Running Compiz-Fusion with an ATI card

[Gettinther]

This is intended to help correcting issues with ati cards.  If you don't have issues, then you don't need those.

All you need for running compiz in native mode is:
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "True"
Option "Composite" "Enable"

If you are using XGL, you don't need anything (the above options might even hinder the 3d)

Something from the Compiz site that deserves a prominent place on this forum (Thanks to Djdoo).  Some of these items might be difficult to implement so please inquire before trying if you are not sure.

Well, since AMD-ATI finally changed it's policy and gave us a usable 3D - AIGLX enabled new code base driver I decided to make a guide in order to help our new friends to make their ATI card AIGLX-Compiz Fusion capable!

First of all you must have installed FGLRX driver from version 8.42 and later... Be Careful! Numbers are now the same with windoze drivers!

Grab the latest one from synaptic (you can check your card prefered driver at http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html.  The synaptic driver is the exact same only preset for pclinuxos).

Let's start... Add the following options for each case:

Under Section "ServerLayout":
Option "AIGLX" "on"                                       ->Enables Xorg's AIGLX rendering technic

Under Section "Device":
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "True"         ->This one IS absolutely NEEDED! It shouldn't be missed!
Option "TexturedVideo" "True"                          ->New!! Plays accelerated video! Important!
Option "TexturedVideoSync" "True"                  -> Synchronizes Textured Video
Option "Textured2D" "True"                              ->Experimental! See Note 1...
Option "TexturedXrender" "True"                       ->Experimental! See Note 2...
Option "UseFastTLS" "2"                                  ->Sincerely I don't know what this one does but it is suggested by a lot of people...
Option "BackingStore" "True"                            ->Helps alot. See Note 3...
Option "MaxGARTSize" "000"                           ->For PCI-Express cards it sets the amount of VRAM to be allocated by the driver. "000"=Put your amount of VRAM here. See Note 4...

Under Section "Screen":
DefaultDepth 24

Under Section "DRI":
Mode 0666

Under Section "Extensions": ->See Note 5 for details...
Option "RENDER" "Enable"
Option "DAMAGE" "Enable"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
Option "XVideo" "Enable"


NOTES:

Note 1:
Textured2D option utilizes a new 2D acceleration mechanism of the driver which really boosts up 2D performance and behaviour! It also loads GLESX module. (I have seen a 9550 old Radeon easily overcome at 2D performance my X1250 with this option!)
Very important when works cause it solves the slow scrolling problem every ATI user faces when use Compiz-Fusion with AIGLX and fglrx driver. BE CAREFUL with that! It is a hidden option and it may NOT work with all ATI cards! If you cannot connect to X xerver or face strange colours just commend it out at xorg.conf or set it to "False" But Try it! Really worths checking!

Note 2:
TexturedXRender option gives the Textured2D mechanism the ability to use the advanced features that Xorg's RENDER extension provides and really make things even better for 2D visuals!

Note 3:
Backing Store option engages an Xorg's mechanism which stores graphics that have been rendered and so the card doesn't have to re-render the same things. BUT it can cause screen artifacts if you don't use Compiz-Fusion.

Note 4:
If there is a stupid driver in the graphics market this one is certainly fglrx...
I mean that at PCI Express cards the driver always allocates 256MB of VideoRAM at it's GART, no matter if the card has a different amount of VRAM!
I faced it myself, my card happens to have shared VRAM so I can choose the amount via BIOS settings. Whatever amount I set in BIOS fglrx would always allocate 256MB...
Until I used this option! So I set in BIOS 512MB and wrote the option like that:
Option "MaxGARTSize" "512"
And wow fglrx now is allocating 512MB! The strange thing was that Catalyst Control Center was reporting the correct amount of VRAM but fglrx was allocating 256MB before I used the option.
And believe me now the card works much better..! If you check your xorg.0.log file at the GART memory lines you will find the problem.

Note 5:
The first extension must be enabled to be used with the Textured options.
The 2 following ones are needed for getting Compiz-Fusion working.
The last one is used to enable XV video. (Video playback with Compiz-Fusion enabled is still a problem, at least for windowed mode).

Note 6:
If you want to have fast fullscreen 3D and good fullscreen video you must check the box at CompizConfigSettingsManager->General Options->Unredirect Fullscreen Windows But be careful cause in some 3D games your mouse pointer may stop function!! No problem in RACER, but pointer doesn't work in Sauerbraten and Neverball.

Note 7:
If you cannot startup Compiz and the output says no FBconfig setup this isn't going to work or something like that make sure you add this --no-libgl-fallback at startup command.
You can try using the following command to start Compiz
compiz --replace --ignore-desktop-hints --no-libgl-fallback --sm-disable ccp

[vampirefo]

Mine is running fine, but thought I would add the changes you posted, really don't see or feel any improvements.

1. note adding this sections kills my Xwindow unable to start, this is a bad option.

Section "DRI":
Mode 0666
EndSection

why, well under Section "Module" dri is already loaded so this just kills Xwindow.

before anyone makes any changes be sure one you know what you are doing, two make a back up of your current xorg.conf  call it xorg.conf.bak.

if xwindow wont load don't panic,
just log in root then type mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf  /etc/X11/xorg.conf1
then type mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak  /etc/X11/xorg.conf
then type startx

anyway check on the dri section excluding it should not be a problem.

