[opensuse] Sluggish Text Drawing Via ATI Video Card On 11.1 (Unlike 10.0)
Hi, One lingering issue with my new 11.1 installation is the sluggishness with which text is drawn in Konsole windows. The same hardware running 10.0 and the SuSE-supplied video driver exhibited virtually instantaneous drawing of text pages in Konsole and very rapid scrolling. I am now running the ATI / AMD proprietary driver, but a big reason I installed it was this very symptom under the openSUSE-supplied driver, which I incorrectly believed would be rectified by the proprietary driver. Can anyone shed any light on this? Ideally, suggest a fix? Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Randall R Schulz wrote:
Hi,
One lingering issue with my new 11.1 installation is the sluggishness with which text is drawn in Konsole windows. The same hardware running 10.0 and the SuSE-supplied video driver exhibited virtually instantaneous drawing of text pages in Konsole and very rapid scrolling.
I am now running the ATI / AMD proprietary driver, but a big reason I installed it was this very symptom under the openSUSE-supplied driver, which I incorrectly believed would be rectified by the proprietary driver.
Can anyone shed any light on this? Ideally, suggest a fix?
Randall Schulz
Randall, See my recent post on ATI performance issues. The last good ATI driver was 8-9, however with 11.1, you cannot install anything older than the 8-12 driver. If I were you, I would grab the brand new 9-1 driver and see what it is like on 11.1. I haven't played with 11.1 lately so I don't know what the driver situation is there aside from the fact that the 8-12 driver has broken 3D acceleration. This issues isn't just screen slowness, I have noticed my entire system is bogged down by the recent ATI drivers with apps taking 50% longer to open and all display tasks being very sluggish. I just tried the 9-1 driver tonight and again went back to 8-9, If you don't use compiz, you can get away with running the radeon driver, which for 2d work is respectable. The question remains though, Why the crappy performance out of every ATI Linux driver release since 8-10? As mentioned, I have submitted trouble tickets with ATI for every release since 8-9. Maybe if more of us did it, we would get some help with the issue. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Monday February 2 2009, David C. Rankin wrote:
Randall R Schulz wrote:
Hi,
One lingering issue with my new 11.1 installation is the sluggishness with which text is drawn in Konsole windows. The same hardware running 10.0 and the SuSE-supplied video driver exhibited virtually instantaneous drawing of text pages in Konsole and very rapid scrolling.
I am now running the ATI / AMD proprietary driver, but a big reason I installed it was this very symptom under the openSUSE-supplied driver, which I incorrectly believed would be rectified by the proprietary driver.
Randall Schulz
Randall,
See my recent post on ATI performance issues. The last good ATI driver was 8-9, however with 11.1, you cannot install anything older than the 8-12 driver. If I were you, I would grab the brand new 9-1 driver and see what it is like on 11.1. I haven't played with 11.1 lately so I don't know what the driver situation is there aside from the fact that the 8-12 driver has broken 3D acceleration.
The driver I'm running is from the ATI / AMD repository (http://www2.ati.com/suse/11.1/) and the full version string is "8.561_2.6.27.7_9.1-1.1". Is that the 9.1 driver you refer to? It kind of looks like it is.
This issues isn't just screen slowness, I have noticed my entire system is bogged down by the recent ATI drivers with apps taking 50% longer to open and all display tasks being very sluggish. I just tried the 9-1 driver tonight and again went back to 8-9,
I've noticed what I think is a diffuse set of symptoms of drawing slowness of one sort or another. But in Konsole, where I spend a lot of time, is the most blatant and in sharp contrast to the performance I witnessed in SuSE Linux 10.0.
If you don't use compiz, you can get away with running the radeon driver, which for 2d work is respectable.
Actually, I removed the compiz packages in an attempt to recover good performance, since I don't use its capabilities, but it made not difference. Is the Radeon driver in the standard distribution? The only packages
The question remains though, Why the crappy performance out of every ATI Linux driver release since 8-10? As mentioned, I have submitted trouble tickets with ATI for every release since 8-9. Maybe if more of us did it, we would get some help with the issue.
It is perplexing an disappointing. Does Novell's Bugzilla have a voting system? If so, I'll vote for you tickets if you point me to them. Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Randall R Schulz wrote:
On Monday February 2 2009, David C. Rankin wrote:
Randall R Schulz wrote:
The driver I'm running is from the ATI / AMD repository (http://www2.ati.com/suse/11.1/) and the full version string is "8.561_2.6.27.7_9.1-1.1". Is that the 9.1 driver you refer to? It kind of looks like it is.
