ATI drivers version 6.7.194

[Olivier Brisson]

* Coleman Kane <cokane at freebsd.org> [071005 22:46]:
> Coleman Kane wrote:
> >Olivier Brisson wrote:
> >>* Olivier Brisson <oli at unixcraft.org> [071004 22:56]:
> >> 
> >>>* Coleman Kane <cokane at freebsd.org> [071004 16:49]:
> >>>   
> >>>>Hey,
> >>>>
> >>>>The latest round of fixes for xf86-video-ati came out (6.7.194).
> >>>>
> >>>>I put together the attached patch to the current port for the 
> >>>>update. If anyone is still having trouble, try this one out or get 
> >>>>the latest out of the repository. Seems to fix some breakage in Xv 
> >>>>as well as some LVDS issues.
> >>>>
> >>>>Works fine for me so far!
> >>>>
> >>>>-- 
> >>>>Coleman Kane
> >>>>      
> >>>Thank you very much for your work, but after patching and
> >>>recompiling xorg with the ati-driver, it still doesn't work right
> >>>for me.  I still get a lot of flickering and scrolling Firefox or
> >>>{snip]
> >>>    
> >>
> >>The bug has been confirmed by many people here:
> >>
> >>http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12490
> >>
> >>It does not only affect FreeBSD but also Rawhide
> >>(https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=261021)
> >>and many problems have been reported with single headed radeon
> >>cards. http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12490#c1
> >>
> >>But there seems to be some hope as written here: 
> >>http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12490#c22
> >>
> >>I will try to give a try this weekend and test this. Does someone
> >>has some nice hints to use git and build everything? Where should I
> >>be careful?
> >>
> >>Olivier
> >>  
> >Last time that I did that, I followed these steps:
> >
> >1. cd /usr/ports/x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati
> >2. make extract
> >3. cd work
> >4. git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati 
> >(yields a ./xf86-video-ati directory)
> >5. cd xf86-video-ati
> >6. ./autogen.sh
> >7. cd ..
> >8. mv xf86-video-ati-6.7.194 xf86-video-ati-6.7.194-orig
> >9. mv xf86-video-ati xf86-video-ati-6.7.194
> >10. cd ..
> >11. make && make deinstall && make install
> >
> >That should install (quick & dirtily) the HEAD revision from git, 
> >built from ports.
> >
> >In fact, I just did this on my system and it built fine (minus a bunch 
> >of 64-bit pointer printf warnings on my amd64 box). I am attaching a 
> >patch that isolates where these are, and fixes the warnings (and the 
> >log output) with the properly formatted hex fields for 8-byte pointers 
> >on amd64. You should apply this within work/xf86-video-ati-6.7.194/src.
> >
> >Preparing to restart the X server w/ the new driver.
> >
> >-- 
> >Coleman Kane
> Installed and I am now up-and-running with the driver I compiled from 
> the HEAD. It *does* fix the breakages I had under EXA RenderMode, making 
> it usable now, and it looks like XAA (no artifacts or distortions or 
> crashes of server on startup). However, I do get horrid performance when 
> using my GNOME Terminal. Under XAA mode, the GNOME Terminal is fast and 
> responsive. However, if I am using EXA mode, and compiling something 
> large (or any other activity that causes lots of data to scroll the 
> terminal buffer), the GNOME Terminal output is very sluggish and seems 
> to use a lot of CPU time in rendering itself. It will lag behind, 
> outputting 10 lines of output at once, then pausing, rather than 
> outputting each line of output immediately as it is generated by the 
> underlying software.
> 
> --
> Coleman Kane

Thank you so much for the hints and for your help. I followed your
steps and there is no flickering anymore.

I have not played with XAA and EXA because it's getting really late
here but also noticed bad performance: scrolling a web page in
Firefox or a simple OOo document is very sluggish and CPU is
immediatly at 100%

I also noticed that i lost some european letters: I think, that i
probably forgot to rebuild something and i will investigate it
later.

Don't bother to ask if you need something tested with the
ATI-Driver on FreeBSD 5.5-i386.

Olivier