[vampirefo]

After doing some more research, I was correct in saying.

  Section "DRI"
             Mode 0666
        EndSection

is of no use to me, this option is only for people who have more than one user, my setup is just root and one users, the above option simply allows every users to use direct-rendering.

however if only one user he/she is already allowed to use direct-rendering, so it confuses Xserver and Xserver wont start.

[Gettinther]

Thanks for the info Vampirefo.

At least I know why I didn't get the issue.  Good to know though.

[guepard5]

Hi guys,

just tried all these modifications on xorg.conf (except the dri one, and the 2D one that made the desktop so full of artifacts, had to reboot in safe mode to set it to false)

OK so first with drivers 8.1: no change, Compiz Fusion gives a never ending spinning cursor on the KDE splash screen

then on 7.11 (as I know that if 8.1 doesn't work, 7.12 most likely won't): so with 7.11 I got big improvement in speed for the 3D desktop animations (cube rotation etc...) in AIGLX, but unfortunately still the same issue  scrolling many window (especially web pages) at a very low speed. The 2D option mentioned was supposed to resolve that but I cannot use it, as I said it gives give an extremely corrupted desktop.

 Which means that once again I'll have to go back to 8.40 and XGL. Hoping 8.2 will work better on my system.

[BigBadWolf]

I just tried these (except the DRI) on my 1900XT card. While I noticed some of the 2D speed improved, I lost visibility on my KDE panel. It was there but it was white and I could see nothing. I'll play around more later. I am forced to use XGL mode or Compiz doesn't even load.

My main problem is watching videos. With Compiz activated, playing any video uses 30-40% of my CPU and resizing them just gobbles it up. Full screen is impossible to watch. With Compiz disabled, full screen videos use 2-5% of my CPU and is as smooth as silk.

[Gettinther]

Thanks for the info BigBadWolf.

I should have said that this is intended for troubleshooting / correcting issues with ati drivers (and everyone knows there are plenty of them).  I'll update the first message to make that clear.

[BigBadWolf]

Hey, you're offering info to help people... who can complain about that? Your efforts are genuinely appreciated.

It's just that there are so many issues and they are so varied with ATI that it seems impossible to nail a "general" solution for anyone setup. Before I put two months of updates on my machine, Beryl was kicking some serious arse. Smooth as silk. The updates did me in and I even had to revert to an old ATI driver to get Compiz to even load. Now it's sluggish and the love is slipping away.

[confuded]

I dont have almost all of these options in my xorg.conf... I have a X1150 in an Acer Ferrari laptop . Ati control center tells me its version 1.7 and driver version 8.44.3.

I try native support, i get a white cube. I try xgl, its painfuly slow... My previous drivers worked better .

I am sorry, but i am using a phone for web and cant upload any file. Any suggestions would be great .

Thanks.

P.S. Do you think i should make a new thread?

[Gettinther]

please open a new thread.

n the meantime, the 7.12 version or 8.1 version should work better for you and give you the option to use native rendering.

[Jack Daniels Esq]

Gettinther ....BR>Jack

http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=41435.0

[Txacoli]

For what it's worth, 8.10 driver works perfectly for me, while the other versions fail. After the 8.10 driver installed, I ran "aticonfig --initital -f", rebooted and everything worked out of the box, no need to modify the xorg.conf. I am very pleased with this, since the suspend function also works, and on other distros it didn't (with the exception of Dreamlinux), the comp freezes if I log out after waking up, but that's really a minor problem. So I am very happy with PCLOS. Truly great distro.

[T6]

hello and welcome to the forum

the 8.10 driver is quite old if i remember correctly

you could have problems with 3d or certain applications(google earth and similar), xorg after some versions stop supporting older versions of the drivers

this post is quite old and not all the information posted here is useful this days

the driver you use depends on the hardware you have, if your ati video card is still supported by ati you should use the latest driver

if there is a legacy driver for you card, it should be what you use but, if the video card you have is not supported by ati anymore you will have to use the xorg driver that better fits for it

that is my case, my old ati 9200 uses xorg option and all is perfect here with compiz

[Txacoli]

You are right, I do have a legacy card, so the newest version of the ATI Catalyst driver I can use is 9.3. But when I installed it, I couldn't even boot the computer. Every time it got to the gdm screen it rebooted. That's why I'm using an older driver, because it is the only version that works flawlessly. I just wanted to suggest to other users to try different version of the driver if they're having problems, because chances are one of the versions will work for them. Thanks and cheers!

[T6]

good point 

i remember many posts talking on workarounds when the ati driver doesn't want to cooperate with pclinux(most of those posts doesn't exist anymore, part of the old pclinux forum referring to pclinux 2007)

most times the suggestion was edit some setting in xorg, run the aticonfig in console or just avoid the use of ati driver on the repos and install the driver from ati website

i tried many times the installation of ati driver from the ati website, it always ended on the immediate insertion of the linux installation disk     

two years ago i tested the last viable driver for my video card available on pclinux, it worked perfectly, it enabled tv out on rca connector but killed compiz and gave me errors that made it unusable for my purposes

i'm not saying that you shouldn't try ati drivers but it is a risk, if you have the opportunity you could try it and get good results