Re: hardware acceleration, radeon driver 6.14 (unstable)
> From: Jim McCloskey <mcclosk@ucsc.edu>
> Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 11:33:15 PM
> Subject: Re: hardware acceleration, radeon driver 6.14 (unstable)
>
> * Dave Witbrodt (dawitbro@sbcglobal.net) wrote:
>
> |> >But when I run glxgears, it reports 60 frames per second, which isn't
>exactly the
> |> >level of performance that I had been hoping for. And given that, it's
>hardly
> |> >surprising that applications like Google Earth are unusable.
> |>
> |> The 'glxgears' program is not a benchmark. There is a feature
> |> in the radeon driver (vline) which limits the 'glxgears' maximum
> |> frame rate to your monitor's refresh rate. Try a benchmark
> |> program, or a game that displays the current frame rate (such as
> |> 'torcs'), to get a better idea of the performance of the driver
> |> on your system.
>
> Thank you very much indeed; this is very helpful. I understood that glxgears
>was
> not regarded as a reliable benchmark, but the number I was getting (60FPS or
> thereabouts) seemed low enough that it probably indicated that something was
> amiss. Since then I've been trying various 3D applications to see how things
> stood. The results have been mixed. Some (compiz-fusion, stellarium,
> extremetuxracer) have no problems; others (Google Earth, foobillard) freeze
>the X
> server a few seconds after startup (not the laptop itself, though; it remains
> possible to ssh in from elsewhere in the home network).
The Google Earth problem may have nothing to do with the radeon support on your
machine. A lot of other software is in the way in that particular case, and it
may target a non-accelerated rendering mechanism even though you have support
for
acceleration on your system.
The problem with freezes may be corrected upstream already. On my HD 5750, 3D-
intensive apps were causing freezes because the Evergreen support in the
kernel's
DRM needed a slight fix. The problem did not affect programs using classic Mesa
r600 ("r600c"), but the GPU lockups happened when I switched to Gallium3D
("r600g"). That fix came very recently: a DRM patch after kernel 2.6.37 was
released. It will be included with kernel 2.6.38.
> |> >Is there anyone who could give me some advice about what is missing
>here? Or
> |> >where would be a good place to ask?
> |>
> |> One good place is the Phoronix Forums. There are trolls and
> |> flame wars there, but there are also knowledgeable people (with
> |> regard to Radeon hardware and drivers) who are very responsive.
> |> I do not participate there (yet) since I only toy with this
> |> stuff in my spare time, and have not (yet) been able to dive
> |> into it seriously.
>
> Do the developers read those forums? Something I've been unsure about it is
>whether
> or not it would make sense to file a bug-report. The only 3D applications I
>care
> about at all are compiz and Google Earth, and I can live happily without
>either of
> them. I'm exploring all of this mostly out of curiosity and a
>desire/willingness to
> help with testing, reporting etc.
In general, I would always assume that developers do not read a particular
forum; in
this case, however, I know for a fact that all of the most important names in
open
radeon driver development do read (and participate) in the Phoronix Forums.
Re bug reports: technically, if you have a bug you should file a bug report.
In this case, I think that the Debian packaging team (X Strike Force) will not
be
able to solve your problems, but will be able to track the problem until you can
report it to be fixed. For you to do this would not solve your immediate
problems,
but would be practicing good Debian citizenship.
You could also file a bug report upstream: both Mesa and the radeon driver have
their bug tracking system (they use Bugzilla) at freedesktop.org. Of course,
the
first things they will ask you will be to try compiling a new kernel, new Mesa,
and new radeon drivers from their git repositories. If that's more than you are
willing/able to do, my advice would be to wait until kernel 2.6.38 appears in
Debian. I think the Evergreen freezes will go away for you once you can get
that
kernel (which isn't released yet, but hit RC6 status yesterday and should
release
in roughly 3 weeks), and the combination of xserver-xorg-video-radeon 6.14 and
Mesa 7.11 (whenever that is released) will give you some good performance (for
open drivers).
Dave W.
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