# ati drivers

## falcon_za

I tried (again) to install the ati drivers on my laptop. I am not a big 3D user, but there are some nice stuff i'd like to use, like skippy-xd, or other stuff using the composite extension.

Emerging ati-drivers goes fine, but fglrxconfig just can't detect my board. I am not sure exactly what board I have, nor how to get linux to tell me. It's a 2 and a half year old radeon mobility. Is there any chance than I do something to help it find the board, or am i just out of luck

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## Raistlin

Hi,

what exactly do you mean by:

 *falcon_za wrote:*   

> but fglrxconfig just can't detect my board

 ?

 *falcon_za wrote:*   

> It's a 2 and a half year old radeon mobility. Is there any chance than I do something to help it find the board, or am i just out of luck

 

Please tell us what notebook you have (manufacturer, model etc.)

Cheers, R.

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## Anchialus

Well, I don't know how to help the drivers find your card information, but if you'd like it for your own information, the following should help:

First, run 

```
lspci -v
```

and look closely at the output.  One of them should say "VGA compatible controller" or something like that.  That should list your board's name, like it does mine:

```
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600] (prog-if 00 [VGA])

        Subsystem: PC Partner Limited: Unknown device 7c19

        ...
```

If it doesn't, and instead gives you vendor and system ids, you can look them up.  For example, when I run lspci -vn, I get

```
0000:01:00.0 Class 0300: 1002:4152

        Subsystem: 174b:7c19

        ...
```

right where my video card info used to be.  The 1002 is my vendor id, 4152 my device id, 174b is the subvendor id, 7c19 the subdevice id.

Then, by searching http://members.datafast.net.au/dft0802/downloads/pcidevs.txt for the various strings, I can find this out:

(this page is confusing at first, as they are all mixed together.  The first column is the type, V for vendor, D for device, O for subvendor, S for subdevice)

V	1002	ATI Technologies Inc                             

D	4152	Radeon 9600 XT (V350)                        

O	174B	Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT series           

S	7C19	Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT                    

Now you can visit the subvendor's website if you wish.  If that list doesn't have it, there are other sites with this kind of listing.

----------

## falcon_za

```
lspci -v
```

gives me

```

0000:01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon IGP 330M/340M/350M (prog-if 00 [VGA])

        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 002a

        Flags: bus master, stepping, fast Back2Back, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 10

        Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]

        I/O ports at 9000 [size=256]

        Memory at d0300000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]

        Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0

        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

```

the laptop is a compaq pressario 2100

When I say that the board can't be detected, I mean that after doing:

```

emerge ati-drivers

(....)

fglrxconfig

(... answer to a lot of questions ...)

```

the answer I get is:

```
Probing PCI bus for a supported graphics device...

unable to find any of the subsequent graphics boards:

         - ATI Radeon 8500 / 9100

         - ATI FireGL 8700 / 8800

         - ATI FireGL E1

         - ATI FireGL T2

         - ATI Radeon 9000

         - ATI Radeon 9200

         - ATI Radeon 9500

         - ATI Radeon 9600

         - ATI Radeon 9700

         - ATI Radeon 9800

         - ATI FireGL Z1 / X1 / X2

         - ATI FireGL V3100

         - ATI FireGL V5100

         - ATI FireGL V7100

         - ATI Mobility M9

         - ATI Mobility FireGL 9000

         - ATI Mobility M9PLUS

After starting X11, auto-detection will take place.

```

auto-detection equaly fails.

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## Raistlin

Try xorgconfig as an alternative and modify the xorg.conf afterwards

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## tuam

```
Probing PCI bus for a supported graphics device...

unable to find any of the subsequent graphics boards:

```

"IGP 3x0" does not really fit into these   :Question:  The ATI FAQ says you need a Radeon 8500 or higher for the driver. Maybe you should have a look at the alternatives.

http://www.ati.com/products/catalyst/linux.html

FF,

 Daniel

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## falcon_za

I always loved ATI and their way of not providing drivers for their hardware. A few years ago, it happened to a friend who bought one of the early "all in wonder" ATI board. The opengl drivers for windows were realesed half a year after he bought the board. We are not talking about linux, but mainstream windows. ATI's board may be fast, but the more it goes, the more I am disapointed with the overall experience. I think not having an ATI board will be one of the criteria next time I buy a computer.

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## milkman4

Hi falcon_za, I was wandering how far you got with this?  Did you succeed in getting hardware accelerated 3D?  I'm stuck with Software 3D at the moment.  Cheers.

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## falcon_za

I didn't try that much, so I am still stuck with crappy software rendering.

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## milkman4

Thanks for the reply.  It looks like we'll just have to sit and wait for now...  It's a shame really 'cause my laptop's about as good as my desktop is, if I could get the 3D working!

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