A Guide: Enabling 3D Acceleration in X11

b0rgri0t · 01-12-2006, 10:24 AM

I tired to use this feature with a Matrox Mystique 4mb PCI card to no avail. I am assuming this only applies to AGP cards being that agpart must be compiled in the Kernel? Or this little 4mb PCI card just doesnt have 3d acceleration.

cwwilson721 · 01-12-2006, 10:28 AM

You maybe correct. Not being agp may affect this. As far as 3d acceleration, I know that it does, at least in Windows. Does anybody have any ideas on acceleration in X with a PCI card?

**Update**

Just looked at the DRI Wiki page, and it says that 3d is not supported....

Heres the url: http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Matrox

b0rgri0t · 01-12-2006, 10:42 AM

Thanks. I tried to hit that site yesterday but was running into problems getting there.

cwwilson721 · 01-12-2006, 10:45 AM

Sometimes, unfortunately, you're just out of luck.

cwwilson721 · 01-13-2006, 07:51 AM

This website: www.freedesktop.org/wiki/FrontPage has a ton of info on cards and standards.

cwwilson721 · 01-14-2006, 12:58 PM

*** Update ***

I just compiled/installed kernel 2.6.15

Of course, X had problems loading right off the bat, so I did a quick config to get in using

Code:

xorgsetup

Guess what? DRI worked with NO TWEAKS

And the fps in 'glxgears' jumped from 720FPS with 2.6.13 to 1100FPS in 2.6.15

Disabling DRI module load dropped the FPS to 120FPS.

I figure a ~50% increase was significant

More to follow

cwwilson721 · 01-15-2006, 10:59 AM

After checking the differences between the two kernels, It seems I enanbled the i915 driver in this kernel, while I used the i910 driver in 2.6.13

Has anybody else had this result?

Synt4x_3rr0r · 01-15-2006, 06:08 PM

I think you may be right actually. Just recompiled my kernel to 2.6.15.1 and it does seem to give a little more fps to glxgears although it didn't change as dramatic as for you.

cwwilson721 · 01-16-2006, 04:23 PM

I may not update this post for a little while. My oldest daughter just came to live with us, so going to be busy the next few days.

If I do come up with more info, I will post it.

b0rgri0t · 01-17-2006, 10:30 AM

I have recently threw in an old AGP Diamong Stealth V770 which I guess is a TNT2 to get DRI working. When I recompile my Kernel and goto the Console section I do not see the option for the TNT2.

shilo · 01-17-2006, 11:31 AM

TNT2 is an old Nvidia. It will work with the open-source nv driver or with an older version of the proprietary nvidia driver. The newest proprietary driver will not work.

b0rgri0t · 01-17-2006, 01:32 PM

I ran sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-5336-pkg1.run. I recieved

"No precompiled kernel interface was found to match your kernel; would you like the installer to attempt to download a kernel interface for your kernel from the NVIDIA ftp site (ftp://download.nvidia.com)?

I said yes. Then recieved

"No matching precompiled kernel interface was found on the NVIDIA ftp site;
this means that the installer will need to compile a kernel interface for
your kernel.

Went to 100% Building Kernel Module then recieved

ERROR: Installation has failed. Please see the file '/var/log/nvidia-installer.log' for details. You may find
suggestions on fixing installation problems in the README available on the Linux driver download page at www.nvidia.com.

berxwedan · 01-19-2006, 07:44 PM

I've got the 2.6.13 kernel and it uses the i915 module. But I don't know HOW you guys made your 3D acceleration go up to ~1000 framerates/second. I only got about ~1000 with 16bit color depth.

Mine settings are:

Code:

Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Intel 810"
  Driver      "i810"
  VideoRam    65536
  Option    "XVideo"        "On"
EndSection

I get about ~582 FPS with these settings in 24bit color depth.

I doubled the VideoRam to 128mb, and the fps dropped to an average of 256. (24bit color depth.)

I activated the SWCursor option, with 64mb of VideoRam and the fps stayed on an average of 384. (24bit color depth.)

As I mentioned above, with the settings inside the codebox, and a color depth of 16bit, I managed to get the fps to an average of 1000. Didn't see much difference in color though. I don't use any 3D applications, so I don't know how it affects the 3D objects. (Colors, resolution, etc..)

This was my little "benchmarking".

I've got a Travelmate 2301LC, Intel Celeron M320 processor, 1.3GHz, 400 MHz FSB, 512 KB L2 cache. 256MB DDR ram. Chipset: Intel 855GM, Graphics controller: Intel 852GM integrated 3D AGP, 64MB of videoram. (Sorry for the messy description.)

cwwilson721 · 01-19-2006, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by berxwedan

I've got the 2.6.13 kernel and it uses the i915 module. But I don't know HOW you guys made your 3D acceleration go up to ~1000 framerates/second. I only got about ~1000 with 16bit color depth.

To tell you the truth, I have NO idea why...lol

I just compiled my 2.6.15 kernel with the same options I had with 2.6.13, ran xorgsetup, and DRI worked, as did the ~1100 FPS.

I was amazed. It may be an 'improved' driver in the newer kernel.

I'm still looking into this.

If anybody knows, share the wealth, please!

cwwilson721 · 01-21-2006, 09:36 AM

After further investigation, I found that I was using the i910 driver under DRM on the 2.6.13 kernel, and now am using the i915 under 2.6.15. Seems this is what made the difference. Definately an improved version.