Radeon x300-x800, Xvideo and DRI?

[Alex Deucher]

On 4/18/06, Mikko Rauhala <mjrauhal at cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:
> Hi
>
> I've been trying to get my hands on some recent information regarding
> the support level of x300-x800 Radeons. From what I can tell, they
> should basically work, and DRI is available though experimental.
> However, I have some specific questions:
>
> Does Xvideo at least work reliably for these chipsets, or at least some
> of them? I can live with mostly solid 2D+Xvideo support for now, though
> at least semifunctional DRI would be a nice bonus. Hence, are there
> major differences with the stability of the DRI driver between x300,
> x550, x700 and x800? Basically I'd rather buy in the low end, not being
> very needy in this respect, but if those chipsets happen to work less
> well for any reason, I can aim higher.

2D and Xv work fine, although all radeons seem to have problems with
very large overlays (eg. HDTV).  3D also works fine for the most part
(PCIE or AGP). XPRESS and related chips do not have functional DRI at
the moment.

>
> Possibly relevant information: Setup would be Ubuntu Linux, AMD64X2,
> PCI-E, 2x1600x1200 VGA monitors. I know the caveat about r300 and
> 2560x2560 total DRI rendering area, and can live with it. Can aid in
> debugging, though not actual development. I don't expect everything on a
> silver platter.
>
> (Oh, I was trying to find a card capable of driving a dual-link DVI
> 2560x1600 LCD using free drivers, but those seemed to be in nonexistant
> supply, hence I've shelved my display upgrade plans for now. If I've
> missed something with respect to this, I'd be glad to hear it.)

duallink is only supported with external TMDS chips which are not
currently supported in the driver (unless the bios sets them up for
you).  The built in TMDS cell is single link.

Alex

>
> Thank you for any information.
>
> --
> Mikko Rauhala   - mjr at iki.fi     - <URL:http://www.iki.fi/mjr/>
> Transhumanist   - WTA member     - <URL:http://www.transhumanism.org/>
> Singularitarian - SIAI supporter - <URL:http://www.singinst.org/>
>