No, 8.561 is the 8-12 driver with the know broken 3D issue. If you want 9-1, (which is the 8.573-1 version) you need to download the package installer. The link to the driver download is: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver... The download is the same for i586 and x86_64. I have a quick step by step howto at: http://www.3111skyline.com/download/linux/ati/ati_quick-reference That is just a text file that contains the information. The install takes about 10 minutes. (the driver download takes longer for me 82M) After you build the driver with: ati-driver-installer-9-1-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg SuSE/SUSE111-AMD64 (or SuSE/SUSE111-IA32 for 32-bit), it will produce an openSuSE rpm like this: fglrx64_7_1_0_SUSE110-8.573-1.x86_64.rpm I have a script that will automate the rest of the install http://www.3111skyline.com/download/linux/ati/atidrv-install It is no thing of beauty, not a publish product, but it gets the job done. Just be in runlevel 3 (it will prompt you) and MAKE SURE YOU GIVE THE FULL PATH TO THE RPM. I don't know why, but rpm chokes unless it gets the full path like: ./atidrv-install /home/david/linux/ati-compiz/rpms/fglrx64_7_1_0_SUSE110-8.573-1.x86_64.rpm and not ./atidrv-install ../rpms/fglrx64_7_1_0_SUSE110-8.573-1.x86_64.rpm I know it shouldn't make any difference, but it does??? You can read through the script easily and see what it does. (basically just removes any existing fglrx driver, does a prep of the kernel source, then installs the rpm which has a post-install script that compiles the kernel module against the source) If you install from the ATI package DISABLE THE ATI REPOSITORY IN YAST OR ZYPPER. Otherwise you will pull the 8-12 driver back in on every update and there is no way to deselect the older driver from being installed in yast.
Actually, I removed the compiz packages in an attempt to recover good performance, since I don't use its capabilities, but it made not difference.
Is the Radeon driver in the standard distribution? The only packages
The radeon driver is part of the openSuSE release and in 11.1 Beta5 testing a change was made to install the radeon driver by default for ATI cards instead of that God Awful frame-buffer driver. In you xorg.conf, the only difference is changing the Driver line from 'fglrx' to 'radeon' and rmmod the fglrx driver and modprobe the radeon driver and then do a depmod -a so the radeon driver is loaded at boot.
The question remains though, Why the crappy performance out of every ATI Linux driver release since 8-10? As mentioned, I have submitted trouble tickets with ATI for every release since 8-9. Maybe if more of us did it, we would get some help with the issue.
It is perplexing an disappointing. Does Novell's Bugzilla have a voting system? If so, I'll vote for you tickets if you point me to them.
I don't think so. Some of the helpful folks on the list scoff and belittle you for filing against the fglrx driver. However, we have had several bugs related to the driver worked thanks to Stefan. Any more, they just close all ATI driver bugs as 'INVA' and then belittle you for filing them to begin with. Give the 9-1 driver a try, it should have corrected the broken 3D stuff for 11.1. However, on 11.0 I still see the system slowness that was introduced last October and hasn't been fixed yet. If I was running 11.1 for a working machine, I'd seriously check the difference between the radeon and fglrx driver and I'd probably end up running the radeon driver if the normal day to day tasks were quicker. You not using compiz, and is long as your not a big gamer, the radeon driver is great. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Monday 02 February 2009 08:45:36 am Randall R Schulz wrote: ...
It is perplexing an disappointing. Does Novell's Bugzilla have a voting system? If so, I'll vote for you tickets if you point me to them.
It is ATI bug tracker, or whatever they use. I remeber bug report where Stefan Dirsch announced that they would not handle bugs for proprietary ATI drivers, and recently he asked for volunteer maintainer for fglrx driver on opensuse-factory mail list: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2009-01/msg00459.html -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Monday February 2 2009, David C. Rankin wrote:
Randall R Schulz wrote:
On Monday February 2 2009, David C. Rankin wrote:
Randall R Schulz wrote:
The driver I'm running is from the ATI / AMD repository (http://www2.ati.com/suse/11.1/) and the full version string is "8.561_2.6.27.7_9.1-1.1". Is that the 9.1 driver you refer to? It kind of looks like it is.
How come "9.1" occurs in the package name but 8.12 does not yet this is the 8.12 driver?
No, 8.561 is the 8-12 driver with the know broken 3D issue. If you want 9-1, (which is the 8.573-1 version) you need to download the package installer. The link to the driver download is:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati -driver-installer-9-1-x86.x86_64.run
...
I've already built the driver, but held off using it in the hope that ATI / AMD would release openSUSE 11.1 versions, and a few days after I built it, they did and I used theirs.
I know it shouldn't make any difference, but it does??? You can read through the script easily and see what it does. (basically just removes any existing fglrx driver, does a prep of the kernel source, then installs the rpm which has a post-install script that compiles the kernel module against the source)
If you install from the ATI package DISABLE THE ATI REPOSITORY IN YAST OR ZYPPER. Otherwise you will pull the 8-12 driver back in on every update and there is no way to deselect the older driver from being installed in yast.
...
Is the Radeon driver in the standard distribution? The only packages
I was going to list packages found by searching in YaST for "radeon" but I guess I got distracted and didn't finish doing so.
The radeon driver is part of the openSuSE release ...
So the driver that was in use before I configured the ATI / AMD repository (which did 3D) is the "radeon" driver you refer to? The reason I installed the ATI / AMD driver was the poor text drawing that got this whole thread started.
