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Ati Rage Mobility Driver Performance in Redhat 8.0
Hi All
I have a Dell Inspiron 3800 dual booting Windoze 2K and RedHat Linux 8.0. My problem is with video performance in Linux. The graphics card is an ATI Rage Mobility M1 8mb AGPx2. The 2D performance seems to be fine but when trying to playback mpg,avi, divX files etc, the playback is choppy and broken like I was trying to run it on an under spec'd system. I know my system is up to the job as there is no problem with video playback in win2k. From reading other posts I have been lead to think that it might be a problem with opengl support. I also find that games such as Tux Racer run very badly, again making me think it might be opengl related. I'm a complete Linux newbie and was wondering if any of you could give me some info on how to get some sort of opengl support set up for this card. Thanks in advance for any help P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dell Inspiron 3800 Intel Celeron 600 mhz 384 MB Ram 40 GB IBM TravelStar 40GNX ATI Rage Mobility M1 8mb AGP 2x External Freecom Portable II/Cable II PCMCIA CD-Writer Redhat Linux 8.0 [Kernel 2.4.18.18.8.0.i686] Win2k SP3 |
I've got the same card in a bastardized IBM thinkpad P3 500, I get decent 2d, have never really messed with openGL, but then again that's a rarely used output for multimedia, What's your XF86Config file look like? Feel free to paste in the whole bloody thing.
Also, what media player are you using? Xine? I've never gotten a precompiled version of that thing to work properly for me ever, but then again, I'm biased towards strange hardware. Cheers, Finegan |
I'm using a precompiled RPM of Mplayer that I obtained from Freshrpms.net.
It makes a half hearted attempt to work but as I said the playback is choppy and unwatchable. Here's a copy of my XF86Config file in its entirety. I hope you can make some sense of it. # File generated by anaconda. Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Anaconda Configured" Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0 InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" InputDevice "Mouse1" "SendCoreEvents" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" EndSection Section "Files" # The location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the # file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally # no need to change the default. # Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together) # By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of # the X server to render fonts. RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb" FontPath "unix/:7100" EndSection Section "Module" Load "dbe" Load "extmod" Load "fbdevhw" Load "glx" Load "record" Load "freetype" Load "type1" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # Option "AutoRepeat" "500 5" # when using XQUEUE, comment out the above line, and uncomment the # following line # Option "Protocol" "Xqueue" # Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1)) # Option "Xleds" "1 2 3" # To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable. # Option "XkbDisable" # To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the # lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S. # keyboard, you will probably want to use: # Option "XkbModel" "pc102" # If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use: # Option "XkbModel" "microsoft" # # Then to change the language, change the Layout setting. # For example, a german layout can be obtained with: # Option "XkbLayout" "de" # or: # Option "XkbLayout" "de" # Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys" # # If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and # control keys, use: # Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps" #Option "XkbOptions" "" Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "keyboard" Option "XkbRules" "xfree86" Option "XkbModel" "pc101" Option "XkbLayout" "gb" #Option "XkbVariant" "" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # Modified by mouseconfig Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Device" "/dev/mouse" Option "Protocol" "PS/2" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse1" Driver "mouse" Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Monitor Vendor" ModelName "Dell 1024X Laptop Display Panel" HorizSync 31.5 - 48.5 VertRefresh 59.0 - 75.0 Option "dpms" EndSection Section "Device" # Uncomment the following line to enable external display # Option "crt_screen" #BusID Identifier "ATI Rage Mobility" Driver "ati" VendorName "ATI Rage Mobility" BoardName "ATI Rage Mobility" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "ATI Rage Mobility" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection SubSection "Display" Depth 8 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection Section "DRI" Mode 0666 EndSection I'd appreciate any help you could offer Cheers, |
I think there's nothing intrinsically wrong with Redhat and your Rage Mobility - which is what I run too.
TuxRacer was not made for your video card at all - no wonder it runs like pants. Personally, I've never noticed a performance hit for OpenGL apps. Your XF86Config is identical to mine. IBM iSeries 1800. Bert |
ok thanks for that,
I suppose i'll just have to keep tinkering with Mplayer to see if i can get it to work. Also when you say TuxRacer was not made for my video card do you mean it is optimised for a certain chipset i.e. Nvidia or just that the cards not up to it. I don't really play games anyway so i'm not too bothered about it not working I just thought it might be a sign that somethings not right with the setup. Regards, P |
Quote:
Bert |
Bert, too much graphics card bias. I've gotten Tux Racer to work right on an ATI 128 and a stock RH7.2 install out of the box, then again on a Matrox G550 (single headed, can't quite figure out dual-head), and a lot of whacking with Slack 8.1.
I'm not arguing that Nvidia cards have the best OpenGL under Linux, they do. However the stock XFree drivers do decent GL for the other cards. Tux Racer isn't as demanding as say... Quake3. As far as mplayer goes, what video output are you using, the only ones I've used with success on my i1400 are xvidix and x11. Cheers, Finegan |
That's an interesting selection of grey boxes you have there Finegan.
