LinuxQuestions.org - Hardware Rendering Disabled

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Hardware Rendering Disabled - Linux Mint Sarah

Hi, I'm new to linux, and having some graphics issues.I'm using a Lenovo G50 with an AMD A8 APU, which I believe corresponds to Radeon R5 Graphics. When I first installed Linux Mint (Cinnamon), everything ran smoothly. Over the first week of use I installed all my preferred coding programs, text editors, etc. About a day ago I managed to break my PATH variable, and had to boot in recovery mode and reset it via command line. After that point, I think hardware rendering has been disabled.

Reason: All videos now play much slower, with extreme stuttering. I'm Dual booting Linux Mint and Windows 10, and on the Windows 10 boots youtube is running very smoothly, far more than I would expect from using proprietary AMD drivers over the linux default. It isn't just videos however, opening and closing things seems to cause Cinnamon to use >50% of the CPU under System Monitor, this isn't normal. RAM never exceeds 2 of my 6 GB though.

I looked up a few threads here on how to tell if I am using the proper rendering, and here is the command line output that convinced me this is the issue:

Code:

$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p | grep render

result:

Quote:

OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.8, 128 bits)
Not software rendered: no

I'm assuming If (Not software rendered) is false, then it means it IS software rendered, which would be the problem.
However, in contrast, here is the result of another prompt:

Code:

$ glxinfo | grep rendering

result:

Quote:

direct rendering: Yes

I'm not super clear on the difference between hardware rendering and hardware acceleration, so please excuse me if I messed it up.

I previously tried installing the AMD proprietary driver (fglrx) but it caused the computer to lag quite a bit so I installed it, and things were fine for a few days, until the above scenario.

Thanks in advance! I'll be at my 2nd PC for responses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtg28 (Post 5596220)

About a day ago I managed to break my PATH variable, and had to boot in recovery mode and reset it via command line. After that point, I think hardware rendering has been disabled.

Reason: ....

yes, i think your assessment is correct.

however it is impossible for any of us to say
1) HOW you broke your $PATH?
2) HOW you fixed it?
3) how this could have any impact on your gpu driver and rendering.

Quote:

I previously tried installing the AMD proprietary driver (fglrx) but it caused the computer to lag quite a bit so I installed it, and things were fine for a few days, until the above scenario.

installed and installed???

if i were you, i'd reinstall with the original settings that worked and be more careful in the future.
some simple rules to follow:
- use your package management to keep your system up-to-date
- use your package management to install software
- install software only from your repositories
- don't mess around with ppas, sources etc.