9700 Pro

Micro420 · 09-02-2003, 12:10 PM

I tried playing some of the basic free games that came with Mandrake 9.1. When I go to fullscreen mode in some of the games, it is REALLY slow as if it was rendering the graphics in software mode. I have a 9700 Pro so I know it can't be the graphics card as most of those games don't use any intense graphics.

Can anyone tell me how to fix this problem and use my graphics card to its full potential?

scobiej · 09-02-2003, 02:51 PM

I've just made a post on the hardware forum that might point you in the right direction. Check out this link.

nhs · 09-02-2003, 02:52 PM

The Radeon 9700 Pro is a relatively new card and, consequently the drivers provided with XWindows are fine for basic 2D however fail to implement Direct Rendering. To rectify this, you need the fglrx driver from http://www.schneider-digital.de/html/download_ati.html

The install process (roughly, is seems to be different for every person who attempts it) is:

1. Install kernel source code and make sure a symlink to /usr/src/linux exists.

2. rpm -i --force fglrx*.rpm

3. backup /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

4. fglrxconfig

5. startx (Will probably fail)

6. Try editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 by hand or rerunning fglrxconfig with different settings.

7. If failure, return to 6.

This is a process which appears to be infinately variable in terms of both complexity and length. With luck though you should have a working setup with 3D frame rates of 1000+ relatively soon.

Good luck.

Micro420 · 09-02-2003, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by nhs

1. Install kernel source code and make sure a symlink to /usr/src/linux exists.

Whaa? What is a kernel source code and what is a symlink? can someone give me the exact command to do this?

Quote:

2. rpm -i --force fglrx*.rpm

Umm.. okay whatever this does I can try it tonight.

Quote:

[B]
3. backup /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

4. fglrxconfig

5. startx (Will probably fail)

6. Try editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 by hand or rerunning fglrxconfig with different settings.

7. If failure, return to 6.

This is a process which appears to be infinately variable in terms of both complexity and length. With luck though you should have a working setup with 3D frame rates of 1000+ relatively soon.

Frame rates over 1000? I wish!

Quote:

Good luck.

scobiej · 09-02-2003, 04:06 PM

I can see you are a beginner in the wonderful world of Linux and can only apologise for the level of expertise people take for granted when discussing these matters. Please stick with it. It will make sense soon rather than later. I would seriously advise you to get a book on Unix commands and shells (O'Reilly publishing do a very good one). There are also tons of references on the net.
However, I do encourage you to read the documentation at ATI's site.

Micro420 · 09-02-2003, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by scobiej
I can see you are a beginner in the wonderful world of Linux and can only apologise for the level of expertise people take for granted when discussing these matters. Please stick with it. It will make sense soon rather than later. I would seriously advise you to get a book on Unix commands and shells (O'Reilly publishing do a very good one). There are also tons of references on the net.
However, I do encourage you to read the documentation at ATI's site.

I am totally a beginner to Linux. I thought Mandrake was like Windows XP but I noticed that there are some bumps like this. However I do love how Mandrake looks and I hope that Mandrake 9.2 will solve all these problems.

I will check out that ATI link and see if I can figure out how to install all those things the other guy said.

Micro420 · 09-02-2003, 07:06 PM

Well I went to www.ati.com and downloaded the file for my Radeon 9700 Pro. Well, when I was installing it, it said that there was some conflict with XFree or something and the installation failed.

okay.... I'm frustrated!

can someone tell me how to install all this stuff? I don't understand what's going on and how to get my Radeon 9700 Pro working. Reading that link got me more confused and not knowing what to download. Please, I just want my 9700 Pro to be able to play simple games in full screen mode!

scobiej · 09-03-2003, 03:47 AM

OK, this is not an easy subject. Trust me when I say it is still way easier than is was several years ago!
There is a driver package on the ATI web site for the Radeon 9700 Pro which I trust you found. On there, there is a link to a script file Check.sh which will determine which version of the driver you will need. Don't bother with that as it will say there is none available for your configuration on RH9. It will, however, tell you to try the latest one.
Now, not to get too technical here, the version of XFree you have on RH9 is 4.3.0, which isn't listed on the ATI site. A driver package for 4.2.0 is however. It is called fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.i586.rpm

You can install it by using the command (logged in as root) :-

rpm -Uvh fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.i586.rpm

It should tell you what to do next.

There are so many things that can cause problems here that not knowing a bit about linux and how it works will cause you problems. If you could post me the output from here, it may help in telling you what to do next.

