Problems w/ATI Radeon 8500, 9500 & 9600 Video and Puppy 2.12

[MU]

*edit* my text was wrong

[Gn2]

Please read same zipped/pasted info (do other boxes exhibit similar failed CFG settings) ?

(WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:1) found

BTW >

(==) fglrx(0): NoDRI = NO

Above is NOT a failure - (denial of no from return seems to indicate value for fglrx_screen:0 (<-zero) = YES

Now Please NOTE > subsequent load failure reports:
(> DRM - consequence of DRI not enabled)

(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 *

Once needed support is OK - enable GLX extension options
as may be useable for (whatever) Xmms utility !

If unsure of which may be used - refer to ATI/Xmms Docs.

[MU]

I just will quote from one log, as they all resemble:

9500 and 9600 logs contain such similar lines for r300 and fglrx:

(WW) RADEON(0): [agp] AGP not available
(EE) RADEON(0): [agp] AGP failed to initialize. Disabling the DRI.

But agpgart is loaded:

drm 68324 1 radeon
agpgart 34608 1 drm

But I miss a line like on my system, the agp-module for a specific chipset:

intel_agp 22668 1
agpgart 34608 2 drm,intel_agp

Please do this:
install:
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/System_Utilities/scanpci.pup

Then run the scanpci-icon (or from the dotpupsmenu).
This opens leafpad with the results.
Please copy&paste them here (or attach it zipped).

This will help us to find out, why your AGP-chip was not detected.

Mark

[withasong]

Mark, here are the ScanPCI Reports for both the 9500 and 9600.

Since the two reports have some length, I'm attaching them within a PupZipped file (they are from Leafpad, pasted into AbiWord and saved as text files). Let me know if there's anything amiss (like you don't get two complete report files within the zipped-up file).

PS: PupZip always seems to show the first file two times (but maybe this is normal, since if I delete one, they both go -- but I haven't researched this in the forum to find out, since it's only a curiosity, not something I "must" know yet).

[MU]

it seems you have a agp-bridge by SIS on both computers, but it is not detected correctly.

Please modify with an editor the file

/etc/rc.d/rc.local

Add such a line in the end:

Code: Select all

modprobe sis_agp

Then reboot the computer, and type in a consolewindow:
lsmod

Now you should see such a line in the result:
sis_agp 8404 1

If that is the case, please zip and attach /var/log/Xorg.0.log again, if you still get no accelleration in the 3D-demo.

Mark

[withasong]

Mark, I think we've got success, since DRI is now finally active on both the 9500 and 9600 as long as I use the r300 or ATI-fglrx drivers in 3DCC! Your last suggestion about the rc.local file DID it!

With the 3D demo, while my 9600 card only reports 33.33 fps, my 9500 Pro reports 50 fps (just like my oldest ATI Radeon, the 8500-AIW). It's kind of odd, actually, that my newest ATI Radeon, the 9600, has the worst performing DRI demo.

There still are a few issues with the 9500's video though (the 9600, in great contrast, played smooth videos even when DRI was not active). The 2 drivers (r300 and ATI-fglrx) have quite different impacts on the 2 main video players I currently have in Puppy (gXine and MPlayer), now that DRI is active.

With r300 on the 9500:

• 1. In gXine, the "auto" driver gives a blank screen (I assume it's the "xv" driver, since another related screen shows "xv"). If I switch to "xshm", I can get pretty good video (but none of the other drivers within gXine seem to do anything, except "xshm" and the poor performing "x11").
  2. In MPlayer , the "xv" driver gives a blank screen ("xv" just won't work at all with anything it seems on my 9500 video card, even with DRI active). I've tried a variety of drivers listed as compatible with MPlayer (found in the list from "mplayer -vo help"), but not one of them works well with DVDs that I tried (however, the "gl" works well with avi's and mpg's, but it does "jerking freeze-frames" continuously throughout a DVD, which is certainly unacceptable DVD performance).

With ATI-fglrx on the 9500:

• 1. In gXine, the "auto" driver works great.
  2. In MPlayer , the "xv" driver gives a blank screen as before. The "gl2" works well with avi's, mpg's and DVDs, and since "gl2" seems better than basic "gl", this is a definite improvement since DVDs now seem smooth in MPlayer (as compared to what the r300 driver provided in the previous section). It's tricky to get MPlayer to work well with DVDs though, since an attempt to go full screen after the DVD has started will uniformly crash MPlayer and the process has to be killed from the Control Panel since all local control is lost within the program; however, if I go to full screen before starting the DVD, things go well.

