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Tuning xorg.conf to get the most out of your ATI card using any driver
Hi all!
Every here and there in this forum I stumble across a snippet of someone's xorg.conf file and "Device section" and there sure is a bewildering plethora of different options and combinations of options that can go there using either the radeon, radeonhd and fglrx drivers.
For someone with limited time on his hands it is certainly difficult to get an overview and understand the benefits and drawbacks of different tweaks and drivers and especially to track the usage of the most recent features (e.g. power saving in the free drivers).
I have searched the forums for comparative information along these lines but not really found what I am looking for (this one is perhaps the closest http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showt...ns+performance). I would therefore suggest and much appreciate fellow ATI users to share snippets from your own xorg.conf files below which you think are relevant and informative along with a few lines of why you use these particular options. I for one have a much easier time learning these things from real world examples than man files.
I'll go first and shamelessly put my ignorance on public display:
I use Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit running on a Thinkpad Z61m with an X1400 ATI chip and the "radeon" driver. The only tweak I've done so far is enabling EXA which removes the artifacts produced when running windowed OpenGL apps such as glxgears. This is what my plain boring Device section looks like:
Having read the recent news that this driver now supports tear-free X-video playback (see this page for the news piece and discussion http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14222), I recently tried the very latest version of this driver using Tormod Volden's unofficial launchpad repository over at https://launchpad.net/~tormodvolden/+archive and got great video playback performance using the xv video output option in mplayer (after Compiz was turned off using fusion-icon):
I have pretty good day-to-day Compiz performance and now video playback for high-res videos. I get about 1750 fps running glxgears.
Every here and there in this forum I stumble across a snippet of someone's xorg.conf file and "Device section" and there sure is a bewildering plethora of different options and combinations of options that can go there using either the radeon, radeonhd and fglrx drivers.
For someone with limited time on his hands it is certainly difficult to get an overview and understand the benefits and drawbacks of different tweaks and drivers and especially to track the usage of the most recent features (e.g. power saving in the free drivers).
I have searched the forums for comparative information along these lines but not really found what I am looking for (this one is perhaps the closest http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showt...ns+performance). I would therefore suggest and much appreciate fellow ATI users to share snippets from your own xorg.conf files below which you think are relevant and informative along with a few lines of why you use these particular options. I for one have a much easier time learning these things from real world examples than man files.
I'll go first and shamelessly put my ignorance on public display:
I use Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit running on a Thinkpad Z61m with an X1400 ATI chip and the "radeon" driver. The only tweak I've done so far is enabling EXA which removes the artifacts produced when running windowed OpenGL apps such as glxgears. This is what my plain boring Device section looks like:
Code:
Section "Device" Identifier "Configured Video Device" Option "AccelMethod" "EXA" EndSection
Code:
mplayer -vo xv -zoom big_buck_bunny_1080p_surround.avi
- Which options can I use to squeeze some more OpenGL 3D performance out of this card without breaking compiz or video?
- Which options are available for power saving while on battery power?
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