# Atitvout and XOrg 6.8

## gmichels

Hi

Does anyone managed to get atitvout working with XOrg 6.8? All I get is the error 'VBE call failed'. My graphics card is a Radeon IGP 320M (Mobility U1).

I can get it working by changing the driver in xorg.conf from 'radeon' to 'vesa', but quality then is horrible in the TV, so it's not a solution.

It was working flawlessly with XOrg 6.7 and the radeon driver.

Anyone with similar experiences?

Thanks

----------

## f0x_

Same problem here with an Ati Radeon Mobility r6.

Is this a bug to post on X.org?

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## Fallen_Angel

hi,

same here, got a radeon 7500 on a ibm t40 Notebook.

Help needed    :Crying or Very sad: 

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## gmichels

I haven't checked the bugzilla for xorg, but I guess it's more an atitvout problem than xorg's.

As atitvout is no longer developed, I guess we hit a dead-end.

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## el_Salmon

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=264062

 *Quote:*   

> TV-out works on the normal ati-drivers.... at least, that's what i've been told... haven't got it working either.
> 
> One of the anoying things is that you have to connect the TV before starting the X server. The TV is not detected when connecting while the X server is already running Sad

 

Solved?

----------

## gmichels

Nope... Still no ati-drivers for xorg 6.8. I guess my graphics card isn't even supported by the ati-drivers.

Ironically, this is the reason I bought a divx dvd player  :Very Happy: 

----------

## el_Salmon

My radeon 7500 uses open source "ati" driver from Xorg 6.8. Atitvout works fine in console but doesn't in X. 

Mplayer shows colours wrong in framebuffer modes, so I don't watch films with the Tv-out.

----------

## miju

A Solution!

After spending a lot of time i found out how to get atitvout work with xorg 6.8.

First of all i had the same Problem.

The TV was detected in a VT but not in X.

I gave up to try it with atitvout at some point and tried to get the gatos drivers work.

But no success with the ebuild. Later i found out that there is only tv-in support in it. The TV Out Branch of the Gatos Project did not be ported to the 4.4.0 cvs tree.

But there was a thread in the gatos mailinglist where some developers tried to merge the old TVOut branch in the new ati cvs tree.

After some fixes in the header files the driver was able to compile.

But then i found out that the gatos driver seems only to work up to a Radeon M7.

If i change the Resolution to 800x600 i get a garbled Screen on TV. So i disabled the Option in the config file.

But then i found out that atitvout is now again able to detect the TV under Xorg. I tried what happens and it worked!!

I modified the ati-gatos ebuild and made a tar file of the patched cvs tree:

TODO:

Copy this file to /usr/portage/distfiles:

http://www.student.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~fabio_l/ati-gatos-tvout-4.4.0.tar.bz2

Extract this archive in your Portage overlay Directory:

http://www.student.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~fabio_l/ati-gatos-tvout-portage.tar.bz2

Now:

```
emerge ati-gatos-tvout
```

Put these two lines to load the gatos radeon driver instead of the xorg radeon driver.

```

Section "Files"

...

  ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules-extra/gatos"

  ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"

...

EndSection

```

Now you can try to set 

```
Option "TVOutput"      "PAL" 
```

or

```
Option "TVOutput"      "NTSC" 
```

For me the screen is garbled, if i change the resolution with xrandr to 800x600.

If it works for you, you won't need atitvout at all.

But if it is the same for you, disable this option with:

```
Option "TVOutput"      "NOLOAD" 
```

Now you can change the resolution to 800x600 and use atitvout the normal way you know.

If you now try an

```
atitvout detect
```

it sould recognize the TV.

This should alt least work with xorg-x11-6.8.0-r4 which i'm currently running.

By the way. The gatos driver is compatible with the Open GL Hardware Acceleration.

I did not have any problems with Suspend to Ram and Swsusp2, too. Works fine.

Good luck!

----------

## gmichels

Hi miju

Many thanks for your howto. Unfortunately, it isn't working yet for me.

I am using the gatos driver you provided and also had to use the NOLOAD option to get xrandr working. However, when I try to use the tv output, I get that dreaded 'vbe call failed'.

```
# atitvout -f detect

Forcing Rage Mobility/Rage 3D Pro LT mode

LCD is attached.

TV is attached via S-Video.

# atitvout -f t

Forcing Rage Mobility/Rage 3D Pro LT mode

VBE call failed.

Maybe this command is not supported by your graphics adapter?

Did your parameters (if you specified some) really make sense?

Please try all other available commands before complaining!
```

Do you have any more ideas? As a side note, I never had to use xrandr while using atitvout, as I always got it working using my regular 1024 x 768 resolution.

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## miju

Hi gmichels,

well i see the tv is detected... That was for me the main problem with xorg 6.8 for me.

Did you try to get it work with in a vt without X? Or was it the same result?

Maybe this driver works only for some of the radeon cards...

You read about it where i got this thing... Maybe it is broken.

I think you won't get any support as long as no branch for tvout on the ati 4.4.0 module exists.

My card is a ATI Fire GL Mobility M9 and works fine... thats all i can say.

I can only tell you what components i am exactely using:

Kernel:

2.6.11-rc4 vanilla sources and the built in radeon module.

Xorg:

 *Quote:*   

> [ebuild   R   ] x11-base/xorg-x11-6.8.0-r4  -3dfx -3dnow +bitmap-fonts -cjk -debug -dlloader -dmx -doc +font-server -hardened -insecure-drivers +ipv6 -minimal +mmx +nls +opengl +pam +sdk +sse -static +truetype-fonts +type1-fonts (-uclibc) +xprint +xv 0 kB
> 
> 

 

Config:

http://www.student.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/~fabio_l/xorg.conf

Attention: I use a regular resolution of 1400x1050. Change that if you try this config  :Wink: 

Atitvout:

 *Quote:*   

> [ebuild   R   ] media-tv/atitvout-0.4-r1  27 kB
> 
> 

 

By the way. As you can read in the ebuild the regular gatos driver depends on the sdk flag for xorg. Maybe you need it for this driver, too.

Greets miju

P.S. The screen resolution 1024x768 works fine, too. But because i'm not able to read something, i use a lower resolution for the tv.

----------

