Success Stories with 8.42.3 and AIGLX

[zittergie]

Suspend & Hibernate work in 7.04

Suspend and Hibernate: Broke with 7.04+fglrx...maybe because of the SLUB allocator. None of the workarounds work with it on Feisty, and I have not tried it yet on Gutsy. I'll update later when I do give it a try.

Hi,
Suspend and Hibernate work fine in Feisty, but not in Gutsy. If you have Gutsy installed (like me) just install kernel 2.6.20 and suspend and hibernate work as usual (The Wireless Broadcom 43xx doesn't work well after suspend if firmware is used, but works like a charm with ndiswrapper).

Using Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo 3667G laptop

[kir?]

Then we seem to be on opposite ends here -_-
One finds it usable, the other is unusable!
Lol...

I think that the one who finds it usable has not seen well that xgl is faster and he didn't try to see some video with opengl or xv output.

[sdlvx]

Any Ideas why my desktop looks like this after I ran compiz --replace ?



Adept appears in the upper left corner out of nowhere and the rest is quite visible.

That's a problem with the system tray and the Window Manager, not the driver. I've had that happen to me before, on all versions of the driver I've used. (pre-8.40.7). THe problem for me comes from the system tray. If there's more than one applet (say, one in avant, and one in kicker), the system tray just wont' be very dependable. It gets the icon, and there's a problem with the system tray, so it draws it as a window.

But anyways, my experiences with 8.42.3 have been good. I had 8.41.7 working before, but with XGL. As soon as I got 8.42.3, I whitelisted the driver for compiz, made the changes in my xorg.conf (enable AIGLX, enable compositing, added some other things from a tweak site), and uninstalled xserver-xgl.

Compiz works great. I have no flickering with compiz at all. I get a steady 60FPS, no matter what I do. The color filter finally works (pixel shaders), which never worked before. Water plugin no longer freezes compiz. Everything is just flat out fast, and smooth. The difference in compiz fusion performance seems massive. It used to run so bad it would actually sometimes skip animations because the framerate was so bad. Now, everything is so smooth.

Firefox works perfectly as well. Scrolling is smooth and all is fine.

I just have a few problems. For starters, it seems like openGL applications flicker a little. It's not that bad, and it actually seems to almost go away after playing a little. If you switch to fullscreen, it isn't bad at all. Just the fact that I can do something like run glxgears in compiz is a giant leap forward.

The second thing that bothers me is that 3d applications don't wobble in compiz when you move them. The window decoration wobbles, but not the 3d. I thought some NVIDIA guys said that they could wobble WoW and stuff. I'm not going to fret over that though, because I'm assuming that in a later release this problem is going to be fixed, because it seems like it's just incomplete. It's heading the right way.

Other than that, there's just one beef I have. Window decorations no longer seem to support blurring. To be honest, it never worked in a release before 8.41.7. 8.41.7 was the first version when it DID work, but that was only with XGL. When dropping XGL and moving to AIGLX, I lost the blur. I'm assuming this has to do with the long list of hex values displayed when starting compiz telling me visuals aren't supported. I'm guessing one of those has to do with the pixel shader CF uses for the blur.

I know this driver isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good, and it's a giant performance. The NVIDIA drivers in my desktop kind of suck, because I have an 8800. I think that my laptop with my x1600 is my best linux 3d computer right now.

I do think that people need to be a little more optimistic about these drivers. You can't make perfect drivers overnight. But, AMD is obviously trying to make things right, which it wasn't trying to do before. It makes NO SENSE to decide to re-write major parts of a driver if you don't care.

It's understandable that everyone is mad. We have (had) video cards that didn't do what we wanted where we wanted, but AMD is working to make it better, and it is getting better.

Everyone loves to hate AMD once they make one little screw up or something. Look at their processors. You can get more bang for your buck with a mid or low range AMD, but everyone is screaming INTEL INTEL INTEL INTEL CORE 2 DUO CORE CORE CORE.

