xf86-video-ati 6.9.0 Released

[steefjeqv]

To install the driver with Ubuntu:

## Install common build tools like gcc
sudo apt-get -y install build-essential
## Install dependencies to build the driver
sudo apt-get -y build-dep xserver-xorg-video-ati
## Remove current ati driver
sudo apt-get -y purge xserver-xorg-video-ati
## Download the newest driver
wget http://ftp.x.org/pub/individual/driv...-6.9.0.tar.bz2
## Extract the driver archive
tar xvjf xf86-video-ati-6.9.0.tar.bz2
## Go to the drivers' directory
cd xf86-video-ati/
## Configure the drivers' makefiles
./configure --prefix=/usr
## Build the driver
make
## Install the driver
sudo make install

I hope it will help you or someone else.

Thanks, works like a charm on Ubuntu Studio 64 bit with a Sapphire X550.

Greetings,
Steven

[panda84]

Install ati 6.9.0 in Fedora

How to install latest driver in Fedora.

The procedure is quite simple:
- go to this page:

http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=95

- click on the most up-to-date release for your version (e.g. for Fedora 9 is 6.8.0-18.fc9, for Fedora 8 is 6.8.0-4.fc8)
- in the next page click on the "Download" link appropriate for your architecture (i386, x86_64, ppc and so on)
- open up /etc/X11/xorg.conf in a text editor as root
- add the following line in ?Section "Device"?

Option	"AccelMethod" "EXA"

- reboot or restart X
- if you want to be sure of the success take a look at Xorg.0.log, there should be some lines like these:

(II) EXA(0): Driver registered support for the following operations:
(II)         Solid
(II)         Copy
(II)         Composite (RENDER acceleration)
(II)         UploadToScreen
(II)         DownloadFromScreen

Bye,
Diego


NOTE: 6.8.0-18.fc9 is really close to 6.9.0 according to the changelog:

* Thu Jun 26 2008 Dave Airlie <[email protected]> 6.8.0-18
- update to latest git 6.8.192 beta

[d2kx]

Alex/agd5f,

are there any plans to make EXA the default in future xf86-video-ati releases?

[Vighy]

Ah ok. got it. looks like you start with 1024x768 and then you switch to another larger mode. I suspect your app uses some mechanism that doesn't update the size after a mode switch. Does full screen work ok at 1024x768?

Ehm no... it takes all the screen but part of the movie fall off of the screen... as if the resolution was bigger (exactly the opposite that happens at lager modes)

just run:
By the way, it smells like X11 video output to me.
Could you try running mplayer with the -vo (video output) option, or setting the equivalent options in gmplayer?

You card supports both overlay and textured video.
xvinfo will show you the available adapters. you have to specify which port you want to use in your video app. some video apps will take the first one by default which is the overlay.

I use Xv. What does Xv stand for? TexturedVideo or VideoOverlay?
xvinfo tells me I have both (as expected) but selectin them is just a matter of picking up X11 or Xv?

[bridgman]

Vighy, Xv is just a way of passing video information to the driver in a "less processed" form so that the driver and GPU can do more of the work. Xv can be implemented using either video overlay or textured video. I don't know for sure what Xv stands for, but I bet it's "X video"

In fglrx only one Xv port is exposed, and x.conf / amdpcsdb settings determine whether that Xv port uses overlay or textured video. In radeon multiple Xv ports are exposed - one using overlay and a bunch using textured video - and the player app determines which port to use (typically based on input from the user).

X11 is a different way of passing video data to the driver, and OpenGL is yet another way of passing video data to the driver. There are more ways, but you get the idea.

D2kx, I saw this question come up before. I believe agd5f's answer at the time was that since a 1.5-ish server was needed to get great EXA performance it probably wouldn't make sense to default to EXA until a newer X server was already being used on most systems. Now that 6.9 is out my guess is that you'll see EXA become the default in git pretty soon.

[Vighy]

Vighy, Xv is just a way of passing video information to the driver in a "less processed" form so that the driver and GPU can do more of the work. Xv can be implemented using either video overlay or textured video. I don't know for sure what Xv stands for, but I bet it's "X video"

In fglrx only one Xv port is exposed, and x.conf / amdpcsdb settings determine whether that Xv port uses overlay or textured video. In radeon multiple Xv ports are exposed - one using overlay and a bunch using textured video - and the player app determines which port to use (typically based on input from the user).

X11 is a different way of passing video data to the driver, and OpenGL is yet another way of passing video data to the driver. There are more ways, but you get the idea.

Yep, I always get an idea when you write... that's why I would like you to answer me here

Btw now I understood the port mechanism and told to mplayer to use TexturedVideo. This is confirmed by the ability to take a screenshot of it with gimp XD. http://vighy.altervista.org/videoStrangeFullScreen.png (again you need to paste it in the address bar of the browser to open it. edit: strange altervista behaviour.. you can just click and see the screenshot!)

But the problem still remains and now you can have an idea of how it looks! (as already told, using 1024x768 gives the opposte problem: some part of the movie falls off of the screen)

[agd5f]

Can you test with a movie app other than gmplayer? Like totem for example?

[panda84]

With 6.9.0 and EXA enabled I get way much better scrolling in Epiphany 2.22 and Konqueror 4.0.82 (almost KDE 4.1 beta 2) but not in Firefox 3 (or at least I cannot get the difference).
With both Epiphany and Konqueror Xorg CPU usage no longer goes 100% when scrolling a web page rapidly, now it sticks to 20%, maximum 30%.

Does anybody have a vague idea why?

[bridgman]

I don't know for sure, but I imagine the difference is simply that EXA adds some more useful acceleration capabilities so Ephiphany and Konqueror are using the GPU's 3D engine to do most of the work rather than relying on software/CPU.

[panda84]

I don't know for sure, but I imagine the difference is simply that EXA adds some more useful acceleration capabilities so Ephiphany and Konqueror are using the GPU's 3D engine to do most of the work rather than relying on software/CPU.

Thank you for the explanation! So I should probably blame on Firefox not being so integrated with Linux in general...