AGP8x Kt400 Mobo with Radeon 9700 woes follow up.

jhboricua · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 May 2002 Posts: 113

I posted back on November about the kernel agpgart module not able to load up on my KT400 mobo with a Radeon 9700 running at AGP8x. Has anyone got this combination to work and was able to install the ATI driver? TIA for any info.

BTW, I know it works at AGP4x speeds, but I have no way of changing this on my bios so I'm only interested on hearing from ppl that was able to get the above combination to work under gentoo. Specially what kernel sources they used to make it work. TIA.

nephi513 · n00b Joined: 24 Nov 2002 Posts: 21

Dave Jones over at www.codemonkey.org.uk made a patch for the working AGP 3.0 stuff and Linus finaly put it in the Development kernel (2.5.61 I think we are up to 2.5.62 though). So AGPGart now supports AGP 8X. I haven't had time to try it though. I have the same problem you do and I've been following closely on the development.

The only problem is that it might not make it into the 2.4 kernel. AGP 8X might just be for the 2.6 kernel. You could use the 2.5 seires. I've used development Kernels before and have been very happy. But it always takes me three to four weeks to get them working properly.

The last problem I see is that the ATI driver might not like the 2.5 kernel. It looks like it might still work though.

-Dave

jhboricua · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 May 2002 Posts: 113

You're right and I forgot to mention this. On the 2.5 kernel series I got agpgart to load, however the ATI driver wouldn't built its driver against it. As far as I can tell the agpgart backend and frontend files on the kernel 2.5 have changed vs how is layout on the 2.4 kernels, thus when the ATI driver tries to built in can find the code is looking for.

I'm kinda bummed that is taking so long to get a working AGP 3.0 support at 8x on the current kernel series. The hardware has been out for quite some time now.

nephi513 · n00b Joined: 24 Nov 2002 Posts: 21

I was worried about that. You see the AGP Gart has been almost rewritten (reworked, might be better word for it) for the 2.5 and 2.6 kernals. So all of the changes for AGP are not backward compatable. The good news is that this means it will be eaiser to upgrade the AGP Gart and things should also work faster and better. The bad news is we have to wait for ATI to support the new format.

Your best bet is to give feedback to the ATI Linux Driver Feedback. I can't seem to find the link, but it should be on the web site some were. They have there own AGP Gart driver and it wouldn't take them to much to add there own support. Nvida already does this. They don't have full support, but they are at least working on it.

I do know that ATI is still working on there driver, they just don't give as much info out. Rummers have it that they will be releasing a new driver version next month. But those are just the rummer mill.

I will think I will give a feed back on the 2.5 kernel and see if they could make a working version for it. It shouldn't be more than a few changes and a recomplie against the kernel.