I'd like to continue the discussion about the open Ati driver and GL/vsync support here. Previously is was discussed in the 'Closed Drivers' section (link), but it does not belong there. My top post:
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I am under the impprssion there is an issue w/ Ati cards and the open Xorg 'Radeon' driver considering GL.
If you want to use GL (video) output (example: mplayer -vo gl) then video stuttters, tears etc. See this bug report on bugs.freedesktop.org. You always get an error about "vblank_mode" (a dri setting GL uses), vsync etc. Why is vertical synchronisation (if that really is what it is called) so important for GL and why is it broken in Linux's open and proprietary drivers since 2001?
There are many topics and wiki's everywhere on the 'net about this but no solution nor a workaround. Problem also is that recently the drivers changed and sometimes I don't know if they are talking qbout the open or the closed drivers...
The only solution some give is: "buy an Nvidia card". That's gonna be pretty impossible for a laptop and it isn't a solution, more of a weird workaround advice.
What exactly is the problem and is there any chance of it ever being addressed/solved?
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Another post:
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The specific problem I have is as follows. I also use my PC as a mediacenter. I like to use XBMC for tha which can only use GL as video out (vo). I use Metacity as my window manager then, without compositing. I use an Ati Radeon 9600(RV350 chip) videocard now, I used to have an Nvidia card before, which worked just fine w/ XBMC. The old Ati card is not supported by the proprietry 'fglrx' driver from Ati/AMD. So I use the (exellent) open Xorg driver that's simply called "radeon". I activate the TV-out on the Radon to watch my movies and DVD's of course. No clone mode: I disable the CRT monitor (xrandr --output VGA-0 --off).
Using XBMC to watch movies is somewhat the same thing as using mplayer with the command line option "-vo gl". On my TV the video tears in XBMC and w/ 'mplayer -vo gl' and I get the following error from mplayer:
If I use 'mplayer -vo gl' on the CRT monitor video stutters a lot and I get the (classic) error that my PC is 'too slow too play this'. If I use 'xv' as vo then there's no error/no problem. That's why I think vsync is broken in the 'radeon' driver for GL. I don't know exactly which version of the radeon driver I use, but I think it's the latest because I use Ubuntu Lucid (10.04)and Synaptic says about radeon: version 6.13.0.
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I am under the impprssion there is an issue w/ Ati cards and the open Xorg 'Radeon' driver considering GL.
If you want to use GL (video) output (example: mplayer -vo gl) then video stuttters, tears etc. See this bug report on bugs.freedesktop.org. You always get an error about "vblank_mode" (a dri setting GL uses), vsync etc. Why is vertical synchronisation (if that really is what it is called) so important for GL and why is it broken in Linux's open and proprietary drivers since 2001?
There are many topics and wiki's everywhere on the 'net about this but no solution nor a workaround. Problem also is that recently the drivers changed and sometimes I don't know if they are talking qbout the open or the closed drivers...
The only solution some give is: "buy an Nvidia card". That's gonna be pretty impossible for a laptop and it isn't a solution, more of a weird workaround advice.
What exactly is the problem and is there any chance of it ever being addressed/solved?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Another post:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The specific problem I have is as follows. I also use my PC as a mediacenter. I like to use XBMC for tha which can only use GL as video out (vo). I use Metacity as my window manager then, without compositing. I use an Ati Radeon 9600(RV350 chip) videocard now, I used to have an Nvidia card before, which worked just fine w/ XBMC. The old Ati card is not supported by the proprietry 'fglrx' driver from Ati/AMD. So I use the (exellent) open Xorg driver that's simply called "radeon". I activate the TV-out on the Radon to watch my movies and DVD's of course. No clone mode: I disable the CRT monitor (xrandr --output VGA-0 --off).
Using XBMC to watch movies is somewhat the same thing as using mplayer with the command line option "-vo gl". On my TV the video tears in XBMC and w/ 'mplayer -vo gl' and I get the following error from mplayer:
Code:
do_wait: drmWaitVBlank returned -1, IRQs don't seem to be working correctly. Try adjusting the vblank_mode configuration parameter
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