OpenGL woes

l0rddarkf0rce · 03-23-2006, 10:21 AM

Is it me or the ATI + OpenGL drivers offered with 10.2 suck. Just as an example if I select any of the OpenGL based screensavers the image on the screen moves so slow that I some times wokder if stuck there.

Now I've tried FreeBSD on this same laptop and the OpenGL SS worked just fine.

Is there any way to just update OpenGL libraries?

tangle · 03-23-2006, 10:24 AM

Do you get any error when you run glxgears?

l0rddarkf0rce · 03-23-2006, 10:35 AM

nope no errors... just very slow screen refresh

dracolich · 03-23-2006, 11:19 AM

How up-to-date is the ATI chip in the laptop? Mine has a Radeon IGP320 and I have the same experience. I think the Xorg driver is just not suitable for full screen OpenGL apps. Running in a window they're fine but that doesn't help screen savers. I haven't tried any third party drivers, though.

odevans · 03-23-2006, 12:05 PM

I have an ATi 9600 M10 (128MB) laptop and yes, the Xorg drivers are slow (glxgears at ~350fps). I've tried using ATi's drivers and got 4-5000 fps, a system that crashed every 2 days and wouldn't cleanly exit X (often locked up w/ blank screen).

Do you still have FreeBSD on it? Check the xorg.conf to see if they're using the same drivers?

geeman2.0 · 03-23-2006, 12:20 PM

Unless I'm mistaken the OpenGL drivers included with Slackware (and most other distros) are software rendering only (i.e. slow).

You need to install the proper ATI hardware accelerated fglrx drivers.

tangle · 03-23-2006, 03:58 PM

They are right about the ATI driver. I have a Gateway XM7527 laptop with an ATI x600 graphics card. Before I installed the ATI driver, I got 350fps or so.

Now my glx gears looks like this:

Code:

16932 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3386.400 FPS
17910 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3582.000 FPS
17907 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3581.400 FPS

Here is my xorg.conf file:

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "Simple Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig Screen 0" 0 0
	Screen         "aticonfig Screen 1" Above "aticonfig Screen 0"
	InputDevice    "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
	InputDevice    "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
	Option	    "StandbyTime" "10"
	Option	    "SuspendTime" "20"
	Option	    "OffTime" "30"
EndSection

Section "Files"
	RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo"
	FontPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
	FontPath     "/usr/local/share/fonts"
	FontPath     "/root/.fonts"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load  "dbe"  	# Double buffer extension
	SubSection "extmod"
		Option	    "omit xfree86-dga"   # don't initialise the DGA extension
	EndSubSection
	Load  "type1"
	Load  "freetype"
	Load  "glx"
	Load  "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Keyboard1"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
	Option	    "XkbRules" "xorg"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "pc105"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "us"
	Option	    "XkbOptions" "grp:menu_toggle,lv3:win_switch,ctrl:nocaps,grp_led:scroll,caps:internal"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Mouse1"
	Driver      "mouse"
	Option	    "Protocol" "Auto"
	Option	    "Device" "/dev/mouse"
	Option	    "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
	Option	    "Emulate3Buttons"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "My Monitor"
	HorizSync    30.0 - 60.0
	VertRefresh  50.0 - 120.0
	Option	    "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig Monitor 0"
	Option	    "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig Monitor 1"
	Option	    "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Standard VGA"
	Driver      "vga"
	VendorName  "Unknown"
	BoardName   "Unknown"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "** ATI (generic)                      [ati]"
	Driver      "ati"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "ATI Graphics Adapter 0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "ATI Graphics Adapter 1"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
	Screen      1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen 1"
	Device     "** ATI (generic)                      [ati]"
	Monitor    "My Monitor"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1280x800"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     16
		Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1280x800"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig Screen 0"
	Device     "ATI Graphics Adapter 0"
	Monitor    "aticonfig Monitor 0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig Screen 1"
	Device     "ATI Graphics Adapter 1"
	Monitor    "aticonfig Monitor 1"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
	Mode         0666
EndSection

l0rddarkf0rce · 03-24-2006, 12:18 PM

I tried the ATI drivers, but the card that I have is apparently no longer supported (Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]) so I guess I'm SOL.

tangle · 03-24-2006, 12:32 PM

You might want to read through this post on the Ubuntu forums. It seems someone there got good fps on a mobility 7500.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...=122094&page=6