> Hi, Alexander!
>
> It's a great news that ATI is making Linux driver for R200
> boards,
for completeness its: R200/RV250/R300/some-Mobility
> At first I attempted to set up SuSE's xfglrx package to get
> 3D acceleration
> for my Gigabyte AP64D board (actually it is a R200 QL with 64
> Mb DDR RAM).
The package included on SuSE CD set is not that up to date any more.
Prefer the drivers from the web page.
> After generating XF86Config and typing startx in command
> prompt X server
> failed to start. I found in system logs that 2D driver refused to
> work with third party boards.
That's Intentional. On the list you can find several references to
problems with the multiple OEM BIOS variants even with the DRI drivers.
Since this must be considered as third party software and hardware,
you should consider calling the respective vendor for support.
(Having a broken BIOS checksum is the least problem in that area...)
> It's nearly impossible to buy "build by ATI" board in Moscow,
> so I was forced to apply my assembly skills to modify board
> vendor id in 2D driver (fglrx_drv.o). After replacing ATI's
> id (0x1002) with Gigabyte (0x1458) I was able to start XFree
> but I saw my text consoles (vga=791) broken.
This might be a BIOS problem. Current drivers are using the
XFre86 Int10 module for doing mode switches. Thanks for another
reason for not letting that drivers run on third party boards.
> Next thing I've tried is to start Tux Racer game. After 2
> minutes of pretty smooth gameplay it hung and my box locked
> up completely.
Stability of a specifc grafics board is mainly due to its
clock rate, its RAM bus interface clock an signal quality
plus misc power supply parameters (mainboard abilities to
drive that board, PCB design to ensure the voltage does not
drop critical in any operation thermal and electrical condtion).
I know that ATI is ensuring this for the "Built by ATI" boards
with much effort, but i have no idea how intense those third
party vendors do that. The second unknown thing is your hosting
PC system. You should verify it with a secondary operating system.
> I decided it's enough to uninstall this package and I started
> to look around for any alternative driver. I've downloaded official ATI
> driver version 2.4.0 and tried to install it.
Official ATI drivers were 1.4.3 for R200, and are now unified
with version 2.4.3 (the numbering similarity is a co-incidence).
So i am wondering a bit who did supply such a driver to you.
> After install script built kernel drm modules
> installation stopped because depmod complained about
> unresolved symbols in module fglrx.o
I am building these modules nicely on e.g. RedHat or with
default kernel.org kernels. If something is missing from
your kernel config (like module support, highmem support,
whatever - see readme) then you might spot messages like this.
Please check your kernel source configuration.
> Now I have installed driver from dri trunk, it works pretty
> well, but I have very slow gameplay with Loki's Rune.
Thats the best and only drivers that should use for your adapter.
> Maybe today I will try to install official ATI driver again,
> this time version 2.4.3. I hope it finally going to work.
What you were doing is "unsupported" and "not recommended".
This is meaning that it is on your own risk if you do it.
Maybe there are legal reasons why you shouldn't be allowed
to do that, but i dont know this myselves.
-Alex.
