doc/en/ati-faq.xml

<?xml version='1.0' encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/ati-faq.xml,v 1.54 2012/06/29 16:20:09 swift Exp $ -->

<guide>
<title>Gentoo Linux ATI FAQ</title>

<author title="Author">
  <mail link="lu_zero@gentoo.org">Luca Barbato</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="peesh@gentoo.org">Jorge Paulo</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="blubber@gentoo.org">Tiemo Kieft</mail>
</author>
<author title="Editor">
  <mail link="nightmorph@gentoo.org">Joshua Saddler</mail>
</author>

<abstract>
This FAQ should help users avoid some common installation and configuration
issues related to DRI and X11 for AMD/ATI boards.
</abstract>

<!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license -->
<!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 -->
<license/>

<version>7</version>
<date>2012-06-29</date>

<chapter>
<title>Hardware Support</title>
<section>
<title>Is my AMD/ATI board supported?</title>
<body>

<p>
Many AMD/ATI boards (but not all) are supported by <uri
link="http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/xorg">xorg-x11</uri>, at least for the
2D accelerated features. The 3D support is provided either by xorg-x11, or by
AMD's <uri
link="http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/ati-catalyst/Pages/catalyst.aspx">closed
source drivers</uri>. AMD's closed source driver only supports R600 and newer
GPUs. Older GPUs will use the mature open source xorg-x11 driver.
</p>

<table>
<tr>
  <th>GPU</th>
  <th>Common Name</th>
  <th>Support</th>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>Rage128</ti>
  <ti>Rage128</ti>
  <ti>xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>R100</ti>
  <ti>Radeon7xxx, Radeon64</ti>
  <ti>xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>R200, R250, R280</ti>
  <ti>Radeon8500, Radeon9000, Radeon9200</ti>
  <ti>xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>R300, R400</ti>
  <ti>Radeon 9500 - X850</ti>
  <ti>xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>R500</ti>
  <ti>Radeon X1300 - X1950</ti>
  <ti>xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>R600</ti>
  <ti>RadeonHD 2000 series</ti>
  <ti>xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>RV670</ti>
  <ti>RadeonHD 3000 series</ti>
  <ti>xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>RV770 (R700)</ti>
  <ti>RadeonHD 4000 series</ti>
  <ti>xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>Evergreen</ti>
  <ti>RadeonHD 5000 series</ti>
  <ti>AMD DRI, xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>Northern Islands</ti>
  <ti>RadeonHD 6000 series</ti>
  <ti>AMD DRI, xorg</ti>
</tr>
<tr>
  <ti>Southern Islands</ti>
  <ti>RadeonHD 7000 series</ti>
  <ti>AMD DRI, xorg</ti>
</tr>
</table>

<note>
The <uri link="http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature">Radeon Feature Matrix</uri>
at x.org lists the open source driver support level for each part of the
graphics card hardware.
</note>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>
  I have an All-In-Wonder/Vivo board.  Are the multimedia features supported?
</title>
<body>

<p>
You don't need to use anything special for the board's multimedia features;
<c>x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati</c> will work just fine.
</p>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>I'm not using an x86-based architecture.  What are my options?</title>
<body>

<p>
X11 support on the PPC or Alpha platforms is quite similar to x86 X11 support.
However, AMD/ATI's closed source Catalyst drivers are not supported on the PPC
or Alpha, so you will have to use the open source drivers. The Catalyst drivers
are only available for x86 and AMD64. The open source xorg-x11 drivers should
work well on all architectures.
</p>

<impo>
To enable agpgart support for certain old AMD64 chipsets, you have to disable
support for the K8 IOMMU.
</impo>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>I have a laptop. Is my ATI Mobility model supported?</title>
<body>

<p>
It should be, but you may have a configuration issue due to the OEM PCI id that
such chips may have. In such cases, you may have to write the configuration
file yourself.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>

<chapter>
<title>Installation</title>
<section>
<title>Packages</title>
<body>

<p>
There are two ways of getting drivers for your AMD/ATI card:
</p>

<ul>
  <li>The <c>xorg-x11</c> ebuild provides the X11 implementation</li>
  <li>
    The <c>ati-drivers</c> ebuild provides the AMD closed source X drivers
    and kernel modules
  </li>
</ul>

<p>
If you want to use AMD/ATI's <e>internal</e> agpgart support instead of the Linux
kernel one, the agpgart driver and the chip set specific driver (in your kernel
configuration) must be built as modules or not at all.
</p>

<note>
Please read the <uri link="/doc/en/dri-howto.xml">Hardware Acceleration
Guide</uri> for more information on installing drivers for your AMD/ATI graphics
card.
</note>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Configuration</title>
<body>

<p>
You may not need to manually create <path>xorg.conf</path> or modify it if you
are using the open-source radeon driver. Try running without it first. If this
fails, you can use the auto-configuration option of X:
</p>