Thus, the best Puppy main video driver for the 9500 seems to be the ATI-fglrx video driver, since only it works with "auto" in gXine and the improved "gl2" in MPlayer. (Mark, because of this, I hope you won't retire this driver too soon!)

NOTES ABOUT UNSUCCESSFUL DRIVERS: If I do the same procedures to the default 2.13beta2 video driver, I do not get DRI active. In the spirit of experimentation, I also tried installing the ATI-8.32.5 driver which I got from the Linux section of ATI, and though I applied the improved DRI within 3DCC and added the line to rc.local, I had neither DRI active nor anything to see in either video player's default settings (but I wanted to try it and now I know it didn't improve anything). I sure wish we could have gotten "xv" to work however (but it seems strangely incompatible with the 9500 Pro)!

If anyone needs any reports of any kind to help improve or verify performance, just let me know. In the future, will I need to repeat any of the steps we went through manually (such as editing the rc.local file), or will this be someday integrated into 3DCC or the basic Puppy video or initialization routine?

This has been quite an odyssey. I assume we've arrived at our goal in terms of video problems, unless anyone knows or thinks otherwise. I've got a LOT of issues with multisessions and remasters with which I'm having trouble getting assistance, but I'm glad video and sound seem to have been laid to rest with success. I sincerely appreciate all the kind assistance and dedication which all of you have given to me!

[MU]

this is great news.
For the finetuning of your DVD playback in mplayer, I have no idea at moment.

In the future, will I need to repeat any of the steps we went through manually (such as editing the rc.local file),

At moment, you must add it manually.

However, it would be better to find out, why Puppys Agp-bridge detection (a script a wrote myself) does not work on your system.

Please type:
findhostbridge

...ohoh... I see... It seems, Barry made changes in the folderstructure... I get:

Code: Select all

sh-3.00# findhostbridge 
ls: /lib/modules/2.6/char/agp/*.ko: No such file or directory

So my script cannot work.
I'll open a new post in the bugforum.

So please try this:
remove again the new line from /etc/rc.d/rc.local

Then edit the file /usr/sbin/findhostbridge

replace line 97:

Code: Select all

shell("ls /lib/modules/2.6/char/agp/*.ko>/tmp/findhostbridge.tmp")

with

Code: Select all

shell("ls /lib/modules/2.6/kernel/drivers/char/agp/*.ko>/tmp/findhostbridge.tmp")

Then to test it, type:
findhostbridge

It should return 1 line:
sis_agp

Now if you reboot, your chipset should be detected correctly too.

Mark
added bugreport:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 8456#88456

[tempestuous]

Good problem-solving, guys. The core of this problem has been the successful loading of the agp and sis-agp modules.
Now that you have solved this, let me make a suggestion: your experiments so far have gone from one extreme end of the graphics driver spectrum to the other ie. the generic vesa 2D driver versus the 3D drivers.

What about the correct (optimal) 2D driver? I suggest you try this with your 9500 card.

Do a fresh boot into Puppy 2.13. When fully booted you will probably be running the vesa driver because the agp modules did not load (you can look at /etc/X11/xorg.conf to confirm this. It will say "vesa", not "radeon"). It's quite easy to load the modules without modifying /etc/rc.local and rebooting, just do this -

modprobe agpgart
modprobe sis-agp

Now you can modify xorg.conf to replace "vesa" with "radeon". Then exit the X server with Ctrl<Alt>Backspace, then restart the Xserver with "xwin".
When X reloads you should be running the correct 2D driver, "radeon".

Now to the point of this exercise :- MPlayer and Gxine should both work well using their "xv" output option. Try it.
If the "xv" output works, don't install the additional 3D drivers unless you want to play games ... because once 3D is installed you won't be able to use "xv".

[withasong]

Mark, I think I must have some detail wrong. I set up a new 2.13beta2 disk on my 9500-based computer and I selected 1024x768x24 as my basic Puppy video setup at first bootup, so everything is fresh and with default settings.