Everyone just needs to lighten up and be patient. I've waited too, but things are getting better, and AMD is making the effort (which they clearly weren't before) to fix their shitty drivers.

[b4sakenxx]

Compiz works great. I have no flickering with compiz at all. I get a steady 60FPS, no matter what I do. The color filter finally works (pixel shaders), which never worked before. Water plugin no longer freezes compiz. Everything is just flat out fast, and smooth. The difference in compiz fusion performance seems massive. It used to run so bad it would actually sometimes skip animations because the framerate was so bad. Now, everything is so smooth.

Firefox works perfectly as well. Scrolling is smooth and all is fine.

You don't get any flicker or notice the slight lag with firefox scroll? I actually didn:t notice it until I turned off compiz and tried it.

[Uchikoma]

I think that the one who finds it usable has not seen well that xgl is faster and he didn't try to see some video with opengl or xv output.

- Has used xgl
- Watches a lot of video (video encoded in mpeg4, avc, mpeg2, lagarith at standard and high definition), and always on xv output.
- Has been using fglrx since 8.37 and not a single driver has given my problems with the above.
- Read my post on the first page for full details.
- I like performance improvements, thanks. It's the difference between running ETQW in 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 at smoother frame rates.

So, while it may be true for you, not so for others. It's a mixed bag as they say. I'm not going to say it's perfect/awesome. But I will say that I can use it without frustration. Even if it doesn't suspend (but then I run my computer in server like conditions).

As noted by others, suspend is broken when kernels are using the SLUB allocator as opposed to the SLAB allocator. The SLUB allocator was recently introduced in the kernel updates for Ubuntu (for those who use Ubuntu or any derivative). Fglrx and SLUB do not mix. There is no fix except to a) Wait for ATI to fix this issue or b) use a kernel with the SLAB allocator.

Rawr.

sdlvx: Yep, it's nice to results. I do look forward to the next release, and I hope they keep adding to the driver (primarily stability now at this point)

[piccolotux]

That's a problem with the system tray and the Window Manager, not the driver. I've had that happen to me before, on all versions of the driver I've used. (pre-8.40.7). THe problem for me comes from the system tray. If there's more than one applet (say, one in avant, and one in kicker), the system tray just wont' be very dependable. It gets the icon, and there's a problem with the system tray, so it draws it as a window.

But anyways, my experiences with 8.42.3 have been good. I had 8.41.7 working before, but with XGL. As soon as I got 8.42.3, I whitelisted the driver for compiz, made the changes in my xorg.conf (enable AIGLX, enable compositing, added some other things from a tweak site), and uninstalled xserver-xgl.

Compiz works great. I have no flickering with compiz at all. I get a steady 60FPS, no matter what I do. The color filter finally works (pixel shaders), which never worked before. Water plugin no longer freezes compiz. Everything is just flat out fast, and smooth. The difference in compiz fusion performance seems massive. It used to run so bad it would actually sometimes skip animations because the framerate was so bad. Now, everything is so smooth.

Firefox works perfectly as well. Scrolling is smooth and all is fine.

I just have a few problems. For starters, it seems like openGL applications flicker a little. It's not that bad, and it actually seems to almost go away after playing a little. If you switch to fullscreen, it isn't bad at all. Just the fact that I can do something like run glxgears in compiz is a giant leap forward.

The second thing that bothers me is that 3d applications don't wobble in compiz when you move them. The window decoration wobbles, but not the 3d. I thought some NVIDIA guys said that they could wobble WoW and stuff. I'm not going to fret over that though, because I'm assuming that in a later release this problem is going to be fixed, because it seems like it's just incomplete. It's heading the right way.

Other than that, there's just one beef I have. Window decorations no longer seem to support blurring. To be honest, it never worked in a release before 8.41.7. 8.41.7 was the first version when it DID work, but that was only with XGL. When dropping XGL and moving to AIGLX, I lost the blur. I'm assuming this has to do with the long list of hex values displayed when starting compiz telling me visuals aren't supported. I'm guessing one of those has to do with the pixel shader CF uses for the blur.