<pre caption="Autoconfiguring X">
# <i>X -configure</i>
</pre>

<p>
If you use the proprietary ATI drivers, you can get assistance for configuring
X through the <c>aticonfig</c> application (which is part of the
<c>ati-drivers</c> package).
</p>

<p>
For more information on how to get a basic <c>xorg.conf</c> configuration file,
please refer to the <uri link="/doc/en/xorg-config.xml">Gentoo X Server
HowTo</uri>.
</p>

<note>
PPC, AMD64, and x86 users can use the <c>xac</c> stand-alone X configuration
tool by emerging <c>x11-misc/xac</c>, but isn't required.
</note>

<impo>
If you're using <c>ati-drivers</c>, then you'll need to disable <c>radeonfb</c>
(and probably any other framebuffer drivers) in your kernel config, as it
conflicts with the built-in framebuffer in <c>ati-drivers</c>.
</impo>

</body>
</section>
<section>
<title>Switching to OpenGL</title>
<body>

<p>
Once X is installed, configured, and running, it can use the AMD/ATI OpenGL
libraries:
</p>

<pre caption="Running eselect">
# <i>eselect opengl set ati</i>
</pre>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>More Resources</title>
<section>
<body>

<p>
Please read the <uri link="/doc/en/dri-howto.xml">Hardware Acceleration
Guide</uri> for more information on configuring your AMD/ATI graphics card.
</p>

<p>
More information on Gentoo Linux and the AMD/ATI Radeon binary drivers can be
found on the <uri
link="http://odin.prohosting.com/wedge01/gentoo-radeon-faq.html">Wedge
Unofficial Gentoo ATI Radeon FAQ</uri>, and on the <uri
link="http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Main_Page">Unofficial AMD Linux Driver
Wiki</uri>.
</p>