Micro420 · 09-03-2003, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by scobiej
OK, this is not an easy subject. Trust me when I say it is still way easier than is was several years ago!
There is a driver package on the ATI web site for the Radeon 9700 Pro which I trust you found. On there, there is a link to a script file Check.sh which will determine which version of the driver you will need. Don't bother with that as it will say there is none available for your configuration on RH9. It will, however, tell you to try the latest one.
Now, not to get too technical here, the version of XFree you have on RH9 is 4.3.0, which isn't listed on the ATI site. A driver package for 4.2.0 is however. It is called fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.i586.rpm

You can install it by using the command (logged in as root) :-

rpm -Uvh fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.i586.rpm

It should tell you what to do next.

There are so many things that can cause problems here that not knowing a bit about linux and how it works will cause you problems. If you could post me the output from here, it may help in telling you what to do next.

ScobieJ - thanks for getting back to me.
I did download that file and i doubled clicked it and it asked me to if I wanted to install so I clicked "YES". Then it said something like the package is different and I chose to install anyway.
After that, it said there was some conflict with XFree or something.

Now, if I do as you said and login as root and install this file, will it damage anything considering I just got an error that says it conflicts with something else?

And I'm using Mandrake, not RedHat. does that make a difference?

scobiej · 09-04-2003, 04:05 AM

It shouldn't matter that it is mandrake and not redhat. Reinstalling it will make no difference. You will have to use the command :-

rpm -Uvh --replacepkgs <rpm package name>

to make it install over an already installed package.

Paste the output of your results of the configure here so I can see what is going on.

Micro420 · 09-04-2003, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by scobiej
It shouldn't matter that it is mandrake and not redhat. Reinstalling it will make no difference. You will have to use the command :-

rpm -Uvh --replacepkgs <rpm package name>

to make it install over an already installed package.

Paste the output of your results of the configure here so I can see what is going on.

I did what you said and here's what I got:

Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
file /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2 from install of fglrx-glc22-4.3.0-3.2.0 conflicts with file from package XFree86-libs-4.3-5mdk

So now what do I do? Should I want until Mandrake 9.2 comes out because this is hopeless.

scobiej · 09-04-2003, 09:22 AM

No, no, don't give up. What you want to do here is force the install. Don't worry. You can't do much harm as it will only affect OpenGL applications (games etc.) if it goes wrong and we can always put back the library which it overwrote.

Right, issue these commands commands as root :-

cp /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2 /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2.bck
rpm -Uvh --replacepkgs --force fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.i586.rpm

This will backup the file we are going to overwrite and force the installation of the driver. If you have any problems after that, you can always restore the file by doing :-

cp /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2.bck /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2

I think it will then tell you what to do. Any problems, just paste the output here and we will take it from there. Mandrake 9.2 will not solve your problem as the 3D hardware support for the 9700 is still not included in the 4.3 release of XFree86 as it is relatively new. It has 3D support for the Radeon 8500, 9000, 9100, and M9.

Please, persevere. It will be well worth it and you'll be learning along the way

michael_mead · 09-04-2003, 12:03 PM

Hi

I had the same problem and I was following your instructions.

When I tried to install the RPM I got the following message (red hat 9)

Quote:

Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:fglrx-glc22 ########################################### [100%]
*** Trying to install a precompiled kernel module.
*** WARNING ***
Tailored kernel module for fglrx not present in your system.
You must go to /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod subdir
and execute './make.sh' to build a fully customed kernel module.
Afterwards go to /lib/modules/fglrx and run './make_install.sh'
in order to install the module into your kernel's module repository.
(see readme.txt for more details.)

As of now you can still run your XServer in 2D, but hardware acclerated
OpenGL will not work and 2D graphics will lack performance.

failed.
*** Error: no kernel module build environment - please consult readme.
Installed: qt3 (gcc 3.2) based control panel application
===
ATI display drivers successfully installed
please run 'fglrxconfig' now
===

So I ran the first script and got this error.

ATI module generator V 2.0
==========================
kernel includes at /usr/src/linux/include not found or incomplete
file: /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h

I went to /usr/src and found the directory linux-2.4.20

I entered that directory and it looked like it contained files for the kernel, there was a folder called includes but it did not include version.h is there anyway I can fix this.

Thanks

Mike

Micro420 · 09-04-2003, 03:47 PM

I got exactly the same error as the poster above me (Michael_mead).

So how do we fix this? I'm glad I'm not alone in this problem Michael_mead!

Maybe Mandrake 9.3 will fix this issue? lol

scobiej · 09-04-2003, 05:08 PM

What you haven't got installed is the kernel sources/development headers. Look through your rpm repositories until you find the one marked kernel headers or system headers. I can't remember the exact name for now.
If you can't find them, I will trail the net and find out for you.

Jon.