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ATI RS780E and radeon driver

Howdy boys and girls

So the infamous xorg and graphics card combination has always been something of a stumbling block for me if it doesn't just work :(

So here is my current scenario:

Video card:

Code:

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS780E [Radeon HD 3200]

Output of lsmod:

Code:

$ lsmod | grep radeon

radeon                900690  2 

i2c_algo_bit            5391  1 radeon

drm_kms_helper        35517  1 radeon

ttm                    64611  1 radeon

drm                  226103  4 ttm,drm_kms_helper,radeon

i2c_core              23171  5 drm,i2c_piix4,drm_kms_helper,i2c_algo_bit,radeon

So the driver would appear to be loading correctly.

Errors and warnings for xorg server:

Code:

$ grep WW /var/log/Xorg.0.log

        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.

[    4.237] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/OTF/" does not exist.

[    4.240] (WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/".

[    4.240] (WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/".

[    4.263] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module vesa

[    4.264] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module modesetting

[    4.264] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module fbdev

$ grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[    4.221] Current Operating System: Linux dykies 3.8.2-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Mar 4 13:55:58 CET 2013 x86_64

        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.

[    4.246] Initializing built-in extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER

[    4.263] (EE) Failed to load module "vesa" (module does not exist, 0)

[    4.264] (EE) Failed to load module "modesetting" (module does not exist, 0)

[    4.264] (EE) Failed to load module "fbdev" (module does not exist, 0)

Now I have also attached the relevant files from /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d.

Now my issue would seem to be that even simple graphics, for example, playing a fullscreen game on facebook has terrible artifacts showing through moving objects (happy to explain more if needed)

So if anyone could help me identify what I have missed or setting(s) I can change to fix the problem it would be much appreciated.

Please do not hesitate to ask for more information it will help :)

Do you have the firmware files? When I had a laptop with a RS780, I needed the firmware files for the driver to work properly. In Debian these were available in the firmware-nonfree package in the non-free repos. I don't know how it's packaged in other distributions, if at all.

Of course, we can always get the files we need from the Debian package no matter what distro you are using, if yours doesn't have its own. :)

Thanks for the speedy reply :) Any clues on what the files are named and where they would be after installed so I can check?

The firmware files would be in /lib/firmware/radeon. You're looking for /lib/firmware/radeon/RS780_*.bin

If you can't find them, download: ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/non...ee_0.37.tar.gz

Extract, copy the files in firmware-nonfree/linux-nonfree/radeon/ to /lib/firmware/radeon/.

Well it would appear both are there:

Code:

$ ll /lib/firmware/radeon/RS780*

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21504 Dec 23 21:24 /lib/firmware/radeon/RS780_me.bin

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2304 Dec 23 21:24 /lib/firmware/radeon/RS780_pfp.bin

Ok, I forgot to ask before: do you have the appropriate X drivers installed?

Your X log shows what drivers failed to load, but you did not show what drivers it is using (although radeon or radeonhd seem the logical conclusions if the vesa drivers were not).

Look for a line "LoadModule". If not you may have to install those xorg radeonhd drivers (radeonhd would be the proper driver for your card, not radeon. This is different from the kernel module which is radeon.

I'd be surprised if they are not already installed, as most distros in my experience install every xorg driver under the sun.

The open source drivers, in my experience were horrible in the beginning, but by the time my RS780 powered laptop died they had gotten MUCH better and I am surprised if they would be the cause of the problem.

Nonetheless, if you continue to have issues, give the AMD drivers a try. Head over to support.amd.com and download the Catalyst drivers (Find Your Driver, near the top).

So it appears I do not have radeonhd, but instead have the ati and radeon modules:

Code:

$ grep LoadModule /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[    4.246] (II) LoadModule: "glx"

[    4.255] (II) LoadModule: "ati"

[    4.256] (II) LoadModule: "radeon"

[    4.261] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"

[    4.263] (II) LoadModule: "modesetting"

[    4.264] (II) LoadModule: "fbdev"

[    4.334] (II) LoadModule: "dri2"

[    4.334] (II) LoadModule: "exa"

[    4.680] (II) LoadModule: "fb"

[    4.683] (II) LoadModule: "ramdac"

[    4.926] (II) LoadModule: "evdev"

And as for packages installed I have:

Code:

$ pacman -Q -s radeon

local/ati-dri 9.1-2

    Mesa drivers for AMD/ATI Radeon

local/lib32-ati-dri 9.1-2

    Mesa drivers for AMD/ATI Radeon (32-bit)

local/radeontool 1.6.3-1

    Lowlevel tools to tweak register and dump state on radeon GPUs



$ pacman -Q -s xf86-video

local/xf86-video-ati 1:7.1.0-1 (xorg-drivers xorg)

    X.org ati video driver

Given the above are all installed should we be moving towards the AMD option?

Is there any other test I can do to see where the driver might be falling down? (glxinfo or gears)

No, check to see if there is a package for the radeonhd drivers. At least on other distros they're (radeon and radeonhd) in separate packages. Install it, possibly you may need to uninstall the radeon package if that module continues to load, and make sure X is using radeonhd before moving on if there are still problems.

Try that before moving on to Catalyst.

I have previously installed the catalyst-utils and notice that on launching it tells me there is no AMD card available :(

ok... you go with catalyst since you got yourself half way there, already.

see this:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AMD_Catalyst

Do you have an xorg.conf? If so, delete/rename it.

You have quite new version of them drivers with radeon 7.1 and mesa 9.1 so in theory they should work.

The 3200 (and everything below 4xxx) is legacy hardware from AMDs point of view. The fglrx-legacy driver doesnt support xorg 1.13 so it wont work with your setup.

What DE do you have? What programs (besides Flash) cause issues?

PS The radeonhd driver isnt used by most distros anymore and radeon has more features.
http://www.x.org/wiki/radeonhd

I stand corrected, gradinaruvasile. Thanks. Was going with what I knew worked on my older laptop.

Hey gradinaruvasile ... thanks for the info.

No to xorg.conf, but as per original post you will see I have conf files in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d. The radeon one I created from different web pages I found trying to tell me the correct settings.
The mhwd one is system created with only the Identifier edited by me.

DE is xfce and most applications are fairly sluggish when being moved / resized / etc. If i do a simple restore / maximise you can see the window in both states briefly.

Happy to provide any other details / files that would assist :)

Hm. You should temporarily rename those files (or move them somewhere else) in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and restart the x server. They do act as an xorg.conf.

Moving them didn't seem to help or hinder the situation :(