Anyway, I've managed to get some sort of playback in Mplayer but it's not quite there yet. I've got the latest Alsa sound drivers and am using alsa9 ALSA-0.9x for audio output. For video output: x11 X11(XImage/Shm) If I try to use XV or XVidix I get "Error opening/initialising the selected video_out (-vo) device!" In the video tab of Mplayer the settings i have selected are: Enable frame dropping Enable direct rendering And on the misc tab the settings are: Enable Post Processing (set at 6) Video Codec family - Mpeg1/2 Video decoder Audio Codec Family -MPEG layer-2,layer-3 Cache on/off - 4 This all allows an avi file to play with no troubles in a window. However if i try to make it larger or even full screen the movie stays the same size and only the window resizes. Also, at the moment i'm only able to play avi files. If i try to play an mpeg file i get choppy sound and no picture, then a pop up box appears saying my computer is too slow to play said file. Thanks a lot for your help so far, any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated. P |
Yeah, X11 is scaled so you can't make it any bigger... there's an option to make it open larger, I only run it through the command line. xvidix goes full screen only and might cause X to go all wonky when you kill it, but when it works its really pretty. xv is the only one you can drag open and the image re-scales on the fly (of the normal ones anyway, I'm still working on fbdev and I've got a matrox card so I use xmga_dev too) Honestly, try getting a copy of the newest mplayer, and after you compile it, don't run a make install, just shell it from the downloaded directory, I've got about 3 mplayer versions that all work in various states... oddly enough the oldest is the only one I can get to play dvds properly. Acid Kewpie really is the best around here with Mplayer, heck he's quoted in the FAQ! I'll see if I can get him to drop in on this thread.
Oh, btw, nothing looked odd about your XF86Config... I'm a bit stumped. Have you tried any of the other video players? Xine I use as a fallback sometimes when I don't feel like compiling a new mplayer codec. Also, for the tuxracer issue, have you tried poking around their site? I used a lot of the tricks there to get it running back... er, a year or so ago. Cheers, Finegan |
Thanks for all that Finegan,
I'll give the Mplayer stuff a try although it all seems quite daunting, the learning curve from Windoze to Linux is quite steep but i'm sure it'll be worth it. So far what i've seen of the Linux world I really like so i'll stick with it. I haven't tried any other players but that's another one on the list to do. Also I had a quick look on the TuxRacer website and from what I can gather from the required specs I think it's just a case of my video card not being up to the job. Oh well no TuxRacing for me! thanks again P |
rah i rock.
run mplayer and take a look at "top" and see if it's maxing that out. While mplayer can run on extremely low resources, it's also very easy to make it use them all up if you're not sure what you're doing. use the Xv output (-vo xv) if possible, this uses abuot half of what the x11 output does. also you'll presumably want to enable soft framedroppping (-framedrop). Also avoid using software eq filterign and such like, but then i guess you're not really that aware it exists, so wouldn't be using it anyway. and please understand that finegan was just joking when he suggested using Xine. no really... he was... |
Tux and the Gang
Hi, folks!
Tux Racer requires 3D Acceleration to run properly. Your Ati mobility Rage M card can do it, but not basicly. A little hack needed. Somewhere I found this: "...The drivers and XFree86 that come with Woody don't support XVideo or DRI (3d hardward acceleration) on the ATI Rage Mobility chipset in this laptop. As such, it's worth installing the X server packages from http://people.debian.org/~daenzer/dri-mach64/. The packages I installed were: drm-mach64-module-src_2002.12.29-1_all.deb xlibmesa-dev-dri-mach64_2002.12.29-1_i386.deb xlibmesa3-dri-mach64_2002.12.29-1_i386.deb xserver-xfree86-dri-mach64_2002.12.29-1_i386.deb Even without compiling a kernel, this gave me XVideo support. When I built a new kernel, I then also had hardware accelerated 3d support. The Rage Mobility chip does support 3d DRI. However, the 4M video RAM makes it very difficult to actually get DRI to use it. This is not enough memory to do 3d acceleration on a 1024x768 screen even in 16-bit mode. To get DRI active, I had to boot to an 800x600 16-bit screen mode, at which point I could get ~200-250 fps with glxgears. I set up my XF86Config-4 file so that if I run "startx" I get a 24-bit 1024x768 screen (what I usually use), and if I run "startx -- -screen 800x600" I get a 16-bit 800x600 screen which supports hardware 3d acceleration. ..." MPlayer requires well installes 2D features. Yesterday I got Mplayer Running on X20, that uses the same video card. I recommend forgetting precompiled shit, and download the source itself and compile it to your own needs. It is not impossible at all! And try not only alsa9, but oss as well, sometimes it runs better than alsa (-ao oss). It requires some packages, regarding your options, but it is easy to get them from freshmeat! The basic thing is, that you need gcc, without it no chance for compiling binaries! And please forget it, that TuxRacer is designed for nvidia cards. Mine at home runs on matrox well. So, let's try, and the may be the source with you! RP S120L |
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