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Hi all,

I got a new monitor which runs at 1440x900. I have an
ati 1650 pro card but was using the vesa driver which
wouldn't run 1440x900, so I decided to attempt to get
the ati driver.
I got ati-driver-installer-7-11-x86.x86_64.run, I think
from the ati website. It can be run two ways, one way
it just automatically installs the drivers and updates
your xorg.conf. I tried this, it worked, sort of. I
could run at 1440x900 at 24 depth. The problem is, it
would freeze up on a few things, calc (from oo) and when
the screen saver kicked in.
The ati driver installer can also create packages which
will install the drivers. I tried this, installed the drivers
and when I started X I just get a blank screen.
So finally, I looked through the directory where all the
drivers are, noticed there was an ati driver. Hmm. I went in
modified my xorg.conf to use the ati driver. Now everything
works, no freezes.
So, I guess my question is, has anyone found a better way
to run a widescreen monitor with an ati 1650 or a similar
card? And, has anyone gotten the drivers to work which
are installed with the ati installer? Sorry for rambling.

Julien

Hello Julien,

> So finally, I looked through the directory where all the
> drivers are, noticed there was an ati driver. Hmm. I went in
> modified my xorg.conf to use the ati driver. Now everything
> works, no freezes.

The driver provided by ATI is "fglrx". The "ati" driver is part
of x.org. It is a wrapper for the various x.org drivers which
support ATI hardware. See ati(4) for more information.

> So, I guess my question is, has anyone found a better way
> to run a widescreen monitor with an ati 1650 or a similar
> card? And, has anyone gotten the drivers to work which
> are installed with the ati installer? Sorry for rambling.

I've had very bad luck with the ATI supplied drivers. Aside from the
lockups they don't seem to support software suspend nor more recent
versions of the x.org server. The x.org "ati" driver works well on
supported hardware.

Hope that helps,

Tom

Julien Mills wrote :

> So, I guess my question is, has anyone found a better way
> to run a widescreen monitor with an ati 1650 or a similar
> card?

No, but the driver comes with program 'aticonfig' which can create a new
/etc/X11/xorg.conf for you. Try 'aticonfig --help' to see the options,
aticonfig made a fine configuration for my dual-head setup.
--
Thomas O.

This area is designed to become quite warm during normal operation.

Julien Mills wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I got a new monitor which runs at 1440x900. I have an
> ati 1650 pro card but was using the vesa driver which
> wouldn't run 1440x900, so I decided to attempt to get
> the ati driver.

Do you need accelerated openGL for games or compiz? If not then use the free
driver "ati", not the "fglrx" one.

If the ati driver from their website does not work properly with your card
you might want to try an earlier version of that driver. They are pretty
flakey sometimes with their drivers.

Whether you use the "ati" driver or the "fglrx" driver is dependant on the
Driver option in the Section "Device"

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Graphics Adapter"
Driver "fglrx"

What resolution X runs at is dependant on what it is told in the Screen
Section and some other factors (like drivers, modelines, display).

i.e. the line that says
Modes "1440x900"

########### NON Widescreen

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "ATI Graphics Adapter"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24

#Option "backingstore"

Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0 # initial origin if mode is smaller than desktop
# Virtual 1280 1024
EndSubsection
EndSection

########### Widescreen

Section "Screen"
....
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1440x900" ...
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection

For more information google for xorg.conf widescreen
First link from that is
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Widescr...lutions_(WSXGA)

Richard James

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:08:34 +1000, Richard James wrote:

> Julien Mills wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I got a new monitor which runs at 1440x900. I have an ati 1650 pro
>> card but was using the vesa driver which wouldn't run 1440x900, so I
>> decided to attempt to get the ati driver.
>
> Do you need accelerated openGL for games or compiz? If not then use the
> free driver "ati", not the "fglrx" one.

Thanks everyone for the replies, I'm using the free ati driver, can't get
fglrx to work with issues.

Julien

Le Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:00:15 +0000, Julien Mills a écritÂ*:

>> Do you need accelerated openGL for games or compiz? If not then use the
>> free driver "ati", not the "fglrx" one.
>
> Thanks everyone for the replies, I'm using the free ati driver, can't
> get fglrx to work with issues.

Hi, I'm using the "ati" drivers (the xorg one) and I use some option to
enable a good accelaration :

1/ glxgears without DRI ~200fps
2/ with DRI enable ~900fps
3/ with Option "AGPMode" "4" ~1100fps
4/ with Option "EnablePageFlip" "on" > 2180fps
5/ others options are good by default or crash my X (APGFastWrite just
freeze X and/or input devices)

All that to say : read the man ! read the man ! read the man ! Your
driver have a man page (man radeon for me, with radeon9100 card), so read
it.

I know "glxgears is not a bench", but imho it's a simply way to perform
acceleration and frag on enemy territory

do not forget : read the man !

--
aster, with a bigger than your (fps of course)

Julien Mills wrote:

> Thanks everyone for the replies, I'm using the free ati driver, can't get
> fglrx to work with issues.

Perhaps if you tell us more about these issues someone here might be able to
find a solution for you.

Richard James

On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:07:53 +0100, Jérôme Prior wrote:

> Hi, I'm using the "ati" drivers (the xorg one) and I use some option to
> enable a good accelaration :
>
> 1/ glxgears without DRI ~200fps
> 2/ with DRI enable ~900fps
> 3/ with Option "AGPMode" "4" ~1100fps 4/ with Option "EnablePageFlip"
> "on" > 2180fps 5/ others options are good by default or crash my X
> (APGFastWrite just freeze X and/or input devices)
>
> All that to say : read the man ! read the man ! read the man ! Your
> driver have a man page (man radeon for me, with radeon9100 card), so
> read it.
>
> I know "glxgears is not a bench", but imho it's a simply way to perform

Jerome, this is good, I'll look through some of the options, I'm
getting also ~200fps now, so I'll try some of your options, possibly
even read the man page.

Thanks