ATI 3D Graphics Slow w/X200M (ATI 8.40.4)

[jjcobm]

Hi everyone,

Well first I would like to say that I am really amazed that I found a linux distribution that fully supports my laptop and doesn't make wierd sound!!! I have tried everything from the newest ubuntu beta, to the opensuse that just came out, and right before i headed back to windows, Mint was the charm. (By the way it's is a toshiba Satellite M45-S169)

Well, the problem is my graphics card, an ATI X200M (yes i know....), is running 3D application very slow. While i tested other distros, i found PCLinuxOS ran my card fine with 3D applications (including beryl). I was able to play all the nice games and what not too...

But when i try to run 3D application (including beryl) with Mint, well, the games are really choppy. I even looked around the forum and saw that the best way to install the drivers would be using ENVY which after messing with things, i did a clean install again and went right to use envy and it installed the ATI properitary drivers (8.40.4).

And yes the mint IS using the flgrx drivers and composite disabled as you can see:

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies Inc RS400 [Radeon Xpress 200M]"
Driver "fglrx"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
BusID "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 28-64
VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "ATI Technologies Inc RS400 [Radeon Xpress 200M]"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection


After reading all the forums related to my card (most related to beryl), I am stumped because i cannot fix my card to run those nice games anymore!!

Regardless, this is what i found to be the distro that best worked with my laptop and there is no way i would switch to anything else.

Hope you guys can help and i appreciate your time.

[jjcobm]

oh and beryl doesn't work either (hope you guys figured).....

[Hornet]

I'd be interested in this one too, I have the same card. Upgrading the kernel to try to sort a bug in it blew away my graphics drivers, and now no matter what I try X won't go back to AIGLX mode, which is what it ought to be at for best performance with Fusion.

Tip: don't try the water plugin in FGLRX mode, whatever you do, it'll completely lock the computer up.

[Lolo Uila]

Okay, first of all just because your xorg.conf file says flgrx it does not mean that mint IS using it. If you have read some of the ATI threads you know this is the biggest issue with ATI. You put fglrx in the xorg file, and it still loads mesa.

So, to see if Mint is actually using fglrx, enter this in a terminal:

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fglrxinfo

The output should look someting like this:
tim@Mint-XPC:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Radeon X1950 Series
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6334 (8.34.8)

If you see the words Mesa, Tungsten or SGI in the output (or you get an error) you are not using the ATI driver.

If that works, then try this to see if direct rendering is working:

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glxinfo | grep direct

The output from this should be, direct rendering: Yes

If either (or both) of those do not produce the desired output, then try this:

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lsmod | grep fglrx

If that results in no output then the fglrx driver is not even loading.

This one will tell you what is loaded:

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glxinfo | grep vendor

Look here for troubleshooting tips:

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Troubleshooting

Aloha, Tim

[jjcobm]

I noticed you told me to run flgrxinfo just want to correct in case someone reads this thread that it should be fglrxinfo

Anyways, i ran that, turned out MESA was running...... so....

I followed the instruction on the FAQ you linked to, (well more like ran every command on there) and rebooted and now it definetly is using the fglrx driver and i now have 3D acceleration.

It would be nice if this bug could be fixed so that it installs the driver properly like some of the other ati cards i've seen.

Anywho, beryl doesn't seem to run yet, but i'm not too worried about it (any suggestions?). This is a great OS, i just gave a copy of the cd I had to a friend who is also new to linux, he liked it also and it got his ATI card & beryl running out of the box!

Thank you so much!

[Lolo Uila]

Sorry about the typo.

Your friend must be running an older ATI card that is supported by the default Linux open-source driver. That makes life a whole lot easier, but unfortunately the open-source driver only supports older cards. For the more recent flavors you need the closed-source ATI binary fglrx driver.

So... now that you have the ATI fglrx driver working you have found the 2nd issue with ATI & Linux. The ATI fglrx driver does not support composite extensions which are used by Beryl (& Compiz). Are we having fun yet?

This issue can be solved with some more software and a bit more tweaking. In order to run Beryl or Compiz with the ATI fglrx driver you need to run your desk environment under an "Xgl" session. To do that you need to install Xgl and create a new login session. You also need to upgrade or downgrade your version of Beryl becuase the version included with Mint/Ubuntu is not compatible with Xgl.

I started to type up a guide, but it's taking longer than I had anticipated. I'm at work now and don't know if I'll have time to finish it today. I'll try and get something posted either tonight or tomorrow.

[jbaerbock]

What I did is ran envy twice. On first attempt it did not work, then on second attempt it did. So either do that or use Celena's restricted driver manager to install drivers. Note that with the 200M it still will not utilize the card to full capacity but you will get something at least.

