[Mesa-users] cannot get hardware acceleration on old notebook

[Brian Paul]

On 10/05/2012 04:37 AM, junk_yard at aol.com wrote:
> hello!
>
> i'm not sure this is the right place to ask such a question. if it's
> not, it'd be kind of you to direct me to the right site.
>
> i'm using Lubuntu 12.04 on Fujitsu LifeBook E6540.
>
> $glxinfo | grep render
> direct rendering: Yes
> OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on softpipe
>
> AFAIK, this means i've got a software acceleration.
>
> $ egrep WW /var/log/Xorg.0.log
> [ 43.055] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module fglrx
> [ 43.079] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module fglrx
> [ 43.089] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa
> [ 43.089] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev
> [ 43.142] (WW) MACH64(0): Cannot shadow an accelerated frame buffer.
> [ 43.143] (WW) MACH64(0): Unable to estimate virtual size
> [ 43.188] (WW) MACH64(0): DRI static buffer allocation failed -- need
> at least 7680 kB video memory
>
> $ egrep VBE /var/log/Xorg.0.log
> [ 43.117] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE Version 2.0
> [ 43.117] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE Total Mem: 4096 kB
> [ 43.117] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE OEM: ATI MACH64
> [ 43.117] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE OEM Software Rev: 1.0
> [ 43.117] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE OEM Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
> [ 43.117] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE OEM Product: MACH64RM
> [ 43.118] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE OEM Product Rev: 01.00
> [ 43.122] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE DDC supported
> [ 43.122] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE DDC Level none
> [ 43.122] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE DDC transfer in appr. 2 sec.
> [ 43.126] (II) MACH64(0): VESA VBE DDC read failed
>
> the native resolution is 1024x768, but even if i change the bit depth
> from 24 to 16, i get
>
> MACH64(0): DRI static buffer allocation failed -- need at least 4608
> kB video memory
>
> is there a way to get a hardware acceleration in my case?

Your laptop is pretty old and googling I found that it has an ATI RAGE 
GPU (though the info above says MACH64RM).  I think you'd need the old 
Mesa mach64 or r128 driver.  Those drivers were removed from Mesa 
after the 7.11 release, about a year ago (and even then probably 
haven't been tested in years).

So you'd have to build/install an old Mesa release (and maybe some old 
drm/kernel drivers too).  But since that's old code, it's hard to say 
what problems you might run into.

-Brian