Radeon Driver Gets Textured Video (Xv)

[jchapman]

In the Linux world hardly anything is as consolidated as in the Windows world. Personally, I like the fact that we have the option of using several different drivers for our cards.; it gives us (the end user) more choice.

Choice is great. It can also be counter-productive. What use is choice when your choice is between several alternatives, none of which entirely work? Sorry but I'd rather have one solution that actually worked than several that don't. This isn't an issue just with the driver but with open source in general... there are many cases where the user would be much better off if competing camps just dialed down the egos a bit and cooperated on a more limited number of alternatives. What is the point behind developing software if not to give users something that they actually want to use?

I'm all for open source, choice, and all those great things... right up to the point where it means I can't do what I need to do. Not to rant too much here but the whole choice thing carries with it the same whiff I get when someone complains about linux being difficult and is told how they should have known how to do this or that, or that it isn't the fault of linux but manufacturers, which while possibly technically true is a meaningless answer to the user, or whatever... this is a huge problem with linux acceptance.
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[siggma]

In the Linux world hardly anything is as consolidated as in the Windows world. Personally, I like the fact that we have the option of using several different drivers for our cards.; it gives us (the end user) more choice.

As for not being able to play videos while Compiz is on, make sure you are using plain ol' X to render the videos. It has already been explained that the xserver has a severe limitation when it comes to the whole direct/indirect rendering thing when you throw accelerated desktops in the mix... it's not a driver limitation.

Perhaps, but the only other option is vidix, which doesn't work for r500 chipsets either leaving owners of these cards SOL unless or until someone like the manufacturer steps up and finds a way to make it work. There are plenty of ways this can work without blaming X or rewriting the entire OS. If all we focus on the problem it will never be solved. If we focus on a solution, it will come, quickly.

I'm willing to bet there are people at AMD/ATI with Linux on their desktops that playback video just fine. If I worked there and had an in depth understanding of the hardware, I'd have figured out a way to playback video without all that horrible tearing and crashing. This is not a hardware issue or an Xserver issue, it's a political issue.

Corporations used to fight their battles directly, face to face, with each other. Now they THINK they can offload that battle to the desktop of the user and point the finger. It's an opportunity to make a choice. Honesty choices lead to cooperation and working products. Dishonest choices and unreasonable expectations do not. Microsoft began the practice by encouraging a "cottage" industry of virus scanners and spyware stoppers with it's "push this button to install software" philosophy. That single button solution has now spread to other parts of society and become the very choice referenced above.

Bottom line is, we still don't have a usable solution. We keep hearing explanations but explanations don't play DVD's or my favourite episode of Star Trek.

Please ATI, just put all the code in ONE driver and release to the public on your web site so we can use the hardware we already paid for.

-Tom

[Melcar]

A bold comment?

Um, is there an ATI representative listening.

I own an ATI X1650 256 DDR2 PCIe card that performs flawlessly under Vista, but I despise VISTA, and Microsoft, so it's Linux.
BUT! I still cannot play video using the hardware and run compiz at the same time in any linux distribution using this card. It's been on the market for over a year now. What's UP?

Let's sum up the issue, from a user point of view. How you see it may be different but users are the one's spending the money.

1. Radeon
2. RadeonHD
3. ATI
4. FGLRX
5. AVIVO

Why do we need 5 different drivers for the same cards?

Why not just spend an afternoon and make ONE work like it should? We know the code is written and that it works because I can change a single word in a configuration file and REBOOT, and video plays.

As a loyal ATI customer, it's unrealistic to keep telling me why it won't work. You people make the cards and you CAN write a driver that WILL drive it under any operating system. You've proven you are capable. Is "intellectual property" so important you'll sacrifice your potential customer base?

Are we human beings living together on a planet as a society of individuals, or are we intellectual enemies in a no-holds-barred fight to the death?

IMHO, Vista was a massive error on the part of microsoft. From this day forward Microsoft goes downhill. It may take a while but it's going to happen. Historically all dishonest corporations self destruct, eventually. and microsoft is no exception.

When money becomes an end, the end of money is near... and revolutions borne of time and disgust leap forth in adoration of future freedoms.

-Tom

In the Linux world hardly anything is as consolidated as in the Windows world. Personally, I like the fact that we have the option of using several different drivers for our cards.; it gives us (the end user) more choice.

As for not being able to play videos while Compiz is on, make sure you are using plain ol' X to render the videos. It has already been explained that the xserver has a severe limitation when it comes to the whole direct/indirect rendering thing when you throw accelerated desktops in the mix... it's not a driver limitation.

[jchapman]

agree

First of all I want to say that I do appreciate all the effort of the people doing the open source drivers, and I also do appreciate that AMD is trying to support linux. But I have to agree with the general thrust of the previous message. I just put together a home theater system based on an x2 5000+ and an ATI 690 based motherboard.

I have tried running both the open source and ATI drivers under Gutsy and neither presents anything like satisfactory results. Really bad video tearing, horrible pixelation when increasing window size for video and the whole screen flashing pink/green for a variable amount of time whenever I start a video. And even though my monitor identifies the signal as 1080P it only fills about 90% of the actual screen so text etc. looks horrible as the 1920x1080 image is scaled down into a display grid of about 1800x1000 physical pixels.

