# Arrrrgh ATI Rage 128 pro

## Princess Firefly

I"ve been fiddling with this thing forever.  I'm glad there's a zillion posts about these cards under gentoo so I'm not alone, it's too bad none of the suggestiosn work for me though.  I have an ATI All-in-wonder 128 pro.  This uses the rage 128 pro chipset (r128.o drm module).

The computer locks up hard while I looking at mpegs using the smpeg plugin for xmms (as well as all the other video players I've tried) 

If I disable dri then it works fine (looks okay and doesn't lock up ever) but my framerate is about 100 fps using glxgears.  I can't play unreal, some stuff is choppy, etc.

If I enable dri with the xfree drivers I get 230 fps but videos are off colour and weird and it locks up after a few seconds.

If I enable dri using the gatos drivers I get a whopping 750-800fps and the video looks great, right up until it locks up the system.

My solutions is jsut not to use all the funness packed into my $400 video card and disable dri or move from gentoo back to something else.  I'm pretty attached to both...

What I can't figure out is why I'm having this problem only under gentoo... I've had the gatos drivers running on a RH 7.2 box and regular dri on a debian box with the same card no problem.   I think it must be more than a setting in the X config file... but I've tried everything I could find on this list.   

- I grabbed and compiled the lasted drm's fro the 2.4 kernel right off of xfree's site.  

- I've tried setting the agp mode to both 4 and 2 (I'm pretty sure my motherboard only has 2x AGP)

- I've tried no composite sync in the xfree file (wasn't recognized by x)

If anyone has any idea what's causing these problems and why (why only with gentoo?) please tell.  It seems like a lot of people are running into them, or something like them.   Below is part of my xfree86 log, my XF86Config  file, and glxinfo output. 

Thanks,

The Princess

Excerpt from XFree86.0.log:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> (II) Module int10: vendor="The XFree86 Project"
> 
> 	compiled for 4.2.0, module version = 1.0.0
> ...

 

XF86Config-4:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Section "ServerLayout"
> 
> 	Identifier     "XFree86 Configured"
> ...

 

glxinfo output:

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> name of display: :0.0
> 
> display: :0  screen: 0
> ...

 

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## ASCI Blue

I'm gonna take a wild stab at this and say to comment out DMPS under your monitor section. I'm currently in 'doze so I can't check mine against your's but I'm pretty sure that my DPMS either isn't there or commented out.

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## Princess Firefly

Hey, I commented it out and everything seems the same, still is off colour than freezes errrg.  It seems like a slight speedup with glxgears (~250fps)  though, but not enough to write home about.  What does dpms mean anyway?

Also, I meant to ask in my first post, has anyone gotten the gatos drivers working with the rage 128 chip under gentoo? (using smpeg).  It be nice to get them up and running as opposed to the standard X modules cause I want to do video capture/video out someday, not to mention the 800fps.  I think I've spent too many hours at this point trying to get them working unless there's at least one success story out there.

thanks,

The Princess

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## ASCI Blue

I haven't got a Rage 128, however I do have my Radeon working with (in theory) all the extras working. 

What I did was to download the newest Gatos since the emerge version is kinda old and crusty, I downloaded the DRM kernel module from the gatos site as well. Compiled, I think I rebooted and it ran fine.

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## rommel

glxgears

73680 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14736.000 FPS

73792 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14758.400 FPS

73799 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14759.800 FPS

73814 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14762.800 FPS

73808 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14761.600 FPS

73792 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14758.400 FPS

73684 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14736.800 FPS

73823 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14764.600 FPS

73710 frames in 5.0 seconds = 14742.000 FPS

in a word....GEFORCE

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## Princess Firefly

I tried the gatos drivers again, same problem.  Looks great, framerate is great, then it locks up.

Something curious though... root gets 900FPS and a regular user only gets 300.  I have DRI moded to 0666 (see Xconfig file above) and glxinfo says DRI is enabled for the regular user, I wonder why the framerate is less... any ideas?

Below is a step-by-step list of what I did this time, maybe I'm leaving out an important step.

- re-emerged xfree86, to ensure it was clean.

- downloaded and compiled drm-kernel module from gatos site

- drm didn't fully compile (stopped at i810 driver) but rage 128 stuff was done so I copied r128.o to usr/lib/modules/2.4.19-r1/kernel/drivers/char/drm  [the drm had other r128 stuff (r128_drv.o...)  but I just left it, it seemed to be the same was the stuff in the ati.2 file]

- backed up /usr/X11R6

- extracted the ATI-4.2.0.. file from the gatos site to /usr/X11R6

- added r128 to modules.autoload

- rebooted.

It seems to be using the gatos drivers for sure cause the video is way nicer and not discouloured (right up until it locks) like what happens with the standard X dri modules.

I don't know.  I really don't think it's the drm and X setup because I've done this stuff with other distributions (RH and debian) and had no problem.  It's gotta be something else gentoo does/has installed that's messing it up.  Maybe something with smpeg or ALSA... I don't know.

any other suggestions anyone?

Still a Sad Princess...

ps. buying a new video card isn't much of a solution, both geek-wise and cause I don't have the cash.  I love this card, it's the first time I've ever had any problems with it on any OS, what's up with gentoo and ati, sheesh.

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## rommel

i know i was being a smartass....but i have a radeon 128meg 8500 that is sitting on the desktop next to me cuz its totatlly unsupported ...just pisses me off that ATi doesnt make more of an effort to suport their products cross platform like well some other well known company...did you read over the dri site to see if there were any comments about the 810 chipset..i dont own anything with an intel chipset anymore but you might look there i remember them covering it.

