From: Chris P. <chr...@ma...> - 2004-04-25 09:43:30
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Hi, I have an ATI Rage Mobility M3 16Mb AGP 2x card in my laptop. I have it working well enough under X. However, I have a couple of questions: 1) Will I ever be able to get a 24-bit colour depth and have DRI enabled at 1400x1050 pixels? I see from http://dri.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/DriTroubleshooting that the required memory is 1400*1050*(32/8)*3, or 17226 kB, and indeed I get an error message at startup saying "Static buffer allocation failed -- need at least 17325 kB video memory"; I'm assuming the difference is from some extra pixels. At lower resolutions I don't get this error, but glxinfo and glxgears segfault, even though they work in 16-bit (I haven't looked into this too deeply, but I'd be grateful for general pointers). 2) Will the UseFBDev option improve performance? Or is it simply there to make the driver work on some platforms? I can't seem to get it to work, and I don't even have any '*fbdevhw*' files in my system apart from man pages (gentoo with xorg-6.7.0 and a 2.6.5 kernel). 3) Mostly I'm concerned about watching DVD's on my laptop (and playing some games occasionally, but usually not at this resolution). Assuming I have a nicely mastered DVD, will colour depth noticeably affect the image? Or is it irrelevant because the image has been compressed? FWIW, I had W2K 32-bit colour working with this card and I was able to watch DVD's with it at 1400x1050 with the video player telling me hardware acceleration was enabled, but I'm not sure if Windows was lying about that. Cheers, Chris |
From: Alex D. <ag...@ya...> - 2004-04-25 17:09:19
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--- Chris Pickett <chr...@ma...> wrote: > Hi, > > I have an ATI Rage Mobility M3 16Mb AGP 2x card in my laptop. I have > it > working well enough under X. However, I have a couple of questions: > [snip] > > 3) Mostly I'm concerned about watching DVD's on my laptop (and > playing > some games occasionally, but usually not at this resolution). > Assuming > I have a nicely mastered DVD, will colour depth noticeably affect the > > image? Or is it irrelevant because the image has been compressed? > > FWIW, I had W2K 32-bit colour working with this card and I was able > to > watch DVD's with it at 1400x1050 with the video player telling me > hardware acceleration was enabled, but I'm not sure if Windows was > lying > about that. DVD (and videos in general) can be accelerated using the Xvideo (Xv) extention. This extension handles the scaling and colorspace conversion in hardware. It also has nothing to do with 3D acceleration. Xv should just work in the r128 driver assuming your dvd software uses that extension. run "xvinfo" from a command prompt to see if the extension is available. Alex > > Cheers, > Chris > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash |
From: Chris P. <chr...@ma...> - 2004-04-25 20:28:26
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Hi Alex, Alex Deucher wrote: > --- Chris Pickett <chr...@ma...> wrote: >>3) Mostly I'm concerned about watching DVD's on my laptop (and >>playing >>some games occasionally, but usually not at this resolution). >>Assuming >>I have a nicely mastered DVD, will colour depth noticeably affect the >> >>image? Or is it irrelevant because the image has been compressed? >> >>FWIW, I had W2K 32-bit colour working with this card and I was able >>to >>watch DVD's with it at 1400x1050 with the video player telling me >>hardware acceleration was enabled, but I'm not sure if Windows was >>lying >>about that. > > > DVD (and videos in general) can be accelerated using the Xvideo (Xv) > extention. This extension handles the scaling and colorspace > conversion in hardware. It also has nothing to do with 3D > acceleration. Xv should just work in the r128 driver assuming your dvd > software uses that extension. run "xvinfo" from a command prompt to > see if the extension is available. > Yes, I checked DVD playback works fine with ColorDepth 24 using xine. Thanks for explaining (I can add all this to the DRI wiki if you like). It doesn't work if the only change I make in my xorg.conf is to use ColorDepth 16 instead of ColorDepth 24 (I get a blue screen instead, although sound works and xine-check doesn't report anything wrong), but I guess this isn't the right place to be asking about that. I've also noticed, after using depth 24 for a while (I'd previously given up), that images look a lot nicer because there are no banding effects. glxinfo in depth 24 gives me the following table visual x bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer ms cav id dep cl sp sz l ci b ro r g b a bf th cl r g b a ns b eat ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0x23 24 tc 0 24 0 r y . 8 8 8 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 None 0x24 24 tc 0 24 0 r y . 8 8 8 0 0 16 8 16 16 16 0 0 0 None 0x25 24 tc 0 32 0 r y . 8 8 8 8 0 16 8 16 16 16 16 0 0 None 0x26 24 tc 0 32 0 r . . 8 8 8 8 0 16 8 16 16 16 16 0 0 None 0x27 24 dc 0 24 0 r y . 8 8 8 0 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 None 0x28 24 dc 0 24 0 r y . 