[compiz] Will radeon or radeonhd work with compiz?

Sat May 9 08:49:50 PDT 2009

On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 12:40 AM, David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
<drankinatty at suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday 08 May 2009 23:23:57 you wrote:
>> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:09 PM, David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
>>
>> <drankinatty at suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Friday 08 May 2009 10:59:26 Adam K Kirchhoff wrote:
>> >> On Fri, 8 May 2009 08:25:49 -0500
>> >>
>> >> "David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E." <drankinatty at suddenlinkmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > Sam, Danny, J., all
>> >> >
>> >> >     I am working with the radeon and radeonhd drivers seeing if I can
>> >> > get them to work with compiz 0.8.2.1 on my radeon x1200 laptop. My
>> >> > xorg .conf is:
>> >> >
>> >> > Section "Device"
>> >> >   BoardName    "RV350 NP"
>> >> > #  Driver       "radeon"
>> >> >   Driver       "radeonhd"
>> >> >   Identifier   "Device[0]"
>> >> >   VendorName   "ATI"
>> >> > EndSection
>> >> >
>> >> >     I have tried both the radeon and radeon hd driver with same
>> >> > results. Upon Compiz start, the display behaves exactly like it is
>> >> > going to work. The display goes blank, sequentially erasing and
>> >> > redrawing each window, but then it never actually  starts. The windows
>> >> > are just left there with no decor. You can sill provide in put to
>> >> > them, but you cannot move or resize them. Issuing kwin --replace
>> >> > causes the reverse to happen (windows destroyed, black screen, windows
>> >> > then redrawn with kde decor.
>> >> >
>> >> >     Does anybody have and idea what's happening and how to fix it?
>> >> > Thanks.
>> >>
>> >> Assuming you have the Mesa 3D drivers installed and working properly,
>> >> then yes, compiz will work just fine.
>> >>
>> >> What distribution is this, and how are you trying to start compiz?
>> >> What's the output of 'glxinfo'?
>> >>
>> >> Adam
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >
>> > Adam,
>> >
>> >        I mesa is loaded, but I'm not sure what you mean by Mesa 3D. I
>> > just know it as Mesa. Here is what is loaded:
>> >
>> > (II) AIGLX: enabled GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer
>> > (II) AIGLX: enabled GLX_SGI_swap_control and GLX_MESA_swap_control
>> >
>> >        Do I need something else?
>>
>> I had a problem similar to this on Gentoo.  I'd kick off compiz and no
>> borders, no errors, nothing.  Then I realized everything was working
>> fine, compiz just wasn't configured at all.  Figured it was just
>> stupid defaults on Gentoo, perhaps its more global that that.  Try
>> this - launch compiz however you do form a terminal, then run ccsm.
>> Start enabling stuff.  under window management make sure you get 'move
>> window' and 'resize window' and application switcher at the very
>> least.  for image loading, select everything.  Under effects select
>> 'window decorations'.  Under utility select 'dbus', 'glib' &
>> 'inotify'.  Try that, it should get you basic functionality.  Beyond
>> that, its all however much bling you want.  Most of the shiny comes
>> from 'wobbly windows', '3d windows' and 'animations' tho.
>>
>> How that helps.
>>
>> Wil
>
> Wil,
>
>        You are a genious! I never would have believed it. The current install is on
> archlinux. Most of my other installs are opensuse (where a fglrx driver is
> available). All I did was rsync my .config/compiz/compizconfig from an
> opensuse box over to my archlinux box, started compiz again and Presto! All
> was well in the world -- well almost ;-)
>
>        Man this was strange?? Is the default config distro specific or is it a
> compiz generic issues that could be tweaked here?
>
>        Only other strange issues for compiz with the radeonhd driver is that when I
> run glxgears, the background for the gears is completely transparent (100%
> gone). Additionally, shift switcher does not erase the original windows
> before drawing the shift switch windows (the gradient draws correctly though)
> See:
>
> http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/compiz/radeonhd/shiftswitch.jpg
>
>        After closing all apps and restarting them shiftswitch seems ok??
>
> http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/compiz/radeonhd/shiftswitch.jpg
>
>        Only real downside so far with the radeonhd driver is the frame-rates in
> glxgears is about 1/5 what it was with the fglrx driver (Current: 188 FPS,
> w/fglrx: 1000 FPS). But the desktop effects work smoothly, etc.. The only
> noticeable lag is with rotate cube and on window resize, but it isn't that
> bad either.
>
>        Thanks again!
>
> cc: radeonhd at opensuse.org
>
>        Guys see also, the glxinfo output and Xorg.0.log:
>
> http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/compiz/radeonhd/glxinfo-radeonhd
>
> http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/compiz/radeonhd/Xorg.0.log

Cool.  I suspect this is the just the compiz default, why I have no idea.

The fglrx driver is typically faster than either open source drivers
in 3D, but I'll take the performance hit over a binary blob any day.
I noticed in your logs you are using XAA, you can see if switching to
EXA makes any of the issues go away.  Alternately, theres the
xf86-video-ati driver you can try as well.  It shares a lot of code
with radeonhd but sometimes it works better.

Wil