Radeon9600SE+fglrx: Direct rendering works but is very slow!

Message

ray_77 · Post by **ray_77** » Wed May 25, 2005 6:08 pm

Hello!

I just swapped out my old GeForce3 and put in the ATI Radeon 9600 that was sold with my AMD64 3200+.

I tried with almost every FGLRX driver available in portage (8.825-r3, 8.10.19, 8.12.10, 8.13.3), using
kernel 2.6.10 and 2.6.11-gentoo-r[679]. Basically the behaviour is always the same: AGP is enabled (8x
with kernel agpgart, 4x with internal agpgart), direct rendering works in 64bit and in 32bit mode (using the
"LIBGL_DRIVERS_DIR=/usr/X11R6/lib32/modules/dri" setting). However, the 3D performance is very
very very very bad (but there are no error messages or warnings in dmesg or Xorg.0.log).

Here some numbers:

Code: Select all

# glxgears 
3963 frames in 5.0 seconds = 792.600 FPS
4591 frames in 5.0 seconds = 918.200 FPS
4592 frames in 5.0 seconds = 918.400 FPS
4592 frames in 5.0 seconds = 918.400 FPS

# fgl_glxgears 
873 frames in 5.0 seconds = 174.600 FPS
961 frames in 5.0 seconds = 192.200 FPS
962 frames in 5.0 seconds = 192.400 FPS

# LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose fgl_glxgears 
libGL: XF86DRIGetClientDriverName: 8.12.10 fglrx (screen 0)
libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/X11R6/lib64/modules/dri/fglrx_dri.so
libGL: XF86DRIGetClientDriverName: 8.12.10 fglrx (screen 0)
drmOpenByBusid: busid is PCI:1:0:0
drmOpenDevice: minor is 0
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is 4, (OK)
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns 4
drmOpenByBusid: drmGetBusid reports PCI:1:0:0
852 frames in 5.0 seconds = 170.400 FPS
961 frames in 5.0 seconds = 192.200 FPS
964 frames in 5.0 seconds = 192.800 FPS

# fglrxinfo 
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON 9600SE Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.5010 (X4.3.0-8.12.10)

# glxinfo | grep direct 
direct rendering: Yes

# epm -q xorg-x11 opengl-update ati-drivers
xorg-x11-6.8.2-r1
opengl-update-2.2.1
ati-drivers-8.12.10

# lspci | grep :01:
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AQ [Radeon 9600]
0000:01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AQ [Radeon 9600] (Secondary)

So I have less than 1000 frames in glxgears. I know "glxgears" is not a good benchmark, but I know that I
should get much higher values here (had about 2800 with my old GeForce3 and about 1800 on a Radeon 9100
in another x86 box). Also 3D games are very slow (about 20 to 25 frames in UT2004-Demo). Also I read in
the forums that some people get much higher glxgears scores on compareable hardware.

Does anyone know if I'm doing something wrong? Is it a driver problem with my card?

Cheers!

Wedge_ · Post by **Wedge_** » Thu May 26, 2005 10:07 am

Check you haven't enabled FSAA in your xorg.conf, that can really kill performance.

ray_77 · Post by **ray_77** » Thu May 26, 2005 9:43 pm

Thanks for the tip, but I think it is already disabled:

Code: Select all

$ grep -i FSAA /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(**) fglrx(0): Option "FSAAEnable" "no"
(**) fglrx(0): Option "FSAADisableGamma" "yes"
(**) fglrx(0): Option "FSAACustomizeMSPos" "no"
(==) fglrx(0): FSAA enabled: NO
(**) fglrx(0): FSAA Gamma disabled
(**) fglrx(0): FSAA Multisample Position is fix
(II) fglrx(0): shared FSAAScale=1

Any other ideas?

Elsipkitch9809 · Post by **Elsipkitch9809** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:16 pm

Did you solve this problem? I'm having close to the exact problem (except I was using open source drivers) now with my radeon 9250. I'm just getting very low numbers for glxgears, but direct rendering is *technically* working.

Here is my thread:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=2686909

I know this is resurrecting an old thread, but if you found out some xorg config thing that you were missing or something which fixed it, that would be awesome

Thanks!

danyer · Post by **danyer** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:58 pm

same problem with my nvidia geforce fx5500

dan@shuttle:~> glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation

still, glxgears is slow...
dan@shuttle:~> glxgears
662 frames in 5.0 seconds = 132.400 FPS
482 frames in 5.0 seconds = 96.400 FPS
528 frames in 5.0 seconds = 105.600 FPS
390 frames in 5.0 seconds = 78.000 FPS
340 frames in 5.0 seconds = 68.000 FPS
423 frames in 5.0 seconds = 84.600 FPS
486 frames in 5.0 seconds = 97.200 FPS

and ut2004 is slow too.

sorry for including a nvidia problem in the list, but maybe the problem is somehow general, just to let you know that I have it on my card too.

best,
Dan.

ray_77 · Post by **ray_77** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:33 am

Well, I found that my 9600SE card seems to have a pretty slow memory and only a 64bit memory interface. Therefore the
slow glxgears numbers seem to be "right" (even though I expected more). I'm getting about half the performance of my old
9100 that seems to have a faster RAM and a 128bit memory interface...

My solution to the problem was switching to Nvidia GF6800 ... (where the glxgears score is 13000 instead of less than 1000), sorry...