eselect opengl list doesn't list ATI drivers

[fafner2000]

I recently installed a Radeon HD 7850 in my computer, then installed the drivers, and I end up with no hardware acceleration (the graphics are fully functional, just incredibly slow). I found out that basically the problem is that OpenGL doesn't know about the ATI drivers despite the fact that they are installed:

[BillWho]

fafner2000,

Hardware acceleration requires x11-drivers/ati-drivers. Setting VIDEO_CARDS="fglrx" and emerge -av $(qlist -IC x11-drivers) should do it.

Kernel modifications are also required depending on the driver. Further info can be found at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/ati-faq.xml.
_________________
Good luck

Since installing gentoo, my life has become one long emerge

[fafner2000]

Apparently, installing the proprietary fgrlx allows to select it for OpenGL, somehow I must have missed it. However, it still doesn't work. Without a xorg.conf file, it just doesn't work. X seems to believe the driver is called "ati", so I ran aticonfig to create a supposedly working configuration file. With it, I suppose that X loads the correct driver because I end up with a black-screen-of-death freeze. By "freeze" I really mean "freeze" : the computer is completely locked up with ctrl+alt+Fn not working, frozen keyboard lights, and no network contact. Of course, after reboot /var/log/xorg.log.0 doesn't exist (might be too easy).

I did some searches on black screens, but the nearest I found was this thread where the video card was actually a Nvidia instead of an ATI. Might hint that my video card isn't supported, but being a 7850 I think it is well in the 5000+ officially supported by fgrlx.

Something tells me I won't have 3D acceleration the evening either

[fafner2000]

Small update. I found how to solve the problem, in case it can help someone.

First I installed the latest driver for ATI (13.1) . This however wasn't enough, because the rendering was bogus at best (glxgears reported 3500 FPS but didn't actually update the window, I had to move a window above it to get something that could remotely look like some kind of animation). Finally the problem was an option in KDE that specified XRender of OpenGL as the compositing type. I have no idea why it suddenly changed (or why it didn't cause troubles before in case it never change). Here is the magical incantation: start "System Settings", then click on "Desktop Effects", then the "Advanced" tab, and make sure that "Compositing type" is set to OpenGL. This made the trick for me, 3D acceleration is now perfect.

I can't believe I lost almost 2 months with that stupid option

[s4e8]

3D support for AMD 7xxx aka S.Islands still be in progress.
http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
The mesa driver for 7xxx called si or radeonsi.