ATI R200 Documentation Coming Too

[User0x45]

Hey Bridgman,

a couple of months is fine. I can get going on this r2xx when they finally do come out.

Do you have an R200-based system that isn't working ?

Yeah, I wrote about it here: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15028

Since posting, I haven't heard anything, or been asked any questions, so I'm kind of sitting tight. I'd love to work through it. Ultimately I could just add to the worlds E-waste...but you know I'm kind of persistant.

Thanks,

[bridgman]

Hmm. At first glance that doesn't look like anything docs would help with. The drm seems to be coming up ok, then the xord driver comes up ok and sets up drm ok but then gets that error message :

drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is 9, (OK)
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is 9, (OK)
drmGetBusid returned ''
(II) [drm] DRM interface version 1.0
(EE) [drm] Could not set DRM device bus ID.
(EE) RADEON(0): [dri] DRIScreenInit failed. Disabling DRI.

I wouldn't wait for docs; there's probably enough info in the code already to figure this out. If nobody has an idea here then maybe post to the xorg mailing list and see if someone can suggest a good first step for debugging this.

[Wyatt]

I think I've run into this problem twice before. As I recall, it has something to do with the different DRM implementations (Kernel, X.org and ATi each seem to have one... :/ ). Looking at my own setup, disabling CONFIG_DRM in .config and installing X.org's libdrm lets things work in relative harmony. Sorry if you've tried that already, but I figure it doesn't hurt to share tips anyway.

Cheers,
Wyatt

PS: Tried to just PM this, but that's disabled. Apologies for the slight derail.

[agd5f]

Hey Bridgman,

a couple of months is fine. I can get going on this r2xx when they finally do come out.Yeah, I wrote about it here: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15028

Since posting, I haven't heard anything, or been asked any questions, so I'm kind of sitting tight. I'd love to work through it. Ultimately I could just add to the worlds E-waste...but you know I'm kind of persistant.

Thanks,

I think it's an issue with the VIA agpgart driver. I don't think it's anything radeon docs would help with.

[User0x45]

Hi Wyatt,

disabling CONFIG_DRM in .config and installing X.org's libdrm lets things work in relative harmony. Sorry if you've tried that already, but I figure it doesn't hurt to share tips anyway.

No, I haven't tried this. Thanks, I'll try.

[kurukafa]

When we either find an editable copy (no luck yet) or have time to scan and OCR what we have back into something we can edit and release. Rough guess is a month before we have time to start work on it, maybe another month after that. Just guessing though... I was hoping an editable file would have turned up by now.

AFAIK everything covered by the document is already working in the R200 drivers, so there doesn't seem to be much to debug other than the usual AGP problems which we can't help with in our documents anyways -- most of the fixes really need to be in chipset drivers. Do you have an R200-based system that isn't working ?

Hi bridgman, any updates on this issue? Are we going to be able to develop for 9200 chipset without any obligations. ;-)

[bridgman]

Hi kurukafa; no update yet, probably next week before we get a chance to spend any time on this.

I just want to stress that all the programming info in the doc is already included in the current open source drivers, so this will not allow any more development or bug fixing. The R200 driver was written using this documentation, and the Xorg developers probably know the R200 better than we do these days. The sole purpose for releasing the doc is as an "interesting read" for someone who is just learning about GPUs.

The upside is that it might give a better understanding of how R200-class GPUs work, but the downside is that the understanding will be for a GPU which is now 5 generations old and which doesn't have much in common with currently shipping parts.

[kurukafa]

Hi kurukafa; no update yet, probably next week before we get a chance to spend any time on this.

I just want to stress that all the programming info in the doc is already included in the current open source drivers, so this will not allow any more development or bug fixing. The R200 driver was written using this documentation, and the Xorg developers probably know the R200 better than we do these days. The sole purpose for releasing the doc is as an "interesting read" for someone who is just learning about GPUs.

The upside is that it might give a better understanding of how R200-class GPUs work, but the downside is that the understanding will be for a GPU which is now 5 generations old and which doesn't have much in common with currently shipping parts.

Thanks for the update. I will still be waiting for the document, as it is not always fun to reverse engineer the open source driver. :-)

[tuxdriver]

Originally Posted by bridgman

...assuming they can *find* an R2xx these days

There are a lot of PCs still running (Linux) with old 9250,9200SE,9100 and 8500 cards.
You can even buy brand new 9200SE and 9250 cards in stores in some countries (shocking!)

They are still good enough to run Ubuntu with wobbly windows and other compositing effects

[leef]

Newegg still sells six 9250 cards. Only a year and a half ago, the r200 was the fastest 3D available for opensource linux. The r200s are generally silent (no fan) and low power.