LinuxQuestions.org - Radeon acting weird...

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Radeon acting weird...

Okay, here's a picture of my desktop:

http://www.bloomingtonyouth.org/desktop.jpg

As you can tell, it doesn't look like it should. I just installed Radeon 8500's drivers from ATI.com, and now XFree's acting weirder than before. Granted, I can run glxgears at around 3050fps, it's that the screen has really bad scanlines whenever I move a window. In addition, I don't believe there's supposed to be a blue halo around the KDE logo on the default KDE desktop, and there shouldn't be a transparent/blue square tailing the cursor whenever it's on the desktop.

Here's some parts of my XF86Config-4 file:

Code:

# **********************************************************************

# DRI Section

# **********************************************************************

Section "dri"

# Access to OpenGL ICD is allowed for all users:

    Mode 0666

# Access to OpenGL ICD is restricted to a specific user group:

#    Group 100    # users

#    Mode 0660

EndSection



# **********************************************************************

# Module section -- this  section  is used to specify

# which dynamically loadable modules to load.

# **********************************************************************

#

Section "Module"



# This loads the DBE extension module.



    Load        "dbe"          # Double buffer extension



# This loads the miscellaneous extensions module, and disables

# initialisation of the XFree86-DGA extension within that module.

    SubSection  "extmod"

      Option    "omit xfree86-dga"  # don't initialise the DGA extension

    EndSubSection



# This loads the Type1 and FreeType font modules

    Load        "type1"

    Load        "freetype"



# This loads the GLX module

    Load        "glx"  # libglx.a

    Load        "dri"  # libdri.a



EndSection



...



Section "Monitor"

    Identifier  "Monitor0"

    HorizSync  30-96

    VertRefresh 50-160

    Option "DPMS"



# === ATI device section ===



Section "Device"

    Identifier                          "ATI Graphics Adapter"

    Driver                              "fglrx"

# ### generic DRI settings ###

# === disable PnP Monitor  ===

    #Option                              "NoDDC"

# === disable/enable XAA/DRI ===

    Option "no_accel"                  "no"

    Option "no_dri"                    "no"

# === misc DRI settings ===

    Option "mtrr"                      "off" # disable DRI mtrr mapper, driver has its own code for mtrr

# ### FireGL DDX driver module specific settings ###

# === Screen Management ===

    Option "DesktopSetup"              "0x00000000"

    Option "MonitorLayout"              "AUTO, AUTO"

    Option "IgnoreEDID"                "off"

    Option "HSync2"                    "unspecified"

    Option "VRefresh2"                  "unspecified" 

    Option "ScreenOverlap"              "0" 

# === TV-out Management ===

    Option "NoTV"                      "yes"    

    Option "TVStandard"                "NTSC-M"    

    Option "TVHSizeAdj"                "0"

    Option "TVVSizeAdj"                "0"

    Option "TVHPosAdj"                  "0"    

    Option "TVVPosAdj"                  "0"    

    Option "TVHStartAdj"                "0"    

    Option "TVColorAdj"                "0"    

    Option "GammaCorrectionI"          "0x00000000"

    Option "GammaCorrectionII"          "0x00000000"

# === OpenGL specific profiles/settings ===

    Option "Capabilities"              "0x00000000"

# === Video Overlay for the Xv extension ===

    Option "VideoOverlay"              "on"

# === OpenGL Overlay ===

# Note: When OpenGL Overlay is enabled, Video Overlay

#      will be disabled automatically

    Option "OpenGLOverlay"              "off"

# === Center Mode (Laptops only) ===

    Option "CenterMode"                "off"

# === Pseudo Color Visuals (8-bit visuals) ===

    Option "PseudoColorVisuals"        "off"

# === QBS Management ===

    Option "Stereo"                    "off"

    Option "StereoSyncEnable"          "1"

# === FSAA Management ===

    Option "FSAAEnable"                "no"

    Option "FSAAScale"                  "1"

    Option "FSAADisableGamma"          "no"

    Option "FSAACustomizeMSPos"        "no"

    Option "FSAAMSPosX0"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosY0"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosX1"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosY1"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosX2"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosY2"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosX3"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosY3"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosX4"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosY4"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosX5"                "0.000000"

    Option "FSAAMSPosY5"                "0.000000"

# === Misc Options ===

    Option "UseFastTLS"                "2"

    Option "BlockSignalsOnLock"        "on"

    Option "UseInternalAGPGART"        "yes"

    Option "ForceGenericCPU"            "no"

    BusID "PCI:1:0:0"    # vendor=1002, device=514c

    Screen 0

EndSection



Section "Screen"

    Identifier  "Screen0"

    Device      "ATI Graphics Adapter"

    Monitor    "Monitor0"

    DefaultDepth 24

    #Option "backingstore"



    Subsection "Display"

        Depth      24

        Modes      "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"

        ViewPort    0 0  # initial origin if mode is smaller than desktop

#        Virtual    1280 1024

    EndSubsection

EndSection

Have you tried the kernel "radeon" driver (may also be called "ati")? The kernel drivers are supposed to provide hardware acceleration for cards up to the 9200; it's only cards above that that must use the ATI binary drivers to get such acceleration. If the other drivers work, then that gets you both working drivers and narrows down the problem slightly.