8 8 8 0 0 16 8 16 16 16 0 0 0 None 0x29 24 dc 0 32 0 r y . 8 8 8 8 0 16 8 16 16 16 16 0 0 None 0x2a 24 dc 0 32 0 r . . 8 8 8 8 0 16 8 16 16 16 16 0 0 None There seem to be several modes that don't require 32-bit buffers because the alpha channel is disabled. Using a buffer size of 24 bits instead of 32, there is enough memory on my video card for my panel at full resolution: 1400*1050*(24/8)*3*(1/1024) = 12920 kB (plus a little for the extra pixels), whereas my card can handle up to 16384 kB. That would be fantastic, because then I could get 2D and 3D hardware acceleration with 24 bits, which if I understand correctly will always look nicer than 16 bits, even if the alpha channel is disabled. Is this something worth pursuing? It seems from an outsider's perspective that relatively minor changes would be required. I'm willing to help out but I don't know where to get started. Cheers, Chris |
From: Chris P. <chr...@ma...> - 2004-04-25 20:48:38
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Chris Pickett wrote: > There seem to be several modes that don't require 32-bit buffers because > the alpha channel is disabled. Using a buffer size of 24 bits instead > of 32, there is enough memory on my video card for my panel at full > resolution: 1400*1050*(24/8)*3*(1/1024) = 12920 kB (plus a little for > the extra pixels), whereas my card can handle up to 16384 kB. I suppose the memory wouldn't be word-aligned, but I'm not sure if this would be anything other than a performance problem. |
From: Roland S. <rsc...@hi...> - 2004-04-25 21:42:08
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Chris Pickett wrote: > Chris Pickett wrote: > >> There seem to be several modes that don't require 32-bit buffers >> because the alpha channel is disabled. Using a buffer size of 24 bits >> instead of 32, there is enough memory on my video card for my panel at >> full resolution: 1400*1050*(24/8)*3*(1/1024) = 12920 kB (plus a little >> for the extra pixels), whereas my card can handle up to 16384 kB. > > > I suppose the memory wouldn't be word-aligned, but I'm not sure if this > would be anything other than a performance problem. I'm pretty sure the radeon chips do not support non-aligned color buffers, doesn't matter if you actually use the alpha channel or not. You could try though to use 24 (32) bit color buffers and a 16bit z-buffer, in fact I believe someone has written a patch for exactly that purpose. Should be in the dri-devel archive probably. Roland (btw I'm pretty sure there is no memory used for "extra pixels", it is probably needed for at least one vertex buffer or command buffer or something like that) |
From: Alex D. <ag...@ya...> - 2004-04-25 23:01:46
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--- Roland Scheidegger <rsc...@hi...> wrote: > Chris Pickett wrote: > > Chris Pickett wrote: > > > >> There seem to be several modes that don't require 32-bit buffers > >> because the alpha channel is disabled. Using a buffer size of 24 > bits > >> instead of 32, there is enough memory on my video card for my > panel at > >> full resolution: 1400*1050*(24/8)*3*(1/1024) = 12920 kB (plus a > little > >> for the extra pixels), whereas my card can handle up to 16384 kB. > > > > > > I suppose the memory wouldn't be word-aligned, but I'm not sure if > this > > would be anything other than a performance problem. > I'm pretty sure the radeon chips do not support non-aligned color > buffers, doesn't matter if you actually use the alpha channel or not. > You could try though to use 24 (32) bit color buffers and a 16bit > z-buffer, in fact I believe someone has written a patch for exactly > that > purpose. Should be in the dri-devel archive probably. Same is true of r128. > > Roland > > (btw I'm pretty sure there is no memory used for "extra pixels", it > is > probably needed for at least one vertex buffer or command buffer or > something like that) > It's also nice to have some space for textures. > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash |
From: Chris P. <chr...@ma...> - 2004-05-11 06:46:22
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Alex Deucher wrote: > --- Roland Scheidegger <rsc...@hi...> wrote: >>>would be anything other than a performance problem. >> >>I'm pretty sure the radeon chips do not support non-aligned color >>buffers, doesn't matter if you actually use the alpha channel or not. >>You could try though to use 24 (32) bit color buffers and a 16bit >>z-buffer, in fact I believe someone has written a patch for exactly >>that >>purpose. Should be in the dri-devel archive probably. > > > Same is true of r128. > Hi again, I found the following patch: http://www.mail-archive.com/dri...@li.../msg14926.html but it's only for the radeon. I didn't find an r128 version of it, but I suppose it would be fairly easy to make one. I'm a bit confused as to how to proceed. I'm using xorg-6.7.0 from gentoo with a gentoo-2.6.5-r1 kernel. Do I need to rebuild all of xorg, or just the driver? And do I need to patch the kernel sources as well as the xorg sources? If I just use CVS versions of everything, is no patching involved at all, or did it not make it in yet? Thanks again for the help, Chris |