I immediately located the file "findhostbridge" in Rox in the folder you indicated (but a click on it does not bring it up under Geany like other files do, so I right-clicked it and selected to open it as a text file, which worked just fine). I modified line 97 as indicated (which was to insert "kernel/drivers/" between "2.6/" and "char"), and then I saved the file and closed Geany. When I tested it (which I did immediately without rebooting, if I understood your instructions correctly), it gives me 9 error lines, each one repeating "ERROR: Module sis_agp is in use". If I reboot, I also get the same 9 error lines. This doesn't seem to exactly match what I read should happen in your posting (you said "It should return 1 line: sis_agp"). However...

If this is what should happen, I'm not sure what I should do as a next step. Should I install some of 3DCC's drivers (like #1 if I want to watch videos only, or #1 and #3 if I want to play games, or what? -- especially in light of the "either/or" situation tempestuous described in his post)?

If this is not what should have happened (the 9 errors), how should I do it again correctly (and what should I do in terms of other possible drivers after that)?

After I rebooted and got the 9 error lines the 2nd time, I did try MPlayer and gXine with Puppy's default video driver just to see what they might do, but neither played videos or DVDs (though sound was fine).

At the moment, I have a fresh booted copy of 2.13beta2 with the one modified line in "findhostbridge" and I have installed no other video drivers or changed any other configuration files (and after I tried the video players above, I did check the "findhostbridge" file and the line is still correctly modified as you indicated).

I need to know: Am I on the right track or the "other" track?

[MU]

if it is in use, it is already loaded?
Check that with "lsmod".
Do you get among others the line
sis_agp
?

Mark

[withasong]

Mark, yes, sis_agp is there in lsmod.

Sounds like everything's OK. What should I try next? 3DCC or...

[withasong]

Tempestuous, thanks for the information about the limitation on how to optimally use the video or 3D game drivers in Puppy (or is it Linux generally?).

I know there's no such basic limitation within Windows (wherein you can have the best video and the best gaming drivers running concurrently -- I hate it when Windows "seems" to be better). While I'm not necessarily a gamer myself, I do have friends who are gamers and some of the people with whom I want to share Puppy will want to both watch smooth videos and also play 3D games.

It seems you have to make up your mind and only go one direction optimally if you install Puppy on your hard disk if I understood what you are saying, tempestuous -- because you can't have it both ways in one Puppy installation (watch smooth videos and play high-performance 3D games too) -- but with multisession disks, you can have it both ways -- and that's cool!

Thanks for clearing up the distinction for me (alas!) and I'll not try to go both ways concurrently anymore (what a reflief, actually!) -- I'll just use 2 multisession disks optimized according to need. Thank you.

PS: Mark (or others), do you concur?

[MU]

you first could try, if a different video-output in mplayer or gxine works.

If not, continue with 3DCC.
On my system, I can use 3DCC to use fglrx or rxxx, I already often switched among both drivers for tests simply by re-installing them with 3DCC.

Tempestuous, thanks for the information about the limitation on how to optimally use the video on how to optimally use the video or 3D game drivers in Puppy (or is it Linux generally?).
I know there's no such basic limitation within Windows...

This is no general Linux-issue, only for your card (driver) I think.
On my system I use the r200 driver for gaming and video.

I have two games that crash, for them I start Puppy 108 with fglrx. On that Puppy too, I can watch videos.

The r300 driver for a long time was declared as "testing", so maybe that is the reason, that it has no optimal perforance with DVDs.
One thing you might try:
test the r200 driver.

My card is a Radeon 9250, the "best" driver is "r200". But it also works with "radeon".
Maybe your cards work with r200 too, and maybe better than with r300?
I would not count on that, but at least I would try it.

Mark

[withasong]

Thanks Mark for your impressions in your last post and I tend to agree with them. I think that "my card" (the 9500 in particular) is the limiting (or fussy) factor, since my other ATI Radeon cards did great video when I first booted-up Puppy in the past, and they still do great video now that the 3D demo shows DRI is active.

