780g issues

[wallace]

Howdy cowboys,

i bought a 780g motherboard to watch TV (dvb-t) and the like. I get permanent video stutter with this fglrx driver. The last one that was working somehow was catalyst 8.7.1.1, but switching users via kdm or logging out froze the system with this version.
What can i do to watch non hd videos and logout with a 780g and a phenom 9885?

To be honest I am *very* pissed. I read that the stutter thing is related to some kernel thing, at least 2.6.27 didn't solve anything(nopat kernel option didn't do anything as well), and remember the catalyst update brought up the stutter issues (And hell no, i can't go back as I *need* to switch users, mkay?)

It would be soooooo great if amd/ati could get their shit together on at least releasing a binary blob with basic functionallity - I think I paid for this.

maybe it's a config issue after all, but i don't think so, tried too much in the last few months since i have this quite useless chip.
If somebody has this things working with 780g *please* post your config along with an xorg.conf and driver versions and the like

radeonhd doesn't work for me, although i wasn't able to try the new version.
Please help me if it is a fault of mine, or otherwise, get the driver working for fucks sake!

i use x86_64, archlinux for more info ask, if it helps, please..

[bridgman]

kernel version ? If you are using 2.6.26 or higher you may have the PAT conflict and need to disable PAT in your boot string.

[forum1793]

Try earlier suggestion.

For what its worth, I have 780g and am using slackware 12.1, kernel 2.6.25.16. I'm currently using catalyst 8.9 but for 780g 8.5 still works better with mythtv. The relevant portions of my xorg.conf are:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "Simple Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
	InputDevice    "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
	InputDevice    "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
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 "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
	Driver      "fglrx"
        Option "VideoOverlay" "off"
        Option "TexturedVideo" "on"
        Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]"
	Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

By the way. If I click on video, xine opens and stutters, using opengl. I don't think this happened with catalyst 8.5 but can't really remember. But if I change video from opengl to xv or xshm, xine does not stutter. Give that a try.

[grege]

A simple solution that you will not like

I have a Gigabyte GA-MA780GM-S2H in my media PC, I had reasonably smooth playback just using X11 under fglrx, but not a sharp picture. The moment I activated xv the picture improved but troubles started such as not shutting down and HDTV just being lines. I tried everything but now await Catalyst 8.10, but not with any confidence.

My solution was to buy a cheap Nvidia pcie board - an 8400GS for around $35 and now it all works. An Nvidia 6200 is good enough and they are even cheaper.

I consider using this "cheat" a temporary solution until the catalyst driver matures. My main computer had a Radeon HD3450, now not used, but I had so many issues as to make it useless. The biggy was once the display went to sleep it would not wake up again and it too would not play back HDTV content. Luckily that machine has onboard Intel graphics. It is a sad day when low level onboard graphics are used in preference.

I have high hopes for Catalyst 8.10, I hope they do not let us down.

[grege]

Another Option

If you have no need for 3D then try using the open source radeon or radeonhd driver, just make sure that it is a new version of those drivers. They can provide reasonable xv playback, just not compiz.

Update - I just reinstalled my HD3450 and compiled radeonhd from the git and there is no xv support for the RV600 series so out it comes again. The X11 video is jerky. Other 2d functionality seems good I await the next update to this driver as it does show promise.

[wallace]

first of all, thank you so much for your help

@Bridgeman, adding nopat to the kernel line didn't help unfortunately.

Not using opengl as a playback solves the issues although i got tearing when i quickly tried.
I really have high expectations of 8.10 too, hopefully it will be a stable one.
cheers.

[grege]

8.10 report

I removed the Nvidia from my media machine and installed Catalyst 8.10.
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H
Ubuntu Intrepid beta
DVico FusionHDTV

Standard def digital TV works fine. Xvid palyback is good with an occassional line. The TV goes to sleep and wakes up as it should. I do not have a blu-ray so I cannot test that.

HDTV is an issue. I can get it to show up using xv but jerky, but then HDTV can nuke X and require a restart. Still working on that issue, but overall working good.