The question remains though, Why the crappy performance out of every ATI Linux driver release since 8-10? ...
It is perplexing an disappointing. Does Novell's Bugzilla have a voting system? If so, I'll vote for you tickets if you point me to them.
I don't think so. ...
Give the 9-1 driver a try, it should have corrected the broken 3D stuff for 11.1. However, on 11.0 I still see the system slowness that was introduced last October and hasn't been fixed yet. ...
3D isn't a big deal for me. I have a faster machine with a much better 3D card (an nVidia) that I use for 3D apps. The slow text drawing in Konsole is pretty annoying though—that's what I'd like to rectify. Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tuesday February 3 2009, Randall R Schulz wrote:
...
I've already built the driver, but held off using it in the hope that ATI / AMD would release openSUSE 11.1 versions, and a few days after I built it, they did and I used theirs.
...
Actually, I see it was the 8-12 driver I built. The download page now has the 9-1 driver. The download available in early January when I retrieved it was: ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Ysgrifennodd Randall R Schulz:
Actually, I see it was the 8-12 driver I built. The download page now has the 9-1 driver. The download available in early January when I retrieved it was:
ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run
Randall Schulz
Hmm. Just tried that on my openSUSE 10.3 AMD64 box. It's better, but glxgears still only gives me c250FPS. Annoying. Cheers Peter -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Randall R Schulz wrote:
The radeon driver is part of the openSuSE release ...
So the driver that was in use before I configured the ATI / AMD repository (which did 3D) is the "radeon" driver you refer to? The reason I installed the ATI / AMD driver was the poor text drawing that got this whole thread started.
No, my bet is you had the frame buffer device installed by default. (fbdev) You should have got the radeon driver, but the complete fix may not have been put in place. See "Resolved" 11.1B5 Bug: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=445549 <quote> This issues should be of highest priority for 11.1 along with making sure that the "radeon" driver is set by default for ATI cards. </quote>
3D isn't a big deal for me. I have a faster machine with a much better 3D card (an nVidia) that I use for 3D apps. The slow text drawing in Konsole is pretty annoying though—that's what I'd like to rectify.
The radeon driver should be flawless there. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tuesday February 3 2009, David C. Rankin wrote:
Randall R Schulz wrote:
The radeon driver is part of the openSuSE release ...
So the driver that was in use before I configured the ATI / AMD repository (which did 3D) is the "radeon" driver you refer to? The reason I installed the ATI / AMD driver was the poor text drawing that got this whole thread started.
No, my bet is you had the frame buffer device installed by default. (fbdev) You should have got the radeon driver, but the complete fix may not have been put in place. See "Resolved" 11.1B5 Bug:
??? Does the "fbdev" driver support 3D? 'Cause the driver installed by default when I installed openSUSE 11.1 did 3D. And that originally installed driver still had the sluggish text drawing in Konsole.
...
3D isn't a big deal for me. I have a faster machine with a much better 3D card (an nVidia) that I use for 3D apps. The slow text drawing in Konsole is pretty annoying though—that's what I'd like to rectify.
The radeon driver should be flawless there.
I'm still uncertain how to go about how to switch from the current driver (from the ATI / AMD on-line repository for openSUSE 11.1) to this "radeon" driver. Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Randall R Schulz wrote:
On Tuesday February 3 2009, David C. Rankin wrote:
Randall R Schulz wrote:
The radeon driver is part of the openSuSE release ... So the driver that was in use before I configured the ATI / AMD repository (which did 3D) is the "radeon" driver you refer to? The reason I installed the ATI / AMD driver was the poor text drawing that got this whole thread started. No, my bet is you had the frame buffer device installed by default. (fbdev) You should have got the radeon driver, but the complete fix may not have been put in place. See "Resolved" 11.1B5 Bug:
??? Does the "fbdev" driver support 3D? 'Cause the driver installed by default when I installed openSUSE 11.1 did 3D. And that originally installed driver still had the sluggish text drawing in Konsole.
...
3D isn't a big deal for me. I have a faster machine with a much better 3D card (an nVidia) that I use for 3D apps. The slow text drawing in Konsole is pretty annoying though—that's what I'd like to rectify. The radeon driver should be flawless there.
I'm still uncertain how to go about how to switch from the current driver (from the ATI / AMD on-line repository for openSUSE 11.1) to this "radeon" driver.
Randall Schulz
That's straight forward, All you need to do is run sax2 with: sax2 -r -m 0=radeon Or if that gives you problems, you should be able to simply edit your xorg.conf and replace whatever you have in the 'Driver' statement for your card with radeon and then rmmod whatever you had and then modprobe the radeon driver and then give a depmod -a. I can't recall, but there seems there was once I didn't have the radeon.ko module on my system by default, but it was simple to get and it's been a long time since then. Just check with locate: [00:37 alchemy:/usr/src/packages/SPECS] # locate radeon.ko /lib/modules/2.6.25.20-0.1-default/kernel/drivers/char/drm/radeon.ko -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (4)
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David C. Rankin -
Peter Bradley -
Rajko M. -
Randall R Schulz