[Lolo Uila]

So you finally got the infamous "fglrx" ATI binary driver working and now you want to impress your friends with some Beryl 3D desktop action. But what's this? Beryl still doesn't work you say.... Okay, to get Beryl running with the fglrx driver you need to do a few more things.

• You need to install Xgl.
  You need to create a script to start Xgl & GNOME.
  You need to create the login screen entry that uses the script.
  You need to either upgrade or downgrade Beryl to an Xgl compatible version.

This is a quick-n-dirty guide since I'm at work and can't devote my full attention to it. It assumes you are running an Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 based distro (Mint Cassandra or Celena) and the GNOME desk environment. With minor tweaks to the scripts it will work with KDE/XFce, etc. If you'd rather run Compiz or Compiz-Fusion this also applies.

Installing Xgl is simple enough. Open a terminal, and...

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sudo apt-get install xserver-xgl

Adding an X session to your login screen is a two-step process. First we'll create a startup script that invokes the Xgl session and our desktop environment. Then we'll create the login screen entry that uses our script. Open/create the file with the sudo gedit command and paste the code following the command into the file then save it.

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sudo gedit /usr/local/bin/startxgl.sh

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#!/bin/sh
Xgl -fullscreen :1 -ac -br -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:pbuffer &
sleep 4
export DISPLAY=:1
cookie="$(xauth -i nextract - :0 | cut -d ' ' -f 9)"
xauth -i add :1 . "$cookie"
exec /etc/X11/Xsession gnome-session

Now let's make that script executable:

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sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/startxgl.sh

Now for the login screen entry:

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sudo mkdir -p /etc/X11/sessions
sudo gedit /etc/X11/sessions/xgl.desktop

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[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Xgl for Beryl/Compiz
Exec=/usr/local/bin/startxgl.sh
Icon=
Type=Application

So now you're ready to run Beryl, right? Not quite yet... you see the version of Beryl included with Mint/Ubuntu (0.2.1) is not compatible with Xgl. Most guides tell you to downgrade your version of Beryl to 0.2.0, but I upgraded to the last SVN/git build (0.3.0) and it's working well for me.

To upgrade Beryl to the latest SVN/git build you need to add some repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

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sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

For 32 bit x86 add this to the end of sources.list:

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# Treviño’s Ubuntu Feisty EyeCandy Repository (GPG key: 81836EBF)
# Many eyecandy 3D apps: Beryl, Compiz, Fusion, AWN and kiba-dock
# built using latest available (working) sources from git/svn/cvs...
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy

For 64 bit (AMD 64) add this instead:

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# Treviño’s Ubuntu Feisty EyeCandy Repository (GPG key: 81836EBF)
# Many eyecandy 3D apps: Beryl, Compiz, Fusion, AWN and kiba-dock
# built by jbs using latest available (working) sources from git/svn/cvs...
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy-amd64
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy-amd64

Now get the validation key for the new repos and update apt:

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KEY=81836EBF; gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv $KEY && gpg --export --armor $KEY | sudo apt-key add -

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sudo apt-get update

How you upgrade Beryl depends on which Mint you are running, and how updated it is...

If you are running Cassandra (or Celena) with the Ubuntu Auto-Update manager installed and you are current on updates you can do a sudo apt-get upgrade. If you are running Celena and not updating (or only doing "safe" udates with MintUpdate) then your best bet is to use Synaptic and just do the Beryl & Emerald updates.

Now you can restart. When you get to the login screen there should be a new "Xgl for Beryl/Compiz" entry under Session. Select that and login. You will be asked if you want to make this the default login. That's up to you. If you're going to run Beryl most of the time go ahead and make it the default (you can always change it again later by selecting a different session). Your Gnome desktop should start up now. There may be some odd graphics while it loads (my old ATI card looked like a screen full of static), but that should clear up when the desktop loads.

If all went well you should be at your Gnome desktop with everything looking as it did before. So now you should be running GNOME in an Xgl session with Beryl ugraded to 0.3.0, and that means we are finally ready to have some fun! You can either enter beryl-manager in a terminal, or run it from the Mint menu and Beryl should launch. The red Beryl gem should now be in your system notification area. Right-click on that and select Beryl as your window manager. Now hold Alt+Ctrl and left-click and drag the mouse on your desktop background and the Beryl Cube should start spinning. You can also launch the Beryl Settings Manager from the Beryl gem menu and play around with features & settings.

One note on the Beryl SVN/git 0.3.0 build. The Beryl Benchmark plugin seems to be broken. Trying to use that will crash Beryl and fall back to the GNOME Metacity window manager (it does on my system anyway). Everything else works great, and the new Beryl screensaver plugin is pretty cool.

