Fglrx

ATI fglrx driver This is a binary-only driver for ATI graphic chips with support for 3D acceleration. Availability / Project Homepage Home page: https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=356 Packages The ATI drivers have explicit permission for repackaging and redistribution of the Linux drivers. Many distributions are supported within the installer, and many more repackaged by external developers. Please visit the Distribution Page at the Unofficial ATI driver Wiki Debian packages: http://xoomer.virgilio.it/flavio.stanchina/debian/fglrx-installer.html These packages have been added to Debian unstable as fglrx-driver, so you can now apt-get them and use module-assistant to install. If you are on stable sarge with backport's kernel 2.6.15, download ATI's installer, let it build Debian packages and proceed as usual. There's a detailed description available. SUSE packages: ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/supplementary/X/ATI/ Gentoo # emerge x11-drivers/ati-drivers Fedora packages: http://rpm.livna.org For stock Fedora kernels: # yum install kernel-module-fglrx-$(uname -r) ati-fglrx Creating and installing a custom RPM for a custom-compiled kernel on Fedora: # yum install ati-fglrx # VER=8.20.8.1-0.lvn.1.4 # copy version string from output of above command # wget http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/4/i386/SRPMS.lvn/ati-fglrx-$VER.src.rpm # rpmbuild --rebuild --target $(uname -m) --define "ksrc /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build" --without userland ati-fglrx-$VER.src.rpm # rpm -Uvh --replacepkgs /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/$(uname -m)/kernel-module-fglrx-$(uname -r)-$VER.$(uname -m).rpm Arch Linux # pacman -S ati-fglrx (kernel module for 2.6.15-ARCH) # pacman -S ati-fglrx-archck (kernel module for 2.6.15-archck) # pacman -S ati-fglrx-utils (xorg7 stuff and tools) Building for Xorg 7.0 To compile for Xorg 7.0.0, fake Xorg 6.9.0 by # export X_VERSION=x690; sh ati-driver-installer-8.24.8-x86.run Next, one needs to move the various resulting libraries and modules from /usr/X11R6 to /usr/lib/xorg In /usr/src/ATI additional sources are installed for fireglcontrol and fgl_glxgears Status Current version: 8.24.8 (13th April 2006) Major changes: 8.24.8: support for X1300, X1400, X1600, X1800 (generic and mobility) and 3D accelerated video playback on Avivo 8.23.7: support for X850 and X800, OpenGL 2.0 Enhancement, FSAA for some chips 8.22.5: added kernel 2.6.15 support -- patch no longer required 8.21.7: initial OpenGL 2.0 support 8.20.8: fixed resume issues, fixed compile problems with kernels 2.6.13 and 2.6.14 8.19.10: has added suspend / resume and dynamic GPU power management support. Using vbetool is no longer required (tested and successful with T43p). Known problems and solutions See Problems with fglrx. User experience Speed How much is the speed gain versus the opensource drivers? Compared to the old drivers, approximately 40% speed gain have been noticed with fglrx. However, there are issues with freezing/garbage after suspend, garbage when resizing desktop (via ctrlaltplus, ctrlaltminus), and garbage while using VMware. The current 8.14.13 has shown 400% improvement over using the open source radeon driver: 1200 FPS for glxgears1! NOTE! Video overlay acceleration may be disabled when 3D acceleration is enabled. The following comment from the xorg.conf file bundled with the fglrx driver indicates that: # === OpenGL Overlay === # Note: When OpenGL Overlay is enabled, Video Overlay # will be disabled automatically Option "OpenGLOverlay" "1" However, you can use either regular Xv video overlay or make the video an opengl texture and let the OpenGL engine scale your video. This has nothing to do with the acceleration of 2D drawing primitives. Further, your mileage on performance may vary depending on what card you have. The open source drivers don't support newer cards, while the ATI drivers don't support older cards. Power saving Power saving is much better than with the radeon driver, but doesn't work in dual-screen configuration (see How to make use of Graphics Chips Power Management features). Useful links ATI Linux Driver FAQ ATI Radeon Linux How-To Rage3D Linux Discussion Forum Radeon Driver Forum at Driverheaven Gentoo ATI Radeon FAQ Gentoo T42 ATI. DRI + xorg driver Unofficial community ATI bugzilla - tracks bugs in the driver. Might be monitored by ATI ([1], [2]). Installing Version 8.24.8 in Ubuntu for X1*00 support. ThinkPads that may be supported Supported chips, as found in select IBM ThinkPads: ATI Mobility FireGL 9000 T40p ATI Mobility FireGL T2 R50p T41p, T42p ATI Mobility FireGL V3200 T43p ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 R50, R51 T40, T41, T42 ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 T42 ATI Mobility Radeon X300 R52 T43 Z60m ATI Mobility Radeon Xpress 200M R51e ATI Mobility Radeon X600 Z60m FOOTNOTES [Δ] Note that glxgears isn't a benchmark tool, it's so simple that its FPS values is without any meaning... you can only compare glxgears using the same drivers/machine, if you change any of then you can have higher/lower values and in real life programs/games happen to have the opposite effects. Think in terms of a car engines rpms: higher rpms in the same car usually means a faster car, change anything and it's meaningless, ie: gears, truck, wheel size, etc. make it useless.