Update: Watching TV through Kaffeine works by setting the Video to xshm and then HD TV works fine. With Me-TV that is not an option and nothing works reliably for HD, though SD digital TV works fine (BTW mine is PAL - NTSC may be different). Still the occasional line accross the display but barely noticeable. All in all still not as good as using an Nvidia board but functional enough. XvMc is supposed to be included but Kaffeine will not let you select it.

ps on my desktop using HD3450 and HDTV from USB stick runs fine with same driver on Debian Sid.

[hansch]

Try earlier suggestion.

For what its worth, I have 780g and am using slackware 12.1, kernel 2.6.25.16. I'm currently using catalyst 8.9 but for 780g 8.5 still works better with mythtv. The relevant portions of my xorg.conf are:

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
	Driver      "fglrx"
        Option "VideoOverlay" "off"
        Option "TexturedVideo" "on"
        Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
EndSection

By the way. If I click on video, xine opens and stutters, using opengl. I don't think this happened with catalyst 8.5 but can't really remember. But if I change video from opengl to xv or xshm, xine does not stutter. Give that a try.

I notice that you have both VideoOverlay and OpenGLOverlay to "off". I assume that as a result you have no XV excelleration. For me, mythtv doesn't work without XV enabled. Would is be possible to set VideoOverlay to On for driver 8.5? Or can these same configs be used for 8.9 or 8.10?

Hans

[grege]

Xv

Catalyst now uses "TexturedVideo" to activte Xv "VideoOverlay" has no effect.

With catalyst 8.10 you do not need anything in xorg.conf other than the driver line. To test whether you have xv just open a terminal and run xvinfo and you should get something like :-

$ xvinfo
X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
Adaptor #0: "ATI Radeon AVIVO Video"
number of ports: 4
port base: 131
operations supported: PutImage
supported visuals:
depth 24, visualID 0x23
depth 24, visualID 0x24

and much more

Also run fglrxinfo and glxinfo to ensure all is running properly.

I notice that you have both VideoOverlay and OpenGLOverlay to "off". I assume that as a result you have no XV excelleration. For me, mythtv doesn't work without XV enabled. Would is be possible to set VideoOverlay to On for driver 8.5? Or can these same configs be used for 8.9 or 8.10?

Hans

[wallace]

all right then..

well...after not getting dri working i deleted /etc/ati and reinstalled xorg-server and the catalyst stuff. after that i at least get direct rendering. xv works too. But wait, this is *no* success story.

Video stutter is still there, opengl playback or xv, it does not matter.(Only the severeness of stutter)
Second big issue is that i can't use kde4 anymore, as it seams that it uses some feature that is inherently broken in the driver since the dark ages. I can't remember how i fixed it back then, so anybody has an idea? Here are some screenshots where you can see what the bug looks like.

Last time i played with render options i think, but i can't get it working this time.

my xorg.conf: (this used to work for me until i tried to fix video stutter, and i came a long way since then, 130 reboots included... and a moustache..)

Section "Device"

#	Driver "radeonhd"
#	Driver "vesa"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "Texture2D" "on"
	Option	    "TexturedXrender" "on"
	Option	    "UseFastTLS" "1"
	Option	    "VideoOverlay" "on"
	Option	    "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
	Option	    "TexturedVideo" "on"
	Option	    "TexturedVideoSync" "off"
	Option	    "RenderAccel" "True"
	Option	    "DRI" "true"
	BusID       "PCI:1:5:0"
#	Option "VideoOverlay" "off"
#	Option "TexturedVideo" "off"
#	Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
	Option	    "Composite" "Enable"
	Option	    "XVideo" "Enable" #enable
	Option	    "RENDER" "1"
	Option	    "DAMAGE" "Enable" #enable
EndSection

I tried almost all enable/disable combos of the options, nothing helped to give me kde4 back.

gnome "works" though, meaning, no artifacts.

If anybody has any suggestions, that'd be great. Otherwise I think I'll go back to the vesa driver, I can have stutter free video with this one (but no VT switching, i get rainbow colors then)

Btw, AMD should really do itself a favour and stop the "we support linux and free software" talks, that's just bullshit.
Linux support is not duplicating atombios in a driver for a year or what and get *nothing* to work on a widespread chip. Fire your marketing monkeys and start DOING SOME REAL WORK! Thanks.