More Radeon Power Management Improvements

[yotambien]

I see. Is there a way to avoid that 'tearing avoidance' then? I guess people tend to play in full-screen mode...

[agd5f]

--- a/src/radeon_dri2.c
+++ b/src/radeon_dri2.c
@@ -315,7 +315,7 @@ radeon_dri2_copy_region(DrawablePtr drawable,
}

vsync = info->accel_state->vsync;
- info->accel_state->vsync = TRUE;
+ //info->accel_state->vsync = TRUE;

(*gc->ops->CopyArea)(src_drawable, dst_drawable, gc,
0, 0, drawable->width, drawable->height, 0, 0);

[derdestiller]

I have "edid invalid" messages in my dmesg log. Maybe they can give a hint on my problem?
I am now on gentoo-sources kernel 2.6.35 and still now power_method file. Are there Radeon X1950 Cards without Power Management?

I can't seem to find power_method in my sysfs directory.
Any idea what could be the reason?

[yotambien]

--- a/src/radeon_dri2.c
+++ b/src/radeon_dri2.c
@@ -315,7 +315,7 @@ radeon_dri2_copy_region(DrawablePtr drawable,
}

vsync = info->accel_state->vsync;
- info->accel_state->vsync = TRUE;
+ //info->accel_state->vsync = TRUE;

(*gc->ops->CopyArea)(src_drawable, dst_drawable, gc,
0, 0, drawable->width, drawable->height, 0, 0);

Okay...this works.

I guess it has some drawbacks...I found one application that behaves like glxgears, it tries to display as many frames per second as possible, even when it's meant to be idle waiting for user input. Not ideal. I'm not sure what Celestia is doing, it's also quite high on CPU, but that may be for all the stuff going on behind the scenes. I'll try tomorrow without the patch. GoogleEarth seems like it's behaving OK.

One thing is for sure, OpenArena is much better with this : D

Couldn't applications just choose what to do, instead of, well, users patching the driver? In any case, thank you.

PS. Oh, and with this I could finally see the difference between 'high' and 'low' profiles.

[chrisr]

Celestia's CPU usage is a known issue...

I'm not sure what Celestia is doing, it's also quite high on CPU, but that may be for all the stuff going on behind the scenes.

I find that Celestia's CPU usage while I am viewing the Earth drops sharply after I have zoomed out to a distance of approx 48,600km. This is regardless of the rendering path I am using too, from "Basic" to "OpenGL 2.0".

Other planets presumably have their own "optimal viewing distances".

[agd5f]

Celestia handles vertexes poorly. See this thread for more discussion:

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24206&page=4

[chrisr]

Yes, I remember that thread.

Celestia handles vertexes poorly. See this thread for more discussion:
http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...t=24206&page=4

But however poorly Celestia may handle vertices, some drivers cope better than others. If the blame were entirely Celestia's then surely we'd expect all drivers to suffer equally on the same hardware, wouldn't we?

[derdestiller]

I have "edid invalid" messages in my dmesg log. Maybe they can give a hint on my problem?
I am now on gentoo-sources kernel 2.6.35 and still now power_method file. Are there Radeon X1950 Cards without Power Management?

Ah drm.debug=1 helped me to find out: Number of Power States 1. So I guess i need a new Card or Power Supply. And Low Power Mode non kms-Option never worked . But it will be ATI because of the good oss-driver support.

[Boerkel]

I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 with the 2.6.35 mainline kernel. Pm works great except two issues:
1. When i'm watching a movie in fullscreen and with low-profile it stutters. (with default it's ok)
2. I'm getting messages like this in dmesg:

[11583.075963] radeon 0000:01:00.0: ffff88007bd72000 reserve failed for wait

[DF5JT]

I wish power management would work with the expected results of lower power consumption in desktop use, alas, it still doesn't work.

First encounter of the problem was back in March with drm-next kernel from git and I filed a bug report then:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27206

Now with profiles activated, the problem persists. I filed a bug report to the Cooker QA of Mandriva, which is the distribution I am currently using:

https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=60705

I wonder whether anyone with a Thinpad T60p and its FireGL V5200 has the same problem or whether there are actual reports of this hardware working with the latest power management stuff and actually reducing power consumption below 25 watts.