ATI integrated graphics + fglrx problems


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I had a new install of Ubuntu and wasn't using the ATI restricted driver (xorg-driver-fglrx). The GUI was very responsive, I can play back 1080p videos from Apple without a hitch. Fast forward to now, I installed the ATI restricted driver so I can use Compiz, and now I can't even playback 480p videos now. Even playing back regular videos from my hard drive makes my CPU go 100%. And to top it off, the GUI is very slow...

Question is why? and is there any better driver for ATI graphics? I'm thinking about ditching linux if it can't perform a simple task as playing back HD video or even regular videos back smoothly.

SPECS:

AMD Turion 1.8GHz (single core)

1.5GB DDR RAM

ATI x200m integrated graphics (set to 64MB shared RAM in BIOS)

XP Pro/Ubuntu 8.04

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It's a Compiz/ATI problem - disable Compiz, and everything should work fine. I don't know for sure for who's to blame, but ATI and Compiz don't work well together from my experience in 8.04.

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Well this happened in previous versions of ubuntu. Even disabling compiz doesn't help, this driver is all sorts of fail.

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and is there any better driver for ATI graphics?

Well, there are the "proper" ATI drivers as well. From what I've read, the easiest way to install them is to use Envy.

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The xorg-driver-fglrx is, to my understanding, the 'proper' driver.

It does sound like both compiz and whatever video player he is using are competing for the card's resources.

tsupersonic, what media player are you using? Could you try using mplayer I have good success with that as a media player - run it from the command line: mplayer video.mpg and see if that does any better)

The mplayer video player has options to direct video output in specific ways, so if we find a mode of using it that works speedily, we might be able to make it the default way.

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I've heard about Envy, I'll give it a shot.

@mark - I was using Apple's site and searched for movie trailers. When I click on a trailer at 1080p or one of the other options, it opens up in Totem movie player. For regular videos on my hard drive, I use VLC. I'll give mplayer a shot, though I'm not too fond of using a command line media player.

Should I try the ATI drivers? I tried them once (with fglrx installed, yeah I know my mistake) and I lost all video, screen went black right after the ubuntu start up screen with the progress bar.

I can't imagine compiz is that heavy duty, I know it has to do something with the driver. This laptop has run the Aero interface fine, and people claim that's gpu heavy. I've run older games fine on it too, like Half life 2 at the best settings.

Thanks for the replies :) I'll report back tomorrow

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mplayer has a graphical front-end, called gmplayer or mplayer-gui or some such. Mostly I was thinking about it for use in troubleshooting.

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Update: So, with the fglrx drivers and compiz disabled (or visual effects disabled), I still can't playback 480p videos. So, I can pretty much conclude that fglrx driver is garbage.

I ran glxgears (I know it's not a true benchmark). After the 5th reading, I minimized the glxgears window, hence more FPS. Here are the results:

With standard ubuntu graphics driver (no fglrx installed):

3138 frames in 5.0 seconds = 625.779 FPS

3160 frames in 5.0 seconds = 630.168 FPS

3340 frames in 5.0 seconds = 665.874 FPS

3340 frames in 5.0 seconds = 665.739 FPS

3300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 656.264 FPS

8260 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1651.337 FPS

7880 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1573.782 FPS

9200 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1837.332 FPS

9174 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1832.066 FPS

9300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1856.771 FPS

With fglrx drivers but compiz disabled:

3756 frames in 5.0 seconds = 751.009 FPS

3866 frames in 5.0 seconds = 773.032 FPS

3866 frames in 5.0 seconds = 773.085 FPS

3865 frames in 5.0 seconds = 772.952 FPS

3863 frames in 5.0 seconds = 772.537 FPS

5110 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1021.997 FPS

5840 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1167.877 FPS

5837 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1167.330 FPS

5836 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1167.174 FPS

5779 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1155.764 FPS

With fglrx driver and compiz enabled:

2844 frames in 5.0 seconds = 568.672 FPS

3647 frames in 5.0 seconds = 729.257 FPS

3673 frames in 5.0 seconds = 734.495 FPS

3677 frames in 5.0 seconds = 735.241 FPS

3677 frames in 5.0 seconds = 735.245 FPS

4538 frames in 5.0 seconds = 907.578 FPS

5532 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1106.335 FPS

5459 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1091.761 FPS

5502 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1100.387 FPS

5367 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1073.332 FPS

markjensen, I installed mplayer, but when I tried to playback the videos, I only heard audio, and saw no video...

Also, maybe it was on this forum that claimed linux needed no restarts, but after I installed fglrx, I had to restart. Someone said I could just restart X, but that didn't work at all.

So, in conclusion, this laptop can handle older games, 1080p videos on Windows without a hitch, Aero interface, but it's not good enough for Compiz. /waits for linux defenders to say linux needs less resources.

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Update: So, with the fglrx drivers and compiz disabled (or visual effects disabled), I still can't playback 480p videos. So, I can pretty much conclude that fglrx driver is garbage.

...

So, in conclusion, this laptop can handle older games, 1080p videos on Windows without a hitch, Aero interface, but it's not good enough for Compiz. /waits for linux defenders to say linux needs less resources.

These statements only make sense if fglrx = linux.

I could run xcompmgr on my GeForce2 with the nvidia drivers, this is a case of the drivers sucking (not Linux as an OS being bad)

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^ I have heard linux people praise linux drivers as if they were somehow better than their Windows counterparts.

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...

Also, maybe it was on this forum that claimed linux needed no restarts ...

... /waits for linux defenders to say linux needs less resources.

I have absolutely no interest in participating in flame-bait, so let me just state this once:

Linux requires a restart for a new kernel. Not for inserting/removing modules. Not for restarting services. Not for restarting apps (including X, the GUI).

Yes, a Linux system can be set to use less resources. When you start configuring it to use more then point out how it is using more, it seems kind of silly and pointless, no?

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/blah, it just bogs my mind, that linux people think Aero & Vista is too heavy on the system. Here I am and I can't even run Compiz, and playback even 480p videos, let alone regular videos.

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Because the ATI driver sucks.

The ATI driver is closed source (the parts that count) and can't be enhanced by the open source guys.

And Aero is heavier than Compiz and such, but again you need good driver support to pull that off (like how I could have a composited 3D interface on my old GeForce 2, the nvidia drivers are pretty good)

Edit: to put it in perspective, the ATI driver was 6 times slower or something than the nvidia driver at drawing a shape to the screen, drawing shapes to the screen is fairly important.

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His first three posts were genuine requests for help, so I was helping. His other three more recent posts were flame-bait, so I figured at that point he was no longer interested in the problem, just complaining.

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