Hello All,

I have a question concerning my video card. I am running Slackware 12.0 on a HP z5730 laptop. It's a 2.8ghz with 700+ megs of ram. I'm not sure of the specifics on the card just yet.

My question is... Is it possible for my card to work well enough to function pretty normal but still have the wrong driver? I didn't install my card manually. Slackware picked up on it. KDE seems to look pretty normal and the graphics are good. But....

1) I run simplistic games like Stella (old Atari 2600 8bit graphics) and it runs pretty slow. The bigger the screen the slower it gets.
2) I have installed XMAME and KXMAME front end and when a ROM is a accessed, the screen looks like a TV with too much vertical hold. rolling and diagonal

These counter parts in WIndows runs quick and accurate. I know that Linux is actually supposed to be faster , with less baggage but it seems that various graphic packages either run slow or visually not at all. I am assuming I have a video driver that is close but not the one needed.

So in short, can a driver work but not be correct or are drivers on or off. All or nothing?

Thanks
Ace

Hi Ace,

It is definitely possible that you have your graphics setup working, but experience low speeds on graphics-intensive applications ("games") due to the wrong drivers. Most distributions have drivers for a broad range of hardware, however for using hardware acceleration you often have to use non-open source drivers. For Nvidia e.g. this is the case: the driver you get from your Linux distribution doesn't offer hardware acceleration and in effect is a lot slower than the driver you can get from Nvidia.

What kind of graphics adapter is in your notebook? If indeed this is an Nvidia, you could give it a try by installing the Nvidia drivers (available from their website)...

Regards, Alex

I have an ATI Raden (sp?) of some sort. I'll have to boot in Windows or get on the HP website and see which one it is.

One last question on this, Provided HP/Radeon doesn't make a Linux driver, is there a video wrapper that works?

Thanks again for your help. The slow/sluggish actions is part of the reason I went to Slackware from Mint.

Ace

You may want to run 'xorgsetup' as root when xserver is down. This will use the best available driver (in your case 'radeon'). You could try using the fglrx drivers, but they're quite crappy, unfortunately. Really, don't expect too much from ATI cards on Linux, they are not well supported at all, and it's ATI's fault, for being a bunch of lazy, good for nothing ... if you ask me, their cards suck too. I've had lots of problems with their cards and drivers on all operating systems.

Thanks for the xorgsetup suggestion. It solved my running issue with Stella and KMame. Time will tell if I will run into the issue with other programs.

You know, along with your ATI (and similar driver developers)observation. I have been puzzled why Manufactures develope Linux drivers for brand new machines. Dont' get me wrong, I'm glad they do. But most ppl don't buy brand new machines to put Linux on. From what I've read around here, most times it's an older to old machine. Something not desktop usable but can be for a server. Something to learn on (like me).... My point is, you figure they would retro back for about 5 years worth of drivers. At least for everything that came with XP SP1 Home version and up.

Oh well just a thought.

Ace

Well, I'm gonna buy a new machine and I'm gonna run Linux on it, so I must be weird. Anyway, 'I've done it before, and I'll do it again ...' (a little snippet from Ballmer).

The day I deleted Window$ from my HDD is the day I stopped using Window$ on any computer that belongs to me ... forever and ever. Never will the evil empire control any computer I own. It is my duty to the computers to not infect them with this plague, but to rid them of it. I will not fail you, my friends ... I cannot fail. (Yes, I'm mad)

Hi,

It's true that a lot of old hardware is revived with Linux. But I too load Slackware on my new machines. I need to have access to M$ so it too is loaded. These are all tools for me and I need them for support. I really prefer my Slackware over anything else but as I stated M$ and others are loaded on my machines.

I'm not a purist when it comes to tools. I use the one that meets the task at hand. Plus it's hard to convince everyone to leave their M$ investment. Some corporate users are forced to remain M$.