AMD 790GX any decent support?

[gismor4]

Hello everybody,

I have been dealing with ATI/AMD since 10 years, but my last buy out wasn't very lucky.
I have bought a mainboard with integrated AMD790GX. I'm using linux for programming and browsing mainly, and sometimes I do watch movies.
I have been waiting for decent support since months... compiling the latest svn/git mesa, libdrm, x11-drm, xf86-video-ati, xf86-video-radeon, and I was dealing also with the ati catalyst.
Well, the report is very bad.
The main area where I'm encountering problems are in Browsing and watching movies.
Scrolling pages into a web browser is almost impossible. Watching a movie in full screen... forget about that.
I hardly can believe that this card sucks so much in the 2D rendering. My old computer (athlon-xp 2000 with integrated VIA chipset openchrome) was much better in doing that.

Also I was never able to get DRI working, but I don't think that DRI will makes things going much better... for sure it will improve, but not up to now the situation is far from being usable.

Is there something that I should wait for from the development of those open source drivers that can help me, or should I go straight to buy a dedicated video card?
I hope there will be some improvement with that card otherwise do you have any suggestion about what should I buy in term of video cards?
-low power consumption
-low price
-very good 2D driver support (browsing, programming, and at least full screen videos!!!)

Thanks in advance to everybody will help me and sorry for the long post,

Luca

[agd5f]

There is no acceleration (2D, 3D, or Xv) without the DRI being enabled for r6xx/r7xx chips such as yours. You will need the kernel 2.6.30 for DRI support for your card.

[gismor4]

I'm running on a 2.6.30 kernel, and I was following some guides to get it running but I always get something like that:

drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenByBusid: Searching for BusID pci:0000:01:05.0
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card1
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card2
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card3
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card4
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card5
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card6
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card7
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card8
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card9
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card10
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card11
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card12
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card13
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card14
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns -1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card1
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card2
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card3
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card4
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card5
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card6
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card7
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card8
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card9
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card10
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card11
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card12
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card13
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card14
(EE) RADEON(0): [dri] RADEONDRIGetVersion failed to open the DRM
[dri] Disabling DRI.

any idea?

[bridgman]

Please pastebin your dmesg output.

[gismor4]

Here it is the Xorg.0.log

http://pastebin.com/m2a3989c5

[gismor4]

Here are the Xorg.0.log

http://pastebin.com/m2a3989c5

and the dmesg

http://pastebin.com/m10da6573

PS=right now I have switched to the ati instead of the radeonhd drivers because it is faster in that situation.

Later I'll post the log with the radeonhd, but I guess it's not that much different

[forum1793]

You have lots of errors and warning in your log. You don't have DRI which is why things are slow.

bash-3.1$ cat Xorg.0.log | grep EE
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(II) Loading extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
(EE) RADEON(0): [dri] RADEONDRIGetVersion failed to open the DRM
(EE) RADEON(0): Acceleration initialization failed
(EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed (8)
(EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed (8)
(EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed (8)
bash-3.1$ cat Xorg.0.log | grep WW
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/TTF/" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/OTF" does not exist.
(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/Type1/" does not exist.
(WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/".
(WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
(WW) RADEON(0): Direct rendering disabled
(WW) <default pointer>: No Device specified, looking for one...
(WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
(WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)

I'm not too familiar with Gentoo but hear it is good.

Did you make custom kernel or using a stock kernel? If custom did you compile drm and radeon as modules or in kernel?

Assuming you are loading generic kernel with lots of modules, what does lsmod show?

What does lspci (as root) show?

[bridgman]

It looks like your drm code is too old. For 2.6.30 you should not build a new drm, you want the one which comes in the kernel tree. As long as the kernel is built with modular drm you should be fine. Building drm from git is NOT what you want; drm is now maintained in the Linux kernel tree, *not* in fdo git.

If you installed fglrx and did not uninstall it fully you may also need to refresh the xorg and mesa code, but let's get 2D/video acceleration working first by getting the drm right.

What you really want is a stock kernel with no additional drm. Support for that GPU has been available for months, other than 3d open source which is still being worked on. You should make a choice between open source and fglrx though, and not try to switch back and forth or you'll just make a mess

Do you have a preference re: which driver you want to use ? Either of them will work; if you need much 3D you'll need to use fglrx, otherwise you may prefer the open drivers. My suggestion would be to get things working with the open drivers first.

[pvtcupcakes]

It looks like your drm code is too old. For 2.6.30 you should not build a new drm, you want the one which comes in the kernel tree. As long as the kernel is built with modular drm you should be fine. Building drm from git is NOT what you want; drm is now maintained in the Linux kernel tree, *not* in fdo git.

You bring up modular drm a lot, and I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that.

I know there is a kernel option, I think it's RADEON_DRM or something, is that what you mean? That should be on right?

And what do you mean by "don't build drm from git"? Is building libdrm from git the same as "drm from git"? Or are they two separate things?

[bridgman]

When you build the kernel, there are a number of options. One of those options relates to whether the drm is linked into the kernel or is built as a separate library (modular drm). If the drm is built "modular" then a new drm can be dropped in without having to rebuild the kernel. I believe the specific files are drm.ko and radeon.ko, for Radeon family GPU (r1xx - R7xx and derivatives).

Most distros automatically build with modular DRM AFAIK but not all of them do.

Yes, I think there is a kernel option for radeon and it should be on. I thought it was a build option not runtime though.

Libdrm is a userspace library which is called by the 2D and 3D acceleration code. It makes kernel calls (ioctls) into the actual drm, which is a kernel driver.

EDIT - hold on, you're not the original poster. Post modified accordingly