Note that the above repos are the same for Compiz-Fusion; so you could also get rid of the older Compiz & Beryl that are included with Mint/Ubuntu and install the latest Compiz-Fusion (for Compiz-Fusion you may need to use KEY=DD800CD9 in the validation key request). I'm personally using Beryl 0.3.0 because I tried Compiz-Fusion and to me it seemed less polished and not as user friendly as Beryl.

Anyway... I hope I didn't make any serious typos here. Give this a try and let me know how it goes. If anything gets messed up you can restart and login to the non-Xgl session and you'll be back to where you were before all this.

Aloha, Tim

[jbaerbock]

Since my graphics card isn't utilized to its full capacity yet because of crappy drivers I can't really play too much with beryl so I prefer the simple metacity.

[Lolo Uila]

And what card is that?

[jbaerbock]

ATI Xpress 200M with 128MB RAM.

Tried running some games with it that are more graphic intense and they don't do so well. Compared to in windows being able to run WoW easily.

[Lolo Uila]

Are you running the ATI "fglrx" driver? The Xpress 200 series only has 2D support in the default Linux driver, but should work well with the fglrx driver.

The tricky part is getting the driver loaded. As the starter of this thread found out, sometimes installing the driver is not enough. That trouble-shooting link I posted will help you with that if it's not working right after the install. Once fglrx is working Beryl should run fine.

I have Beryl running on an old Radeon64 card (identified as a 64MB Radeon 7200) and it runs well. Your Xpress 200 should be MUCH faster than that old R64.

Aloha, Tim

[Lolo Uila]

Here's a little script that will start Beryl only when Xgl is running. That way if you want to log in to a normal (non-Xgl) session Beryl won't try to launch.

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sudo gedit /usr/local/bin/start_beryl.sh

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#!/bin/bash
#
# Start beryl-manager within Xgl+Gnome-session
#
if (( `ps -A -o comm | grep -c '^Xgl$'` == "1" )); then
	DISPLAY=:1 beryl-manager
#	DISPLAY=:1 beryl-xgl	#if it doesn't work, try uncommenting this line
else echo "${0}: Error: Beryl not launched. Xgl not running?"
fi

Make the script executable:

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sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/start_beryl.sh

and run the script from your session startup.

• Control Center - Sessions - New:
  Name: Beryl (w/Xgl)
  Command: /usr/local/bin/start_beryl.sh

Or, for Compiz-Fusion:

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sudo gedit /usr/local/bin/start_compiz.sh

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#!/bin/bash
#
# Start Compiz Fusion within Xgl+Gnome session
#
if (( `ps -A -o comm | grep -c '^Xgl$'` == "1" )); then
	DISPLAY=:1 compiz --replace -c emerald &	#with Emerald
#	DISPLAY=:1 compiz --replace  &			#without Emerald
else echo "${0}: Error: Compiz not launched. Xgl not running?"
fi

Make the script executable:

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sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/start_compiz.sh

and run the script from your session startup.

• Control Center - Sessions - New:
  Name: Compiz-Fusion (w/Xgl)
  Command: /usr/local/bin/start_compiz.sh

Aloha, Tim

[jbaerbock]

Yes I am using fglrx, and when doing fglrx info it gives me the correct info. When using more basic 3D intensive games it works fine (such as planet penguin racer) but when I get into something more graphic heavy such as WoW through wine or compiz fusion it slows down (in the WoW case to be unusable). Compiz Fusion will run but it is very laggy performance to the point that I rather use default wm.

[jjcobm]

jbaerbock

I just noticed you are from mankato too. I am going to MSU currently. That's too funny.

By the way, the 200M i got it to work on my laptop i just had to use the nice instructions posted here. I'm not too sure about the VMWARE WoW though.... Maybe an issue with virtual machines?

And I appreciate all the help from TIM, I haven't been able to find too much information on the 200M ATI card and he just about covered everything to get it up and running the right way.

Good info tim, and thanks!

[jbaerbock]

Wow linux user in Mankato COOL! If ya ever get bored and wanna throw a linux party lemme know . What's your major?

I am testing out Ubuntu 7.10 as I type this so we'll see if it functions better with my ATI like it is supposed to (according to the kernel and drivers). Obviously I'll fling back to Mint once Daryana is released, I just like playing with current software. Oh and I was running WoW via wine not a vmware and it was giving me hassle (though was impressed I got it running in general). Also got Civ IV to run but it was very slow graphics wise, to the point where it was pointless to try playing.

[Lolo Uila]

I'm surprised you get poor performance in Beryl/Compiz. I honestly have never used an ATI X200, but I find it hard to believe it's slower than an old 7000 series.

jjcobm, have you gotten Beryl or Compiz running, and how is your performance?

Aloha, Tim

Edit: you also might want to try the last build of Beryl (0.3.0) because it runs faster than Compiz-Fusion.