Fglrx
Contents
Fglrx is a proprietary, Linux binary-only driver for ATI graphic chips with support for 3D acceleration.
Packages
The ATI drivers have explicit permission for repackaging and redistribution of the Linux drivers. Many distributions are supported within the installer, and many more repackaged by external developers. Please visit the Distribution Page at the Unofficial ATI driver Wiki
# emerge ati-drivers Fedora 4 packages: http://rpm.livna.org
# yum install kernel-module-fglrx-$(uname -r) ati-fglrx For custom-compiled kernels: see How to build custom packages for fglrx# yum install xorg-x11-drv-fglrx For custom-compiled kernels: see How to build custom packages for fglrx# pacman -S catalyst(kernel module for the stock kernel)# pacman -S catalyst-utils(xorg7 stuff and tools)
# urpmi x11-driver-video-fglrx
# drakconfBuilding for Xorg 7.0
To compile fglrx versions <= 8.24.8 for Xorg 7.0.0, fake Xorg 6.9.0 by
# export X_VERSION=x690; sh ati-driver-installer-8.24.8-x86.run
Next, move the various resulting libraries and modules from /usr/X11R6 to /usr/lib/xorg
In /usr/src/ATI additional sources are installed for fireglcontrol and fgl_glxgears
Status
Current version: 8.1 (8.454) (18st January 2008). Major changes:
Known problems and solutions
See Problems with fglrx.
User experience
Speed
How much is the speed gain versus the opensource drivers?
Compared to the old drivers, approximately 40% speed gain have been noticed with fglrx. However, there are issues with freezing/garbage after suspend, garbage when resizing desktop (via ctrlaltplus, ctrlaltminus), and garbage while using VMware. The current 8.14.13 has shown 400% improvement over using the open source radeon driver: 1200 FPS for glxgears1!
However the situation seems to be changing significantly as time goes on. With recent x11-drm-20060608 driver (gentoo) and thinkpad t42 (ati 9600) the speed is confirmed as 1900fps and stable. As of October 2007 there is dramatic improvement in the open source 3d drivers in speed and stability.
3D acceleration
According to Flavio's page you need these options:
Section "Module" ... Load "GLcore" Load "glx" Load "dri" ... EndSection
# Of course you need to activate the driver Section "Device" ... Driver "fglrx" EndSection
Don't forget to load the module fglrx (modprobe fglrx). Under Debian the module can be placed in /etc/modules.
With fglrx drivers prior to 8.42.3 will need to disable composite to enable 3D DRI acceleration. To do this, add an extra Extensions section (if necessary) containing:
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable" #make DRI work with fglrx.
EndSection
If you are unsure whether you have DRI running, issue glxinfo | grep -i direct after disabling composite. Note, this
# === OpenGL Overlay ===
# Note: When OpenGL Overlay is enabled, Video Overlay
# will be disabled automatically
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "1"
However, you can use either regular Xv video overlay or make the video an opengl texture and let the OpenGL engine scale your video. This has nothing to do with the acceleration of 2D drawing primitives. Further, your mileage on performance may vary depending on what card you have. The open source drivers don't support newer cards, while the ATI drivers don't support older cards.
You may be able to preserve VideoOverlay acceleration if you explicitly remove the OpenGLOverlay using:
Option "VideoOverlay" "True" and Option "OpenGLOverlay" "False". See Flavio's page for detail.Power saving
Power saving is much better than with the radeon driver, but doesn't work in dual-screen configuration (see How to make use of Graphics Chips Power Management features).
Suspending with fglrx
On a ThinkPad T42 with Kernel 2.6.19 with Software Suspend 2 and R60 with Kernel 2.6.18-suspend2-r1 (Gentoo) , the following addition to /etc/hibernate/suspend2.conf is required:
# For fglrx ProcSetting extra_pages_allowance 20000
Display Switching (Dynamic Display Management)
Version 8.25.18 introduces a new feature: Dynamic Display Management. It allows display switching on-the-fly.
To list all connected and enabled monitors:
# aticonfig --query-monitor
To switch displays:
# aticonfig --enable-monitor=STRING,STRING, where STRING can be: none, lvds, crt1, crt2, tv, tdms1, tdms2
Only 2 displays can be enabled at the same time. Any displays that are not on the list will be disabled.
Using an ACPI script, aticonfig can be used to switch displays on a key press.
The Catalyst Control Center, which comes with the driver (at least from Livna in Fedora Core 6) can be used to do this switching. It also does various other kinds of display managements. However, the version that comes with 8.39.4 doesn't seem to handle switching into Big Desktop mode, does anyone know how to get this to work? The control center also complains a lot about rebooting, but rebooting doesn't seem to be required. Does anyone have decent documentation for the control center?
Useful links
ThinkPads that may be supported
Supported chips, as found in select IBM ThinkPads:
ThinkPads that are NOT supported by fglrx
Unsupported chips, as found in select IBM ThinkPads:
