Ati mobility radeon 7500 3D in linux/Ubuntu

[deviant03]

Ive gotten really comfortable using Ubuntu the last few months but because of the lack of 3D support for the radeon 7500 I decided to switch back to Win XP. The only thing keeping me from solely using Ubuntu is being able to run MOHAA. I was wondering if anyone had any info regarding future support for this specific card under linux/Ubuntu. Or if there is a debian based distro that has full 3d support for this gfx card.

[23meg]

fglrx doesn't support this card, so it seems your best bet is to use the DRI drivers. i haven't had any luck with them so far; i'll give them another go once i'm able to completely back up my system. see this thread for more info.

what fps do you get with glxgears?

[deviant03]

Look here. I think I am using the DRI drivers (?) but only get about 820fps in glxgears

[deviant03]

Copied from Anandtech, I started the same thread there

I added a few lines to my xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility 7500 M7 (RV200 LW)"
Driver "radeon"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
#newstuff
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "True"
EndSection

Changed the default depth to 16 under Section "Screen" and changed TCL mode in driconf to Software. My fps jumped from 600-800 to 1400+ in glxgears. At least Im on the right track.

[23meg]

did you install the dri drivers using the .deb packages?

[deviant03]

Nope, all I did was add those lines under Device. Installed driconf and set the TCL mode. Yeah baby, Enemy Territory runs great . Heres my xorg.conf if you are interested:

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the /etc/X11/xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man /etc/X11/xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following commands:
#
# cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.custom
# sudo sh -c 'md5sum /etc/X11/xorg.conf >/var/lib/xfree86/xorg.conf.md5sum'
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Section "Files"
FontPath "unix/:7100" # local font server
# if the local font server has problems, we can fall back on these
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi"
# paths to defoma fonts
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/CID"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "GLcore"
Load "bitmap"
Load "dbe"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "record"
Load "speedo"
Load "type1"
Load "v4l"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility 7500 M7 (RV200 LW)"
Driver "radeon"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
#newstuff
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "True"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 28-49
VertRefresh 43-72
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility 7500 M7 (RV200 LW)"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

[23meg]

oh, but without actually installing the dri package how are you running the "radeon" dri driver? i guess i'm missing something.

[deviant03]

I installed a fresh version of Warty then upgraded to Hoary. Load "dri" was already under modules so all I did was change the Driver "ati" to "radeon"(copying someone elses config from another thread).

[NeoChaosX]

Uh, I installed Driconf and set the TCL mode to software, but it caused problem a in TuxRacer - Tux has this permanent white shadow on him all the time! Turning TCL back to default fixed it for now.

[Mr Frosti]

I have been following this thread and all the links in it for a little while trying to setup the Radeon 7500 in my laptop to have direct rendering (hardware acceleration) for a while now. Running the command "glxgears" gave me about 230 - 250 FPS. I was able to tremendously increase this number. I just wanted to share what actually worked for me:

I downloaded the latest Radeon "snapshot" from http://dri.freedesktop.org/snapshots/. I extracted this using the command "tar jxf radeon###"

I then went to where I saved this file and typed "cd dripkg", then typed "sudo ./install.sh" in a terminal.

It walked me through installing the snapshot. I just used all of the defaults and hit enter until it told me it was finished. Then I edited the corresponding parts of my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to look like this:

Section "Module"
        Load    "GLcore"
        Load    "bitmap"
        Load    "dbe"
        Load    "ddc"
        Load    "dri"
SubSection "extmod"
              Option "omit xfree86-dga"
EndSubSection
        Load    "extmod"
        Load    "freetype"
        Load    "glx"
        Load    "int10"
        Load    "record"
        Load    "type1"
        Load    "v4l"
        Load    "vbe"
        Load    "radeon"
        Load    "xtrap"
        Load    "drm"
EndSection

and for my device I have this:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility 7500 (M7 LW)"
        Driver          "radeon"
        BusID           "PCI:1:0:0"
        Option          "RenderAccel"           "true"
        Option          "AGPMode"               "4"
        Option          "AGPFastWrite"          "true"
        Option          "EnablePageFlip"        "True"
        Option          "UseInternalAGPGART"    "no"
        Option          "backingstore"          "true"
        Option          "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
EndSection

I restarted the X server by pressing Ctl+Alt+Backspace, and then when it restarted, I now have 1300+ FPS in glxgears.

Please note that this is ALL I did for a working system. I did not install the Debian DRI packages, or the source DRI packages. I hope that it was really that easy. Good luck!