ATI weird "effects"

devianpctek · 01-26-2012, 10:36 PM

Hi guys I'm having problems trying this card to work on my notebook (please watch the video)
is working fine on fallback mode,

http://youtu.be/cFHneX7fyIk

I successfully installed the privative driver, I got no errors, but the card just don't want to do the job :/
Is this a known bug? or what can I do to get it fixed?
right now I'm running Sid (I was running Wheezy with exactly the same problem)

Thanks

Gnome System Info shows

Code:

Graphics VESA: RS880M

lspci -v |grep VGA

Code:

    01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

glxinfo |grep render

Code:

direct rendering: Yes
    OpenGL renderer string: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series
        GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color,

xorg.conf

Code:

    Section "ServerLayout"
       Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
       Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
    EndSection

    Section "Module"
    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"
       BusID       "PCI:1:5:0"
    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
       EndSubSection
    EndSection

widget · 01-26-2012, 11:38 PM

Did you install the "fglrx-driver" package or get the driver from the ATI site?

devianpctek · 01-26-2012, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by widget

Did you install the "fglrx-driver" package or get the driver from the ATI site?

This is the driver from ATI site, however I installed fglrx-driver before (a couple of months) and I have some issues with it, I can't recall exactly what was it

jim_p · 01-27-2012, 12:12 AM

Fglrx and compositing is a sad story.
Fallback mode does not use compositing, so you get no problems there.
All I can suggeest is to disable compositing completely or use radeon.

You can also try this in your xorg.conf

Code:

Section "Extensions"
	Option	    	"Composite" 		"Enable"
EndSection

but I don't think it will make any difference.

widget · 01-27-2012, 12:48 AM

That sounds like a good idea.

I would try the fglrx-driver again. There is going to be an upgrade to it soon so it should be in Sid pretty quick.

I have an older and fairly poorly supported Radeon HD 2400 PRO card and have no trouble with Gnome Shell in Sid. Prefer Xfce but GS is working fine.

caravel · 01-27-2012, 08:08 AM

fglrx is glitchy when it comes to compositing effects. I was messing around a few days ago with xcompmgr and IceWM and with fglrx shadows on window edges were leaving trails. On switching to radeon it worked perfectly however. Overall fglrx's 2D performance is not great and never has been. The only compelling reasons to use it are 3D and power management.

I've not seen anything as bad as your example there...

It might be an idea to try a different compositing window manager, such as compiz to rule out the driver and/or mesa/dri.

@jim_p: Enabling the composite extension is not required as it's enabled by default these days. May still be valid for squeeze however (I can't recall).

devianpctek · 01-27-2012, 07:45 PM

Thank you guys, so I will try fglrx-driver and post back the results, as for trying compiz, well thats not an option since doesn't work on this version of Gnome at least AFAIK

Roken · 01-27-2012, 08:16 PM

If you are using Gnome 3 then there are well documented problems with fglrx. By all accounts, catalyst 12.1 is supposed to fix them

devianpctek · 01-27-2012, 10:32 PM

Ok so I installed latest catalyst (12.1) and now is working fine, I thought I was using the latest 11.1, well 12.1 just came out two days ago, anyway I haven't been able to fully test it but at least those "effects" on the video are gone

Thanx guys, now I need to find out about the bluetooth problem but this is another thread

widget · 01-27-2012, 11:56 PM

12.1 just came to the repo today. Hadn't upgraded today until just now. Was going to post that it was in the upgrade.

Glad to hear it is working for you. Hope it still is for me. I suspect it will.

devianpctek · 01-29-2012, 12:40 PM

Well after some more testing is working but is really slow :/

jim_p · 01-29-2012, 12:56 PM

Although I am not 100% certain, I think raden can do powersaving on your card, so consider removing fglrx and go with radeon.

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

Just make sure kms is enabled and that the driver itself is not blacklisted by some conf file in /etc/modpsobe.d.

caravel · 01-30-2012, 03:32 AM

12.1 fixed those xcompmgr drop shadow issues as well, but the whole system is perceptibly more sluggish. I also noticed some weird text artefacts in Iceweasel, particularly when typing in the quick reply box in newer vbulletin forums.