ATI Radeon 9800 Pro & Linux driver support?

[ANTant]

Hello, I am debating if I should get a 9800 model or 9700 model. I
notice on http://www.ati.com/support/faq/linux.html#features ... 9800
isn't listed. Is anyone using 9800 in Linux? I have an old Red Hat
Linux 7.2 system with compiled Kernel 2.4.20. I am worry if I buy a
9800, then I won't have a display driver for 2D and 3D (yes, I play
games in Linux).

Thank you in advance.
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Twins." --unknown
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[Arto V. Viitanen]

ANTant> Hello, I am debating if I should get a 9800 model or 9700 model. I
ANTant> notice on http://www.ati.com/support/faq/linux.html#features
ANTant> ... 9800 isn't listed. Is anyone using 9800 in Linux? I have an old
ANTant> Red Hat Linux 7.2 system with compiled Kernel 2.4.20. I am worry if
ANTant> I buy a 9800, then I won't have a display driver for 2D and 3D (yes,
ANTant> I play games in Linux).

I have 9800Pro and it works fine on Linux, X and all. Ok, I have not tried
any games on it, but glxgears roll fine. I have Gentoo Linux, and it have a
package media-video/ati-drivers, that comes with drivers for X. The drivers
are fglrx, which is FireGL driver, but supports also normal cards.

There was some problems on installing the driver, until I noticed that there
can be no DRI or similar support compiled onto the kernel; the driver uses
its own means.

 

[Guest]

I have 9800Pro and it works fine on Linux, X and all. Ok, I have not tried
any games on it, but glxgears roll fine. I have Gentoo Linux, and it have a
package media-video/ati-drivers, that comes with drivers for X. The drivers
are fglrx, which is FireGL driver, but supports also normal cards.

What sort of framerate are you getting with glgears?

 

[ANTant]

ANTant> Hello, I am debating if I should get a 9800 model or 9700 model. I
ANTant> notice on http://www.ati.com/support/faq/linux.html#features
ANTant> ... 9800 isn't listed. Is anyone using 9800 in Linux? I have an old
ANTant> Red Hat Linux 7.2 system with compiled Kernel 2.4.20. I am worry if
ANTant> I buy a 9800, then I won't have a display driver for 2D and 3D (yes,
ANTant> I play games in Linux).

I have 9800Pro and it works fine on Linux, X and all. Ok, I have not tried
any games on it, but glxgears roll fine. I have Gentoo Linux, and it have a
package media-video/ati-drivers, that comes with drivers for X. The drivers
are fglrx, which is FireGL driver, but supports also normal cards.

There was some problems on installing the driver, until I noticed that there
can be no DRI or similar support compiled onto the kernel; the driver uses
its own means.

Is that what NVIDIA driver does too? Currently, I am using NVIDIA driver
for my slow GeForce4 Ti4200 video card.

What is glxgears? Is that a benchmark program?
--
"Lay a stick of bubble gum on an anthill for instant Siamese Ant
Twins." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
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[Ben Pope]

ANTant> Hello, I am debating if I should get a 9800 model or 9700
model. I ANTant> notice on
http://www.ati.com/support/faq/linux.html#features ANTant> ... 9800
isn't listed. Is anyone using 9800 in Linux? I have an old ANTant>
Red Hat Linux 7.2 system with compiled Kernel 2.4.20. I am worry if
ANTant> I buy a 9800, then I won't have a display driver for 2D and
3D (yes, ANTant> I play games in Linux).

I have 9800Pro and it works fine on Linux, X and all. Ok, I have not
tried any games on it, but glxgears roll fine. I have Gentoo Linux,
and it have a package media-video/ati-drivers, that comes with
drivers for X. The drivers are fglrx, which is FireGL driver, but
supports also normal cards.

Yep - also available from ATIs site.

There was some problems on installing the driver, until I noticed
that there can be no DRI or similar support compiled onto the kernel;
the driver uses its own means.

Indeed... DRM support in Kernel 2.4 is for Xfree86 4.1.x

Incidentally, the latest dev versions of Xree86, 4.3.99.8 onwards support
the R350 core in the radeon driver.

I've FUBAR'd my installaton though and can't fire up enlightenment 'cos
libXxf86vm is missing or something.

