AMD Catalyst 7.12 Linux Driver -- The Baby's In Surgery

[mancunian]

I have just installed 7.12 and am now experiencing a significant slowdown compared to 7.11.

glxgears for example shows only 337 frames in 5.0 secs (75.400 FPS) on average. That is down from an average of 11.600 frames /5.0 secs / 2350.300 FPS in 7.11. I know, glxgears is not a benchmark, but this slowdown seems a bit worrying.

My board is a RV505 [Radeon X1550 64-bit], aiglx and composite are enabled. I am using exactly the same xorg.conf as with 7.11.

Has anyone else experienced a similar slowdown?

[Dandel]

I have just installed 7.12 and am now experiencing a significant slowdown compared to 7.11.

glxgears for example shows only 337 frames in 5.0 secs (75.400 FPS) on average. That is down from an average of 11.600 frames /5.0 secs / 2350.300 FPS in 7.11. I know, glxgears is not a benchmark, but this slowdown seems a bit worrying.

My board is a RV505 [Radeon X1550 64-bit], aiglx and composite are enabled. I am using exactly the same xorg.conf as with 7.11.

Has anyone else experienced a similar slowdown?

this looks like syncing in the driver to me... let me guess your monitor refresh rate is about 75hz right?

[mancunian]

this looks like syncing in the driver to me... let me guess your monitor refresh rate is about 75hz right?

That's spot on

[mancunian]

this looks like syncing in the driver to me... let me guess your monitor refresh rate is about 75hz right?

That's spot on. So, are you saying that I could solve the problem by simply reducing the monitor resolution to let's say 70 or even 60 hz?????

[givemesugarr]

That's spot on. So, are you saying that I could solve the problem by simply reducing the monitor resolution to let's say 70 or even 60 hz?????

that's not the resolution, but the refresh rate. a resolution is 1280x1024 for example.
usually the lcd monitors would have a base refresh rate of 60hz, but some of them have also more than that.
the best thing is to modify your modelines in xorg removing refresh settings so that the refresh are decided automatically by fglrx itself. to do that in the screen section of your xorg.conf there should only be lines like:
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x800" "1280x768" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
EndSubSection

if you already are in this condition then maybe we should try the contrary; setting manually the refresh rate, but to do this we have to take a look at you monitor capabilities or we risk burning it and we don't want to burn it or to be responsible for burning your monitor.

[mancunian]

that's not the resolution, but the refresh rate. a resolution is 1280x1024 for example.
usually the lcd monitors would have a base refresh rate of 60hz, but some of them have also more than that.
the best thing is to modify your modelines in xorg removing refresh settings so that the refresh are decided automatically by fglrx itself. to do that in the screen section of your xorg.conf there should only be lines like:
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x800" "1280x768" "1024x768" "1280x600" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
EndSubSection

if you already are in this condition then maybe we should try the contrary; setting manually the refresh rate, but to do this we have to take a look at you monitor capabilities or we risk burning it and we don't want to burn it or to be responsible for burning your monitor.

That's what the screen-section looks like right now:

Section "Screen"
  DefaultDepth 24
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      15
    Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      16
    Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      24
    Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth      8
    Modes      "1024x768" "800x600" 
  EndSubSection
  Device       "Device[0]"
  Identifier   "Screen[0]"
  Monitor      "Monitor[0]"
EndSection

My monitor is a 15" Packard Bell TFT LCD and its capabilities are:

DisplaySize  304 x 228 mm
  HorizSync    31-60
  VertRefresh  50-75
  Contrast 350:1
  Colors 16.7 Mio sim. 
  Response 30 ms

[TrinitronX]

Can't get the 7.12 driver working with 1440x900 widescreen resolution. Even with modelines, my monitor refuses to display it, saying that the signal is out of range. The specs on my monitor state that it supports 1440x900@60Hz, but modelines output from this don't work:

gtf 1440 900 60

Kinda sucky. Also, I didn't see much mention of this, but there's a dependency bug when you build it the "manual way" found here: http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubu...river_Manually

During the "module-assistant install fglrx" stage, this message shows up:

fglrx-kernel-2.6.22-14-generic depends on xorg-driver-fglrx (= 8.443-1); however:
  Version of xorg-driver-fglrx on system is 8.443.1-1.

Yes... they made it depend on "8.443-1" instead of "8.443.1-1". Had to extract the deb package and fix the dependency manually for it to install without complaining.
The driver now also depends on dkms, which they didn't screw up at least.

[TrinitronX]

Can't get the 7.12 driver working with 1440x900 widescreen resolution. Even with modelines, my monitor refuses to display it, saying that the signal is out of range. The specs on my monitor state that it supports 1440x900@60Hz, but modelines output from this don't work:

gtf 1440 900 60

Kinda sucky. Also, I didn't see much mention of this, but there's a dependency bug when you build it the "manual way" found here: http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubu...river_Manually

During the "module-assistant install fglrx" stage, this message shows up:

fglrx-kernel-2.6.22-14-generic depends on xorg-driver-fglrx (= 8.443-1); however:
  Version of xorg-driver-fglrx on system is 8.443.1-1.

Yes... they made it depend on "8.443-1" instead of "8.443.1-1". Had to extract the deb package and fix the dependency manually for it to install without complaining.
The driver now also depends on dkms, which they didn't screw up at least.

[krnlg]

re: refresh syncing..

If its syncing to the refresh, decreasing the refresh will decrease the fps. In any case you probably dont want to go below 75 or 72hz with a CRT or you'll hurt your eyes.

I must say though - is there actually any point in having an fps count that is faster than the monitor refresh? makes testing performance harder, but I mean, anything faster than the speed your monitor displays it wont appear any smoother will it?

[Compxpert]

Got rid of PreInitDAL but....

Finally fixed the PreInitDAL error but now I get the following warnings and errors in my Xorg.0.log.

(WW) fglrx(0): More than one displays are connected,so clone mode is enabled
(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed!                  *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO)             *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available                *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *
(WW) fglrx(0): Textured Video not supported without DRI enabled.

(EE) fglrx(0): [pcie] Failed to gather memory of size 262144Kb for PCIe. Error (-1007)
(EE) fglrx(0): atiddxDriScreenInit failed, GPS not been initialized.
(EE) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI capable

A copy of my entire Xorg.0.log can be found here: http://www.pastebin.ca/840795

Edit2: FIXED!!!! Lowered Gart size to 128mb. Although look that this:

(II) fglrx(0): [pcie] 262144 kB allocated

WTF card is not pcie but this appears. However everything works. Improved performance also.
Edit3: Perhaps I think my cards gpu is pcie using a Realto brigechip. Its an X1650 series.
Hmm no widescreen least in native resolution of 1680x1050. Anyone find a fix for this yet or are we waiting for the next release.