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## leej

Adding to this - and some of you may have seen my post in the hardware forum last week - ATI Rage 128 Pro cards are simply a waste of time.  The more XFree advances, the worse the support for these cards get.

I've been using a Rage Fury Pro 32MB VIVO AGP card for two & a half years with Linux.  It was first properly supported (glx/dri) in XFree 4.0.3 - which I remember first using in Red Hat 7.1.  In Red Hat 7.2 (XFree 4.1.0), X started locking up now and then.  Usually when using Xine with the Xv driver.  When XFree 4.2.0 came out, the nightmare began.

The kernel-drm modules for the R128 weren't correct for the latest XFree release so you had to get them from an obscure page at the XFree site, recompile them and replace the r128.o file in the /lib/modules/... directory with your newly compiled one.

That at least got DRI working correctly.  However, you still have corruption issues with video and Xine will simply lock up the system when using acceleration (Xv driver).

So, you install Gatos.  Sadly, this isn't working properly either (for r128 pro cards), causing lockups even if you attempt to watch anything that uses the overlay (unaccelerated MPeG's for example).  The only way to rid yourself of Gatos is to umerge it and then - reemerge XFree, which takes forever.  Reemerging XFree is the only way to get it to rebuild the original r128 drivers, unless you were clever enough to back them up before you installed gatos (a caution is *badly* needed with that ebuild if you ask me).

TVOut has never worked under this card for me in Linux.  And believe me, I've spent two years trying.  I did get Video In working in GnomeMeeting some time ago.

Btw, GLX/DRI has *always* been dodgy on this card.  If/when you do get it working, try playing Tuxracer or GLTron 0.61.  The penguin graphic has *always* been corrupt in Tuxracer with the ATI R128 card.  The acceleration suddenly stopped working for GLTron when 0.61 arrived.  In 0.59, the frame rate was about 80fps.  With 0.61 it dropped to 0-1 fps!!  This is the same regardless of the XFree version you use.

Last week, I'd had enough.  I opted for a GEForce2 MX400 based card  (ABit Siluro T400) simply because NVidia actually distribute their own Linux drivers for all well known distributions and even Gentoo provide them in an ebuild.

*Never* have I had such good frame rates - nor such a stable Linux/X11 based system.  Even the TVOut works (and it's superior to ATI's because it doesn't alter the resolution on your monitor).  In Tuxracer I suddenly found out what the penguin is *supposed* to look like!  In GLTron, I get frame rates of 280fps!  Xine with Xv acceleration does *not* lock up.

Why on *earth* didn't I dump ATI years ago?

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## rommel

can we get amen in here brother...lol

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## Princess Firefly

 :Sad: 

I'm convinced for the next time I buy a video card to go nVidia, but I can't help but wonder why the support for the ati card is getting *worse*. 

What is happening that working code that allowed the card to use DRI with SDL and stuff before but now no longer works?  Seems like there must be some problems with the way the drivers are being written and maintained if developers need to rewrite drivers everytime X releases a new version or whatever... unless there's a major architectual change, it seems like support shouldn't get worse!

Does anyone know why that is the case?

Also, if anyone has gotten a Rage 128 pro card working I'd really like to know how.  I think I've given up until I get enough cash for a nVidia unless I hear it's at least possible.

xpfx

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## leej

FWIW, the only time I got my Rage Fury (128) Pro *satisfactorily* under XFree 4.2.0 was with Mandrake 8.2.  Although there was the occasional lockup when playing video with Xine and Xv, it was nowhere near as bad as with the other distros.  Obviously Mandrake know something everybody else doesn't.

RH7.3 was OK, but video acceleration is disabled for R128 cards by default (we obviously know why).  :Smile: 

The only distribution where I got everything (but TVOut of course!) working with the least problems, was with RH7.1 (XFree 4.0.3).

When I still had a R128 Pro card, I posted this to show how I got it working (see the second post on that page):

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=2815&highlight=rage+fury+pro

Do remember though that GL acceleration with this card has always been highly questionable anyway.  If the penguin has *never* been rendered properly in Tuxracer and GLTron died only on this card when version 0.61 came along, I really do wonder what problems are there that I never even realised about.  :Smile: 

Best regards

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## rob

i had issues with this card but everything works nicely with this configuration:

Section "Module"

        Load  "pex5"

        Load  "record"

        Load  "extmod"

        SubSection  "extmod"

                Option    "omit xfree86-dga"

        EndSubSection

        Load  "dbe"

        Load  "dri"

        Load  "glx"

        Load  "xie"

EndSection

Section "Device"

        Identifier  "Card0"

        Driver      "ati"

        Option      "AGPMode" "1"

        Option      "UseCCEFor2D" "false"

        VendorName  "ATI"

        BoardName   "Rage 128 RF"

        BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection

Section "Screen"

        Identifier "Screen0"

        Device     "Card0"

        Monitor    "Monitor0"

        DefaultDepth      16

        Subsection "Display"

                Depth       16

                Modes       "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        EndSubsection

EndSection

hope this helps.

-rob_

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## Princess Firefly

Disabling the dga extentions (the only difference in our config files I could see) made the video nice and ugly (It's cause SDL uses the dga extensions to work properly I think) and it seemed to not be locking up.  My heart lept but fell again when it locked up after a minute or so.\

I'd be interested in messing around with the drivers to try and fix the problem but I don't even know where to start.  Is it X? Is it SDL? the dga extenstion? smpeg? the gatos drivers?...

Thanks anyway,

the princess

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## Princess Firefly

DRI works now.  See THIS thread.

xpfx

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