# [SOLVED] Slow ATI drivers

## trolley

I've checked and double-checked everything from here, here, and here but still get around 250FPS in glxgears (and 450 in fgl_fglxgears). My card is a Sapphire x1600 Pro.

Here's my emerge --info:

```

Portage 2.1.2.9 (default-linux/amd64/2007.0, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.5-r3, 2.6.22-gentoo x86_64)

=================================================================

System uname: 2.6.22-gentoo x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+

Gentoo Base System release 1.12.9

Timestamp of tree: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:50:01 +0000

dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.33-r1

dev-lang/python:     2.4.4-r4

dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5

sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17

sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61

sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10

sys-devel/binutils:  2.17

sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.16

sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.23b

virtual/os-headers:  2.6.22

ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"

AUTOCLEAN="yes"

CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"

CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"

CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb"

CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/splash /etc/terminfo"

CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"

DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"

FEATURES="distlocks metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict"

GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://gentoo.arcticnetwork.ca/pub/gentoo/ http://gentoo.arcticnetwork.ca/ ftp://mirrors.tera-byte.com/pub/gentoo http://gentoo.mirrors.tera-byte.com/ ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/ http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/ "

MAKEOPTS="-j2"

PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"

PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --filter=H_**/files/digest-*"

PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"

PORTDIR="/usr/portage"

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"

SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"

USE="3dnow 3dnowext X aac acl alsa amd64 animgif apache2 artworkextra berkdb binary-drivers bitmap-fonts bittorrent bzip2 cdr clamav cli colordiff cracklib crypt cups dbus divx dri dvd dvdr dvdread encode faillog firefox fortran gdbm gif gimp gmedia gnome gpm gre gs gtk hardened iconv imagemagick imap ipv6 javascript john jpeg junit keyring keyscrub lame libclamav libg++ logrotate lzw midi mmx mmxext mp3 mpeg mpeg2 mplayer mplayer-bin msn mudflap musicbrainz mysql nautilus ncurses net nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin ntfs offensive opengl openmp openssl pam pcap pcre pdf perl php png pppd python quicktime rar rdesktop readline realmedia reflection samba scrobbler session sftp signatures spell spl spoof-source sse sse2 ssl subversion symlink syslog tagwriting tcpd thunderbird tiff transcode truetype truetype-fonts type1 type1-fonts unicode vim-syntax vnc vncviewer vorbis wav webdav wifi wireshark wma wmp xinerama xinetd xorg xvid zip zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="fglrx"

Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

```

I can include my kernel config if necessary. I get the same results with 2.6.20 and 2.6.22 gentoo-sources. glxinfo shows me that direct rendering is enabled and this is the only error I ever get in X.org.0.log is:

```

(EE) fglrx(1): Failed to enable interrupts.

```

but I can't find anything online saying if this is a significant problem or not. What else can I try?Last edited by trolley on Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:02 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## Mad Merlin

glxgears is not a benchmark, the fact that you get 250 fps with it does not imply anything.

```
glxinfo | grep direct
```

 will tell you whether or not you have hardware 3D acceleration working. To verify this, you should run something like the Doom 3 or Quake 4 demos, both are in portage (games-fps/doom3-demo and games-fps/quake4-demo, respectively).

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## trolley

I understand that it's not, but I know that with an older installation I somehow had much better results (800fps or so). I'll try a 3D app though.

I also had very slow results with Xgl when I tried it recently so went back to regular xorg.

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## Mad Merlin

 *trolley wrote:*   

> I understand that it's not, but I know that with an older installation I somehow had much better results (800fps or so). I'll try a 3D app though.

 

I've seen identical hardware in two very similar environments (both with 3d acceleration working properly) get ~2000 fps and ~8500 fps in glxgears, so that amount of difference really doesn't surpise me, regardless of whether or not they were both working correctly.

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## trolley

Doom 3/Quake 4 won't run well on my system so I tried Quake 3 and it was limited to 90fps. Could this be something refresh rate related? Although my monitor is an LCD which should be running at 60Hz I think.

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## JDCentral

I just got fglrx working with a similar card (Sapphire X1650 Pro), and I have to say that I get extremely sporadic fps in glxgears, especially between driver versions. My results have fluctuated between ~250 fps and ~1600 fps, so I tend not to trust it.  The Q3 benchmark is a little odd, especially considering that my machine is ANCIENT, and can still chug through Doom 3 with all settings maxed. Unless it's CPU limited..?

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## trolley

Doom 3/Quake 4 run, but the sound is very glitchy. My CPU is an AMD64 3200+, so I doubt there's a problem there. In Q3 the FPS literally caps out at 90FPS...it sits there and never goes above it, and hardly drops below it either.

Ages ago I used to know how to run a fps test using Q3 but I can't remember now...I'll look into it and see if there is some option that limits the FPS.

----------

## Mad Merlin

com_maxFPS does what you might guess, and it defaults to 90 in Q3. Q3 is largely memory speed limited nowadays though, so it's not that great of a benchmark for modern systems.

For me, Doom 3 and Quake 4 picked 5.1 surround sound instead of stereo (I only have 2.1 speakers), and I got choppy sound as well. Flipping the sound config to stereo instead of surround fixed the issue for me.

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## trolley

Changing from surround sound didn't help unfortunately...I still get distorted sound. I see tons of errors like this:

```

idAudioHardwareALSA::Write: 4096 frames overflowed and dropped

snd_pcm_writei short write: 258 out of 1024

snd_pcm_writei short write: 989 out of 1024

snd_pcm_writei short write: 989 out of 1024

snd_pcm_writei short write: 989 out of 1024

```

----------

## trolley

```

quake4-demo +set s_driver oss

```

fixed the sound problem. I don't get the best performance, but it's acceptable.

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## don quixada

I have a Sapphire X1650 Pro and I've had nothing but problems with it. Right now I cannot get Neverball and Neverputt to work well enough to play. It's very choppy. I'm using the fglrx drivers on an AMD64 system. Are you still using that card, have you gotten better performance lately? Thanks.

dq

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## trolley

Nope, sorry. I have an NVIDIA now, and am using Ubuntu   :Embarassed: 

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