer they have on the net...once it's done..run "aticonfig --initial -f" then you have to go line by line. it killed all my xorg stuff..mouse wheel everything. very ugly to setup.

i'm gonna dump / reload from an image and verify.

however, i do have 4400 fps now in glxgears in 6" window. i'm up 1000 fps Woo hoo!

Old_Fogie · 04-08-2006, 03:45 AM

UPDATE: WOOT!

Okay the 32 bit installer works and so does the Xorg latest with the 2.6.10 kernels compiled like i stated previously.

here's the scoop. if you follow my verbiage on front of page that cwwilson put up that i typed out for configing your kernel and then installing them they will work.

BUT YOU WILL NOT KNOW THEY WORK!!!!!!!! HERE'S THE SCOOP.

THEY ONLY WORK FOR ROOT! WTF!

After you install the drivers, and you run "aticonfig --initial" (the command line you run just after installing) wipes out your whole xorg.conf with # sign's on everything.

you lose your mouse wheel refresh rates everything. i even lost my mouse cuz i had slack configured for ps/2 mouse but had it out and had my usb mouse plugged in. normally not a problem til' ATI screws you.

in addition if you log on as any other user other than root, you WILL think you are screwed but your not. like i said you log in as a user....open console and type glxinfo..and it says not allowed. so me being 'nub' i'm like...huh? so i logged in as root and ran the computer. yeah i know.....but glxgears worked and i got 4200 fps now.

remember those # sign's the aticonfig throws down every freakin' line of your xorg file........well it wipes out the section of xorg.conf for direct rendering too!!!!!!!

uncomment these lines in your xorg.conf and your golden once you reboot.

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

they may not mean anything for alien and his nvidia but they mean everything to us ATI guys.

next...load unreal tournament 2004 demo ...buddy *old_fogie* and come play!