How to setup the ATI Radeon X1050 graphics card in Linux

The ATI Radeon X1050 graphics card is really the ATI Radeon X550, aka RV370 or Sapphire X550 Silent.

Programs to install

Recommended/Required

• Mesa 3D, with video_cards_radeon support
  • Mesa 3D Homepage
• xf86-video-ati
  • xf86-video-ati Homepage
• libdri

Optional

• glxgears
• glxinfo
• xdpyinfo
• GL O.B.S
  • http://globs.sourceforge.net/

Recompile Linux kernel

Some of these features may be enabled by default.

• cd /usr/src/linux
• make menuconfig

  Processor type and features --->

  [*] MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support

  Bus options (PCI etc.) --->

  [*] PCI Express support

  Device Drivers --->

  -*- I2C support --->

  Graphics support --->

  -*- /dev/agpgart (AGP Support) ---> (enable even if your card is PCIe)

  Set what ever chipset your motherboard is.

  <*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI su...

  <*> ATI Radeon

• make all
• make modules_install
• make install

X.org configuration

Edit

• /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Add the following

Section "Module"
	Load  "glx"
	Load  "extmod" #miscellaneous extensions module
	Load  "xtrap"
	Load  "record"
	Load  "dbe" # Double buffer extension
	Load  "dri" 
EndSection

Section "DRI"
	Mode	0660
EndSection


Section "Device"
	Driver      "radeon"
	
	Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
	 # XAA/EXA
	Option "AccelDFS"    "1"
	 # 1/0 On for PCIE, off for AGP
	 # Manpage: Use  or  don't  use accelerated EXA DownloadFromScreen hook
	 # when possible.
	Option "GARTSize" "64"
	 # 0-64 Megabytes of gart (system) memory used.
	 # Wrongly defaults to 8MB sometimes, see your logfile.
	 # Bigger seems better.
	Option "EnablePageFlip" "1"
	 # 1/0 Increases 3D performance substantially
	 # seemingly in XAA mode only
	Option "ColorTiling" "1"
	 # 1/0 Increases 3D performance substantially
	 # affected stability only positively on my system
	Option "RenderAccel" "True"
	Option "Backingstore" "True"
EndSection

# add the following if you use a composite window manage
Section "Extensions"
		Option        "Composite"        "Enable"
EndSection

Distribution Specific

This is for specific changes needed to be done for a specific distribution. Make sure to follow the general instructions as well

Gentoo

• Recompile kernel as described above
• Edit: /etc/make.conf
  • Add USE flag
    • video_cards_radeon
  • Add VIDEO_CARDS variable
    • VIDEO_CARDS="vesa radeon"
      • its a good idea to always add vesa as a backup
• Install programs
  • emerge mesa libdri xf86-video-ati
• Recompile xorg-server
  • emerge—deep xorg-server
• Update world, may not be necessary, but a good idea
  • emerge—update—deep—newuse world
• Edit xorg.conf as described above
• Reboot computer

Debuging

Xorg crashes

• login as root
• Execute: X -configure
• Try the new config as root, as it will describe
• Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to exit Xorg
• compare new xorg.conf to old one and modify accordingly

General debugging

Benchmarking

• Benchmarking and testing opengl
  • Execute: glxgears
    • Output on a Pentium D, 1G DDR2
      • 9002 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1800.346 FPS
  • GL O.B.S.
    • Output on a Pentium D, 1G DDR2
      • GL_pointz 1.0 : 470.2 FPS
      • GL_shadow 1.0 : 289.4 FPS
      • GL_blit 1.0 : 678.2 FPS
      • GL_blit_ext 1.0 : 676.2 FPS
      • GL_smoke 1.0 : 477.8 FPS

Check to see if DRI is enabled

• Execute: glxinfo |grep direct
  • Output: direct rendering: Yes

Check what extensions are enabled in Xorg

• xdpyinfo
  • It will show you if Composite, GLX, XFree86-DRI, etc is enabled

Check log files for problems

• /var/log/Xorg.0.log

  and

• Execute: dmesg

References

• http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon - DRI support for Radeon cards
• man:radeon