Not to mention the difficulty switching back and forth between trying out the open and proprietary drivers (no novice is going to get more than 5 seconds into that process before giving up.

So I switched to an old copy of Win2KSP4 I had. Video tearing gone. Pink/green flashing gone. Smooth interpolation when maxing the video window. Yayyyy!

But things are not perfect on the Windows side either. The problem of a 1080P image only filling 90% of the monitor still happens, and has been reported by more than a few others on the net. Plus there don't seem to be Catalyst drivers for Win2K for the 690/X1250 so I have no way of adjusting anything, in particular the antialiasing or making the display size fit the physical screen (I know, PowerStrip... that's my next try).

This is exactly the sort of experience that is going to drive users away from Linux and to windows. And given that the 90% screen reduction on windows I'm not all that happy with AMD/ATI on windows either - I mean the 690 has been out for a long time now....

I wanted to switch all our machines to the same OS and for that to be Linux but that isn't possible so after a few days time wasted I'm more or less forced back to Windows and am dubious about buying another AMD system/card for graphics since it doesn't seem to really work right even in Windows.

Anyway that's my rant...

A bold comment?

Um, is there an ATI representative listening.

I own an ATI X1650 256 DDR2 PCIe card that performs flawlessly under Vista, but I despise VISTA, and Microsoft, so it's Linux.
BUT! I still cannot play video using the hardware and run compiz at the same time in any linux distribution using this card. It's been on the market for over a year now. What's UP?

Let's sum up the issue, from a user point of view. How you see it may be different but users are the one's spending the money.

1. Radeon
2. RadeonHD
3. ATI
4. FGLRX
5. AVIVO

Why do we need 5 different drivers for the same cards?

Why not just spend an afternoon and make ONE work like it should? We know the code is written and that it works because I can change a single word in a configuration file and REBOOT, and video plays.

As a loyal ATI customer, it's unrealistic to keep telling me why it won't work. You people make the cards and you CAN write a driver that WILL drive it under any operating system. You've proven you are capable. Is "intellectual property" so important you'll sacrifice your potential customer base?

Are we human beings living together on a planet as a society of individuals, or are we intellectual enemies in a no-holds-barred fight to the death?

IMHO, Vista was a massive error on the part of microsoft. From this day forward Microsoft goes downhill. It may take a while but it's going to happen. Historically all dishonest corporations self destruct, eventually. and microsoft is no exception.

When money becomes an end, the end of money is near... and revolutions borne of time and disgust leap forth in adoration of future freedoms.

-Tom

[siggma]

A bold comment?

Um, is there an ATI representative listening.

I own an ATI X1650 256 DDR2 PCIe card that performs flawlessly under Vista, but I despise VISTA, and Microsoft, so it's Linux.
BUT! I still cannot play video using the hardware and run compiz at the same time in any linux distribution using this card. It's been on the market for over a year now. What's UP?

Let's sum up the issue, from a user point of view. How you see it may be different but users are the one's spending the money.

1. Radeon
2. RadeonHD
3. ATI
4. FGLRX
5. AVIVO

Why do we need 5 different drivers for the same cards?

Why not just spend an afternoon and make ONE work like it should? We know the code is written and that it works because I can change a single word in a configuration file and REBOOT, and video plays.

As a loyal ATI customer, it's unrealistic to keep telling me why it won't work. You people make the cards and you CAN write a driver that WILL drive it under any operating system. You've proven you are capable. Is "intellectual property" so important you'll sacrifice your potential customer base?

Are we human beings living together on a planet as a society of individuals, or are we intellectual enemies in a no-holds-barred fight to the death?

IMHO, Vista was a massive error on the part of microsoft. From this day forward Microsoft goes downhill. It may take a while but it's going to happen. Historically all dishonest corporations self destruct, eventually. and microsoft is no exception.

When money becomes an end, the end of money is near... and revolutions borne of time and disgust leap forth in adoration of future freedoms.

-Tom

[karthikrg]

yaa got it.. thanx a LOTT!!

[bitnick]

*snip*
I have the exact same experience using the R420 (Radeon x800 xt pe). Random desktop lockups (not even reisub can bring it back) and horribly slow performance doing some 2D stuff.

Maybe this is just a R420 issue?

I seem to have got rid of the lockups by setting AGPMode to 4 (instead of 8). (I've always had AGPFastWrite disabled.)

*snip*
I can finally report success! After going through some of the source and bugzilla I came across the manpage for exa (duh!) and realized I was forgetting to set AccelDFS to on! After adding that to my device section Xv acceleration is properly compositing, and outputing planet earth in 720p resulted in 4% CPU utilization even when dragging around the wobbly window.

I'll try the AccelDFS option (*sigh* Why have a separate document for EXA when XAA options are described in the radeon man page? Not exactly intuitive ). It would be cool to get this to work.

[NaterGator]

I just downloaded it... hmm.

Did you try:
wget http://www.nate-online.com/drm_and_radeon.tar.gz

[karthikrg]

hey thanx. i tried.. link doesnt seem 2 be working. can u please check it?

[NaterGator]

This includes git clones from about 10 minutes ago of the mesa/drm and video-ati projects.

http://www.nate-online.com/drm_and_radeon.tar.gz

-----Nate