X graphics get a boost (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 7, 2006 21:18 UTC (Tue) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: X graphics get a boost (NewsForge) by mattdm
Parent article: X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

You can buy a new Radeon 9250 today that is fully supported with the solid open source R200 drivers. The newer R300 cards have a opensource driver that is in the current kernel and X.Org releases, and there are plenty of R300-based Radeon 9[5678]00-series cards to be found, even new.

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X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 7, 2006 21:29 UTC (Tue) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

Hmmm; the X11R7.0 docs still say "2D only" for the R300. Thanks for the pointer to the Radeon 9250, though (also not in the current docs...).

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 7, 2006 22:27 UTC (Tue) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link]

The R300 stuff is in development.

Can't say for sure, but possibly by the time that XGL is actually ready for the casual user, the R300 drivers could be stable and usable enough.

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 16, 2006 21:50 UTC (Thu) by anton (guest, #25547) [Link]

Thanks for the pointer to the Radeon 9250, though.

If you are interested in performance, make sure you get a version with a 128-bit memory interface. You don't see the 64-bit interface advertised much, but either on a Sapphire or a Club3D box I saw a button that said "128-bit" (and my Sapphire 9250 definitely has 128 bits, but they might also make the cheaper ones).

Radeon 9200 not well supported

Posted Feb 8, 2006 1:23 UTC (Wed) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027) [Link]

However, ATI Radeon 9200 in Apple Macintosh Mini does not work [even in 2D mode] under an accelerated driver from X.org today. Only fbdev works for sure. See https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3280 and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=178433 .

Radeon 9200 not well supported

Posted Feb 20, 2006 13:20 UTC (Mon) by daenzer (subscriber, #7050) [Link]

I doubt the former is Mac specific; there's a bunch of known regressions in the 6.9/7.0 radeon driver, they're being worked on but help is always welcome.

The latter is a driver-independent bug in XAA (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4456), which BTW still isn't fixed; the people in that Red Hat bug report were probably confused by a workaround for another XAA bug in GTK+ 2.8.12 which also happens to avoid this one.

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 8, 2006 3:54 UTC (Wed) by N0NB (subscriber, #3407) [Link]

I wish I could agree with this. Based on the nice 3D performance of the Radeon Mobility 7500 on my Thinkpad T42, I bought a 9250 based card for my desktop. The sad thing is that running a second OpenGL app locks the screen hard. If Xscreensaver runs an OpenGL saver it will run fine, if a second one is started the screen locks immediately and the CPU load may or may not skyrocket. Strangely, the mouse pointer will usually continue move but is ineffective.

I "fixed" the problem by removing the OpenGL Xcreensaver packages and haven't experienced lockups even though the DRM and DRI drivers are loaded. I am running Debian Sid with Xorg 6.9.0. Hopefully this will be addressed by the next release and I've added info to a relevant bug report on FreeDesktop.org, but so far have heard nothing.

The potential for support of this card is great enough that I've left it in the machine.

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 8, 2006 9:40 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

Actually reportedly the r300 driver works with r400-class cards too, ie. the architecture is quite similar. If that's true and r300 driver will get stable enough, there are plenty of cards out there. But it might be that the r300 driver maturing will take lots of time.

r500 is completely out of question, I wonder if we ever even see open source 2d drivers for that, even though ATI has always done those before, as r500 doesn't reportedly have a 2d part anymore at all (everything is done using the 3d core).

Anyway, there was a rumor that XGI would open up their drivers completely (currently 2D + tv-out which more official support than ATI or NVIDIA). As long it's a rumor, it doesn't matter, but if it does come true it would make an XGI card to be immediately on my buying list. XGI isn't as fast as the latest from ATI or NVIDIA, but it's not _too_ much behind (like Intel probably is). Probably the faster XGIs are somewhere between Radeon 9800 - X700. (R300-R400 series), which not too shabby.

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 8, 2006 14:36 UTC (Wed) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227) [Link]

"r500 is completely out of question, I wonder if we ever even see open source 2d drivers for that, even though ATI has always done those before, as r500 doesn't reportedly have a 2d part anymore at all (everything is done using the 3d core)."

That's why Xgl is so important.

All graphics cards within a few years are going to be dropping their 2D parts. At the very most they'll have some basic VGA compatibility for booting, and even that will be dropped after the new BIOS replacements are the norm.

Xgl, and more specifically Xegl, is what is going to allow people to continue using new hardware at full accelerated speed long after the 2D-enabled cards are relics.

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 8, 2006 19:04 UTC (Wed) by vmole (subscriber, #111) [Link]

Except that the vendors aren't going to release the specs for 3D API, so "fully accelerated speed" is just not going to happen. Neither is stable.

It's all great to be talking about reverse engineering them, but given that the r300 stuff still doesn't work reliablly after what, 3 years, I don't have much hope for that approach. Note that I'm not dissing the r300 developers, they've done some impressive work, but they've taken on a really hard task.

My only hope is that some vendor will decide that getting 90% of a small market is better than trying to battle Nvidia and ATI in the large market, adn be able to make it work. Go Traversal Go!

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 8, 2006 22:18 UTC (Wed) by Ed_L. (guest, #24287) [Link]

It's probably worth at least a note that Matrox has at least partial Open Source drivers for its G550 line of cards. I know, these are not exactly 3D barn-burners, and there is still a HAL. Nonetheless, if partial credit is to be given, Matrox at least deserves part of some. See here.

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 8, 2006 22:23 UTC (Wed) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

Yes, that card should also go in the big benchmark comparison testing I'd like to see. :)

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 9, 2006 11:58 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

Thanks for the URL. Now we need to make these a big seller, so that the graphics people get the clue that more FOSS==better. Then (affixes rose colored glasses) maybe even the wireless vendors will get onboard.

X graphics get a boost (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 9, 2006 13:16 UTC (Thu) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

I wouldn't get too excited. That chipset is over five years old -- see http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=1492. As far as I know, the G550 support is worse than that for the G450, and there's no 3d support for their newer "Parhelia" line, so they're basically trending away from open drivers. :(

(Plus, even the Parhelia cards get pretty low performance marks.)