There's just something unique in the 9500 Pro (it's called "The Red Sapphire" among gaming enthusiastics and it was HIGHLY in demand at the time I bought it, and it's board is actually a blazing red -- it was a limited "special" series). The 9500 Pro 8X was optimized for games I think, and that may be why it performs so well in that genre, but for me to be trying to use it for other purposes, I may be at a slight cross purpose (actually). I'll bet the 9500 feels somewhat retired under my roof!

If I understand what I need to do to carry on now, I should make the indicated change to the "findhostbridge" file until I see that the change is there already (say when 2.13 is no longer in the beta stage or some time later). Other than that, I should use whatever drivers in 3DCC are needed for my purposes, based somewhat by which video card I am using. For myself, I use video-watching programs the most, but for friends and family, it varies greatly (and with this Puppy forum and this thread in particular, I feel better prepared).

We've got acceleration working on all three computers with ATI Radeon cards at this point. I will continue to try to get the 9500 to work with the "xv" driver that seems to work best in MPlayer, since the 9500 is in my livingroom computer and MPlayer is SO much easier and nicer to use than gXine. I think tempestuous has a good point, but the 9500 has never, ever worked with the "xv" driver no matter what basic video system I've used (vesa, ati-fglrx, r300, etc) -- not even one time, but I want to be wrong, since "xv" works SO well on my other computers. However, what works is what works, and "gl2" in MPlayer with ATI-fglrx on my 9500 seems to work better than anything else at this point (but I want to try the procedure tempestuous described too). I'm an experimenter and dabbler, so I will keep trying.

I hope this thread in the forum will be around for some time, not only for me but for others who have similar cards and woes as I have had. If troubles happen again, I'll be back.

Thanks to everybody (Mark, tempestuous, and Gn2) for all your help and enthusiasm!

[withasong]

Mark, I just wanted to update you on the procedure that I needed to go through in order to get DRI active again on a fresh new test disk with Puppy 2.13beta2 on my ATI Radeon 9500.

In my previous message, I said that all I thought I needed to do to get DRI active was modify the line in the "findhostbridge" file, however, after installing the 3DCC #1 and #2 (using ATI-fglrx), DRI was not active with just the "findhostbridge" file modified. I had to look back in our thread to see what else I had done that you suggested.

Here's what I had to do to get DRI active again on my 9500 (I'm repeating the steps for others who may need to follow the procedure here):

• 1. Edit the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local by left-clicking on it and add to the end of the file (that will automatically open) the line modprobe sis_agp and save the file
  2. Edit the file /usr/sbin/findhostbridge by right-clicking on it and selecting Open As Text. Modify line 97 so it reads as follows: shell("ls /lib/modules/2.6/kernel/drivers/char/agp/*.ko>/tmp/findhostbridge.tmp") and then save the file
  3. Activate 3DCC and install the appropriate drivers in the suggested order
  4. Reboot

Mark, you will note that I had to do step #1 above in addition to step #2 in order to get DRI active again on a freshly setup 2.13beta2 disk (and this is what is changed from my previous post's assumptions).

[tombh]

Just to explain how I got my Mobility Radeon 9000 to work:
Running Puppy 2.15CE

Firstly followed the standard procedure of the 3DCC v2. Installing the ATI-fglrx driver (which of course has its OWN OpenGL).

I then found that DRI was not active and the demo ran slow ~15 fps.

I then followed these steps taken by withasong...
1. Edit the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local by left-clicking on it and add to the end of the file (that will automatically open) the line modprobe sis_agp and save the file
2. Edit the file /usr/sbin/findhostbridge by right-clicking on it and selecting Open As Text. Modify line 97 so it reads as follows: shell("ls /lib/modules/2.6/kernel/drivers/char/agp/*.ko>/tmp/findhostbridge.tmp") and then save the file
3. Activate 3DCC and install the appropriate drivers in the suggested order
4. Reboot

This got DRI working but I STILL had a slow (~15fps) demo

I then followed Mu's advice (original thread here):

In the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file I changed -

Code: Select all

Section "ServerLayout"
   Identifier     "X.org Configured"
   Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0

to -

Code: Select all

Section "ServerLayout"
   Identifier     "X.org Configured"
   Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0 

After rebooting (just X I think it was) fps was 50! Hurray!

This is just the way I did it, I'm pretty sure both steps would have been needed, but I might be wrong - I haven't gone back and tested. But thanks for the help everyone.
Happy Days