Ben

 

[Guest]

What is glxgears? Is that a benchmark program?

glgears is included with most modern distros, you run it from a
command prompt and while drawing the graphics it reports the
framerate. Its not great for benchmarking, but a framerate in the
several hundreds indicates 3D acceleration is working.

 

[Arto Viitanen]

What sort of framerate are you getting with glgears?

About 530 FPS with default resolution. When I maximize the window
(I use resolution 1600x1200), I get 29.2 FPS.

Arto Viitanen

 

[John-Paul Stewart]

About 530 FPS with default resolution. When I maximize the window
(I use resolution 1600x1200), I get 29.2 FPS.

Are those numbers from the standard glxgears (image of three rotating
gears) or from ATI's fgl_glxgears (image of three rotating gears on each
side of a rotating cube)? They seem awfully low numbers for the
standard glxgears.

 

[Guest]

Are those numbers from the standard glxgears (image of three rotating
gears) or from ATI's fgl_glxgears (image of three rotating gears on each
side of a rotating cube)? They seem awfully low numbers for the
standard glxgears.

I am new to the ATI world, and don't have Linux setup on my gaming
machine, so I can't test it, but 29fps doesn't sound right, I think
that is software rendering.

 

[John-Paul Stewart]

I am new to the ATI world, and don't have Linux setup on my gaming
machine, so I can't test it, but 29fps doesn't sound right, I think
that is software rendering.

530 FPS sounds about right for the fgl_glxgears test; it is vastly more
complex than the normal glxgears benchmark. I could believe 29 FPS
number for 1600x1200 resolution on a Radeon 9800, I guess.

FWIW, I'm running an ATI FireGL X1 256MB card. I get about 690 FPS from
fgl_glxgears in the default window or 320 FPS at 1280x1024 maximized
window. So at least the previous poster's 530 FPS number sounds
reasonable for his card under fgl_glxgears.

Using the "ordinary" glxgears I get over 4500 FPS in the default window,
dropping to 520 FPS full screen.

 

[ANTant]

Yep - also available from ATIs site.

Sweet. I wonder why ATI didn't mention 9800. I was very worried when
it didn't mention 9700.


I looked at my xf86config-4 file and I saw DRI remmed out due to NVIDIA's
driver. I guess it will be identical for ATI driver.

Indeed... DRM support in Kernel 2.4 is for Xfree86 4.1.x

I am still running 4.1.
--
"Lay a stick of bubble gum on an anthill for instant Siamese Ant
Twins." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[ANTant]

Sweet. I wonder why ATI didn't mention 9800. I was very worried when
it didn't mention 9700.

Errr, ... it didn't mention 9800. Too many model numbers!!
--
"Lay a stick of bubble gum on an anthill for instant Siamese Ant
Twins." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
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[Adam K Kirchhoff]

Sweet. I wonder why ATI didn't mention 9800. I was very worried when
it didn't mention 9700.

I looked at my xf86config-4 file and I saw DRI remmed out due to NVIDIA's
driver. I guess it will be identical for ATI driver.

It will not be. ATI uses the DRI so you need to have that module
loaded.

Adam

 

[ANTant]

ANTant> Hello, I am debating if I should get a 9800 model or 9700

It will not be. ATI uses the DRI so you need to have that module
loaded.

OK, thanks for the tip. I hope this goes well.
--
"Lay a stick of bubble gum on an anthill for instant Siamese Ant
Twins." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )

 

[Arto V. Viitanen]

John-Paul> spamtrap@localhost wrote:
John-Paul> Using the "ordinary" glxgears I get over 4500 FPS in the default
John-Paul> window, dropping to 520 FPS full screen.

I was wondering the same. I previously had NVidia Geforce 3, and it gave me
about 5000 FPS. So it might be, that since I installed the OpenGL using
gentoo packages, it game with some enhanced glxgears.

 

[John-Paul Stewart]

John-Paul> Using the "ordinary" glxgears I get over 4500 FPS in the default
John-Paul> window, dropping to 520 FPS full screen.

I was wondering the same. I previously had NVidia Geforce 3, and it gave me
about 5000 FPS. So it might be, that since I installed the OpenGL using
gentoo packages, it game with some enhanced glxgears.

Hmm...the standard glxgears is pretty different from ATI's
fgl_glxgears...the difference is immediately apparent on-screen.
Perhaps your low numbers are caused by using software rendering. What
is the output of 'glxinfo | grep renderer'?