How To Setup Radeon DPM On Ubuntu Linux

[Ruse]

Thought I should share my experiences.
Radeon R600 - 3650 MHD

• 3.0.11rc3 Saucy RC kernel - White snowy screen (white screen of death)
• 3.0.11-rc3 self-compiled - White snowy screen (WSOD)
• 3.0.11git-daily kernel - Total lockup with caps-lock flashing. No screen at all.

Ps.: I didn't update my firmware files when I first tried to use this feature, and thought this will fix it all. Turned out the file doesn't change a thing.

If there will be a new RC, I'll give it a try again.
Any other ideas? Or a different git tree?

[verde]

What problem are you asking about? You need smc ucode for power management. The hardware doesn't work without it.

So I dont understand it because my technical knowledge is very very limited.

Why this firmware update is not needed on Catalyst (fglrx)?

Will this procedure (to update firmware) going to be needed (by the user) in the future (ex on Ubuntu 14.04 with kernel 3.11) except the kernel parameter?

[agd5f]

Thought I should share my experiences.
Radeon R600 - 3650 MHD

• 3.0.11rc3 Saucy RC kernel - White snowy screen (white screen of death)
• 3.0.11-rc3 self-compiled - White snowy screen (WSOD)
• 3.0.11git-daily kernel - Total lockup with caps-lock flashing. No screen at all.

Ps.: I didn't update my firmware files when I first tried to use this feature, and thought this will fix it all. Turned out the file doesn't change a thing.

If there will be a new RC, I'll give it a try again.
Any other ideas? Or a different git tree?

DPM is working on all the rv6xx asics I have at the moment. You can follow the rv6xx dpm bug tracker here:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66963

[agd5f]

So I dont understand it because my technical knowledge is very very limited.

Why this firmware update is not needed on Catalyst (fglrx)?

Will this procedure (to update firmware) going to be needed (by the user) in the future (ex on Ubuntu 14.04 with kernel 3.11) except the kernel parameter?

fglrx requires firmware too, it's just included with the binary package rather than distributed separately. distros that ship 3.11 will need to ship the new ucode as well.

[verde]

fglrx requires firmware too, it's just included with the binary package rather than distributed separately. distros that ship 3.11 will need to ship the new ucode as well.

Great, thank you.

[ethana2]

I've got a RadeonHD 4850 with an AMD Athlon X2-3800+ running Ubuntu 13.04.. and I installed Linux 3.11rc3 headers, x64 headers, and the kernel from the ubuntu mainline folks, I installed the RV770 firmware, added a radeon.dpm=1 parameter to my bootline and ran sudo update-grub, and I installed the PPA mentioned here and ran a dist-upgrade. I've verified that I'm running on the latest Linux and Mesa.

I ran a Nexuiz bench with pts before and after these changes, and I got an average 5% improvement, a bit less than the 160% that I was expecting. Also, my display is 1280x1024, but it's running at 1024x768 and I tried making an xorg.conf file with the proper size using horiz and vert refresh specs from the panel manufacturer's site, but it was ignored.

Would you say a 5% improvement is to be expected of a system where radeon dpm is not working or completely turned off? Also, how do I get the radeon driver to use the proper 1280x1024@75Hz mode?

[archibald]

I've got a RadeonHD 4850 with an AMD Athlon X2-3800+ running Ubuntu 13.04.. and I installed Linux 3.11rc3 headers, x64 headers, and the kernel from the ubuntu mainline folks, I added a radeon.dpm=1 parameter to my bootline and ran sudo update-grub, and I installed the PPA mentioned here and ran a dist-upgrade. I've verified that I'm running on the latest Linux and Mesa.

You don't mention getting updated firmware files, it's in the paragraph beginning "Utilizing Radeon dynamic power management support requires...". For a Radeon HD 4850 you need the files with names including "RV770". Take a look in your dmesg and hopefully you'll see a message about missing firmware.

[ethana2]

You don't mention getting updated firmware files, it's in the paragraph beginning "Utilizing Radeon dynamic power management support requires...". For a Radeon HD 4850 you need the files with names including "RV770". Take a look in your dmesg and hopefully you'll see a message about missing firmware.

I realized that same thing right before I saw this response and edited my post to reflect that. The firmware was in place, but I'll check dmesg, maybe it wanted more than just that one file, or wanted a different one.

[bridgman]

If the BIOS on your card defaulted to a high clock at boot (which IIRC was common in the rv770 days) then you wouldn't get a performance boost from dpm unless you had been manually selecting a mid or low profile before. Instead of a performance gain you would see a power & temp reduction on average from the GPU going to *lower* clocks when not busy.

APUs and GCN GPUs usually defaulted to low clocks (and there you would see a performance gain from dpm), but there wasn't a sharp cutover AFAIK -- with each new generation low default clocks became more common.

You should see *some* kind of improvement with dpm, but parts that already default to max clocks can only go down (power savings) not up (performance).

[agd5f]

I've got a RadeonHD 4850 with an AMD Athlon X2-3800+ running Ubuntu 13.04.. and I installed Linux 3.11rc3 headers, x64 headers, and the kernel from the ubuntu mainline folks, I installed the RV770 firmware, added a radeon.dpm=1 parameter to my bootline and ran sudo update-grub, and I installed the PPA mentioned here and ran a dist-upgrade. I've verified that I'm running on the latest Linux and Mesa.

I ran a Nexuiz bench with pts before and after these changes, and I got an average 5% improvement, a bit less than the 160% that I was expecting. Also, my display is 1280x1024, but it's running at 1024x768 and I tried making an xorg.conf file with the proper size using horiz and vert refresh specs from the panel manufacturer's site, but it was ignored.

Would you say a 5% improvement is to be expected of a system where radeon dpm is not working or completely turned off? Also, how do I get the radeon driver to use the proper 1280x1024@75Hz mode?

I doubt you'll much change at all, performance-wise, on older dGPUs because they boot up to relatively high clocks by default. The main place you'll see performance gains is on APUs and newer dGPUs (SI) where the boards come up with relatively low clocks by default. You should, however, see lower power usage and temperatures.

As for your display question, try reconfiguring things with xrandr.