Unfortunately, your screenshot is very small, so it's not possible to see whatever problems exist, nothing looks out of place in your XF86Config (except for possibly those monitor ranges; are they correct?) and the problem could be anything from a slightly broken card, to kernel misconfiguration, to misinstall, to incorrect drivers (you did get the ones for your version of XFree86, right? and you built them against the kernel source?), to a bad setting somewhere in the bowels of the file, to the fact that somehow mouse trails got turned on in the KDE accessiblity options and that blue box is supposed to be there for some reason.

I'd ask for more information, but I honestly don't know what to ask other than: how exactly did you install the drivers?

Okay, here's a larger picture(1:1 ratio)

http://ucenter.netfirms.com/desktop.jpg

I think it might be the card. TTY1-6 look weird as well, with 1" columns of green pinstripes going down the screen in the background. Also, when I boot up, the Dell logo gets all deformed, with random characters being in some places. Lilo also looks messed up, and anything that's not in a framebuffer has weird characters basically (When I reinstalled Slack, instead of seeing ####### as the boarders, I saw other characters for parts of the boarders.)

In addition, whenever I type, the screen flickers. Maybe this part is a screen setting, but it's never done this before with the other card (ATI Rage 128 Pro Ultra) with the same monitor settings (v & h settings and resolution). I'm going to try changing the monitor settings first, and if that doesn't do anything, I'll try reinstalling the drivers. If all that doesn't work, I don't know what to do....

Edit:

Here's what happens when I run fglrxinfo:

Code:

family@4300:~$ fglrxinfo

display: :0.0  screen: 0

OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.

OpenGL renderer string: RADEON 8500 DDR Generic

OpenGL version string: 1.3 (X4.3.0-3.7.6)

OK, that's a better description of the display corruption, anyway; when I tried to follow your improved screenshot link I got the following message on the web page:

Quote:

Directly downloading images is not permitted on the Netfirms FREE plan. If you are the owner of this site, either ensure that this image is embedded in a web page, or upgrade to one of the Netfirms premium plans.

.
Definitely sounds like it might be the card; but.... also check the connection between the monitor and the card (that the connector is firmly plugged in and tightened). I almost bought a new monitor once because I was getting wiggly lines and the like in my display, but it turned out that the plug was loose; once I tightened it correctly, the display was fine. While you're at it, make sure the card is firmly seated in its slot.

If it's not too much trouble, you might also try downgrading to the 3.7.0 or even the 3.2.8 driver set. I myself haven't had any problems with 3.7.6, but I've heard that some people have, and with the 8500 line being so old in ATI's product cycle, maybe the older drivers would support it better than the newer (which are more designed to support the higher-end newest cards).

Keep us posted on your progress.

Well, I seriously doubt that it would be a poor connection between the monitor and the card, since you can see the problem as well, and the problem also shows when I save the screenshot. So I'm guessing it's a rendering problem with my card. I really hope that the card isn't bad, because I just got it back from ATI (Sent in an 8500 because the fan was getting bad, causing Windows XP to crash, getting really loud, etc), and then I just got this card in the mail a few days ago with a different serial number on it....

I'm having some troubles finding any old ATI drivers. Think I should bother trying to use the GPL project that's being developed?

You can find the 3.2.8 drivers for all XFree86 4.x versions at http://www.schneider-digital.de/html/download_ati.html . 3.7.0 doesn't seem to be available, but then again, 3.7.0 seemed pretty well broke, so it's probably just as well. They're exactly the same drivers as the ones on ATIs site; it's just that the .rpm is inside a .zip file.

I could have sworn that ATI used to have a link to an archive with older versions, but either I was mistaken, or it's gone now.

thanks, but it says it's for the 8800 and the 8700, I don't see the 8500 listed. I'll try it though, hopefully it's for all R200 chip video cards....

The 8700 and 8800 refer to FireGL version numbers, the Radeons are not listed, but they are exactly the same drivers as you get from the ATI site, and they do work on Radeons.

For your cursor problem, you might want to try this driver option in your XF86Config

Code:

Option "SWCursor" "off"

There's also an option HWCursor, I believe... I can't find a reference to it, though. You want HW cursor, not software.

For your info, here's my Device section for my Radeon 9000 Pro.

Code:

Section "Device"

    Identifier  "Radeon 9000 Pro"

    Driver      "fglrx"

    VideoRam    65536

    Option      "composite_sync" "off"

    Option      "AGPFastWrite"  "off"

    Option      "AGPMode"      "4"

    Option      "EnablePageFlip" "off"

    Option      "SWCursor"      "off"

    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate

EndSection

--Shade