I know this driver isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good, and it's a giant performance. The NVIDIA drivers in my desktop kind of suck, because I have an 8800. I think that my laptop with my x1600 is my best linux 3d computer right now.

I do think that people need to be a little more optimistic about these drivers. You can't make perfect drivers overnight. But, AMD is obviously trying to make things right, which it wasn't trying to do before. It makes NO SENSE to decide to re-write major parts of a driver if you don't care.

It's understandable that everyone is mad. We have (had) video cards that didn't do what we wanted where we wanted, but AMD is working to make it better, and it is getting better.

Everyone loves to hate AMD once they make one little screw up or something. Look at their processors. You can get more bang for your buck with a mid or low range AMD, but everyone is screaming INTEL INTEL INTEL INTEL CORE 2 DUO CORE CORE CORE.

Everyone just needs to lighten up and be patient. I've waited too, but things are getting better, and AMD is making the effort (which they clearly weren't before) to fix their shitty drivers.

Would you be so kind to post your xorg.conf file? Maybe your tweakings will be a great inspiration for all of us :-)

[kihon]

...
But anyways, my experiences with 8.42.3 have been good. I had 8.41.7 working before, but with XGL. As soon as I got 8.42.3, I whitelisted the driver for compiz, made the changes in my xorg.conf (enable AIGLX, enable compositing, added some other things from a tweak site), and uninstalled xserver-xgl.

Compiz works great. I have no flickering with compiz at all. I get a steady 60FPS, no matter what I do. The color filter finally works (pixel shaders), which never worked before. Water plugin no longer freezes compiz. Everything is just flat out fast, and smooth. The difference in compiz fusion performance seems massive. It used to run so bad it would actually sometimes skip animations because the framerate was so bad. Now, everything is so smooth.

Firefox works perfectly as well. Scrolling is smooth and all is fine.

I just have a few problems. For starters, it seems like openGL applications flicker a little. It's not that bad, and it actually seems to almost go away after playing a little. If you switch to fullscreen, it isn't bad at all. Just the fact that I can do something like run glxgears in compiz is a giant leap forward.

...

Hi

Just would like to ask for more info on your setup - which graphics card etc. (and also the xorg.conf ) if you dont mind

Also do you have the cube enabled? Can you try maximising Firefox while on the phoronix forum page, then try rotating the cube a few times and see if you get a slight delay each time you enter/leave the side with firefox maximised please?

Thanks

kihon

[kir?]

- Has used xgl
- Watches a lot of video (video encoded in mpeg4, avc, mpeg2, lagarith at standard and high definition), and always on xv output.
- Has been using fglrx since 8.37 and not a single driver has given my problems with the above.
- Read my post on the first page for full details.
- I like performance improvements, thanks. It's the difference between running ETQW in 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 at smoother frame rates.

So, while it may be true for you, not so for others. It's a mixed bag as they say. I'm not going to say it's perfect/awesome. But I will say that I can use it without frustration. Even if it doesn't suspend (but then I run my computer in server like conditions).

As noted by others, suspend is broken when kernels are using the SLUB allocator as opposed to the SLAB allocator. The SLUB allocator was recently introduced in the kernel updates for Ubuntu (for those who use Ubuntu or any derivative). Fglrx and SLUB do not mix. There is no fix except to a) Wait for ATI to fix this issue or b) use a kernel with the SLAB allocator.

Rawr.

sdlvx: Yep, it's nice to results. I do look forward to the next release, and I hope they keep adding to the driver (primarily stability now at this point)

Sorry, I thought the driver wasn't perfect with any card...
Are your tests with AIGLX enabled and compiz running?
With AIGLX enabled I too have no problem but if I run compiz all the problems begin to show.

[kir?]

Would you be so kind to post your xorg.conf file? Maybe your tweakings will be a great inspiration for all of us :-)

I think he has no problem because of the x1600. It seems that faster ATI cards have not scrolling problems.

[chabo]

I've got 1950XTX, no scrolling problem, but xv/gl flicks like hell(SLUB/SLAB no changes)