</body>
</section>
</chapter>
</guide>
1	peesh	1.1	<?xml version='1.0' encoding="UTF-8"?>
2			<!DOCTYPE guide SYSTEM "/dtd/guide.dtd">
3	nightmorph	1.55	<!-- $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/xml/htdocs/doc/en/ati-faq.xml,v 1.54 2012/06/29 16:20:09 swift Exp $ -->
4	peesh	1.1
5	nightmorph	1.48	<guide>
6	swift	1.23	<title>Gentoo Linux ATI FAQ</title>
7	swift	1.22
8	swift	1.7	<author title="Author">
9			<mail link="lu_zero@gentoo.org">Luca Barbato</mail>
10	peesh	1.1	</author>
11	swift	1.7	<author title="Editor">
12			<mail link="peesh@gentoo.org">Jorge Paulo</mail>
13	peesh	1.1	</author>
14	swift	1.7	<author title="Editor">
15			<mail link="blubber@gentoo.org">Tiemo Kieft</mail>
16	blubber	1.5	</author>
17	nightmorph	1.44	<author title="Editor">
18			<mail link="nightmorph@gentoo.org">Joshua Saddler</mail>
19			</author>
20	peesh	1.1
21	swift	1.7	<abstract>
22			This FAQ should help users avoid some common installation and configuration
23	nightmorph	1.50	issues related to DRI and X11 for AMD/ATI boards.
24	swift	1.7	</abstract>
25	peesh	1.1
26	fox2mike	1.32	<!-- The content of this document is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license -->
27			<!-- See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 -->
28	swift	1.3	<license/>
29
30	swift	1.54	<version>7</version>
31			<date>2012-06-29</date>
32	peesh	1.1
33			<chapter>
34			<title>Hardware Support</title>
35			<section>
36	nightmorph	1.50	<title>Is my AMD/ATI board supported?</title>
37	peesh	1.1	<body>
38	swift	1.7
39			<p>
40	nightmorph	1.50	Many AMD/ATI boards (but not all) are supported by <uri
41	nightmorph	1.43	link="http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/xorg">xorg-x11</uri>, at least for the
42			2D accelerated features. The 3D support is provided either by xorg-x11, or by
43	nightmorph	1.50	AMD's <uri
44			link="http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/ati-catalyst/Pages/catalyst.aspx">closed
45			source drivers</uri>. AMD's closed source driver only supports R600 and newer
46	nightmorph	1.48	GPUs. Older GPUs will use the mature open source xorg-x11 driver.
47	peesh	1.1	</p>
48
49			<table>
50	swift	1.7	<tr>
51			<th>GPU</th>
52			<th>Common Name</th>
53			<th>Support</th>
54			</tr>
55			<tr>
56	swift	1.29	<ti>Rage128</ti>
57	swift	1.7	<ti>Rage128</ti>
58	nightmorph	1.43	<ti>xorg</ti>
59	swift	1.7	</tr>
60			<tr>
61	swift	1.29	<ti>R100</ti>
62	swift	1.7	<ti>Radeon7xxx, Radeon64</ti>
63	nightmorph	1.43	<ti>xorg</ti>
64	swift	1.7	</tr>
65			<tr>
66	swift	1.29	<ti>R200, R250, R280</ti>
67	swift	1.13	<ti>Radeon8500, Radeon9000, Radeon9200</ti>
68	nightmorph	1.47	<ti>xorg</ti>
69	swift	1.7	</tr>
70			<tr>
71	jkt	1.42	<ti>R300, R400</ti>
72	nightmorph	1.50	<ti>Radeon 9500 - X850</ti>
73	nightmorph	1.47	<ti>xorg</ti>
74	swift	1.7	</tr>
75	jkt	1.42	<tr>
76	nightmorph	1.43	<ti>R500</ti>
77	nightmorph	1.50	<ti>Radeon X1300 - X1950</ti>
78	nightmorph	1.47	<ti>xorg</ti>
79	jkt	1.42	</tr>
80	nightmorph	1.43	<tr>
81			<ti>R600</ti>
82	nightmorph	1.48	<ti>RadeonHD 2000 series</ti>
83	nightmorph	1.53	<ti>xorg</ti>
84	nightmorph	1.45	</tr>
85			<tr>
86			<ti>RV670</ti>
87	nightmorph	1.48	<ti>RadeonHD 3000 series</ti>
88	nightmorph	1.53	<ti>xorg</ti>
89	nightmorph	1.46	</tr>
90			<tr>
91	nightmorph	1.51	<ti>RV770 (R700)</ti>
92	nightmorph	1.48	<ti>RadeonHD 4000 series</ti>
93	nightmorph	1.53	<ti>xorg</ti>
94	nightmorph	1.48	</tr>
95			<tr>
96	nightmorph	1.53	<ti>Evergreen</ti>
97	nightmorph	1.50	<ti>RadeonHD 5000 series</ti>
98			<ti>AMD DRI, xorg</ti>
99			</tr>
100			<tr>
101	nightmorph	1.53	<ti>Northern Islands</ti>
102	nightmorph	1.50	<ti>RadeonHD 6000 series</ti>
103			<ti>AMD DRI, xorg</ti>
104	nightmorph	1.43	</tr>
105	nightmorph	1.53	<tr>
106			<ti>Southern Islands</ti>
107			<ti>RadeonHD 7000 series</ti>
108			<ti>AMD DRI, xorg</ti>
109			</tr>
110	peesh	1.1	</table>
111
112	nightmorph	1.50	<note>
113			The <uri link="http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature">Radeon Feature Matrix</uri>
114			at x.org lists the open source driver support level for each part of the
115			graphics card hardware.
116			</note>
117
118	peesh	1.1	</body>
119			</section>
120			<section>
121	swift	1.7	<title>
122	swift	1.22	I have an All-In-Wonder/Vivo board. Are the multimedia features supported?
123	swift	1.7	</title>
124	peesh	1.1	<body>
125	swift	1.7
126			<p>
127	nightmorph	1.48	You don't need to use anything special for the board's multimedia features;
128	nightmorph	1.44	<c>x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati</c> will work just fine.
129	swift	1.7	</p>
130
131	peesh	1.1	</body>
132			</section>
133			<section>
134	swift	1.28	<title>I'm not using an x86-based architecture. What are my options?</title>
135	peesh	1.1	<body>
136	swift	1.7
137			<p>
138	swift	1.28	X11 support on the PPC or Alpha platforms is quite similar to x86 X11 support.
139	nightmorph	1.50	However, AMD/ATI's closed source Catalyst drivers are not supported on the PPC
140			or Alpha, so you will have to use the open source drivers. The Catalyst drivers
141			are only available for x86 and AMD64. The open source xorg-x11 drivers should
142			work well on all architectures.
143	swift	1.7	</p>
144
145	lu_zero	1.19	<impo>
146	nightmorph	1.48	To enable agpgart support for certain old AMD64 chipsets, you have to disable
147	swift	1.28	support for the K8 IOMMU.
148	lu_zero	1.19	</impo>
149
150	peesh	1.1	</body>
151			</section>
152			<section>
153	nightmorph	1.47	<title>I have a laptop. Is my ATI Mobility model supported?</title>
154	peesh	1.1	<body>
155	swift	1.7
156			<p>
157	neysx	1.40	It should be, but you may have a configuration issue due to the OEM PCI id that
158	nightmorph	1.48	such chips may have. In such cases, you may have to write the configuration
159	nightmorph	1.47	file yourself.
160	peesh	1.1	</p>
161
162			</body>
163			</section>
164			</chapter>
165
166			<chapter>
167			<title>Installation</title>
168			<section>
169			<title>Packages</title>
170			<body>
171	swift	1.7
172	nightmorph	1.43	<p>
173	nightmorph	1.50	There are two ways of getting drivers for your AMD/ATI card:
174	nightmorph	1.43	</p>
175
176	swift	1.17	<ul>
177	swift	1.22	<li>The <c>xorg-x11</c> ebuild provides the X11 implementation</li>
178	nightmorph	1.50	<li>
179			The <c>ati-drivers</c> ebuild provides the AMD closed source X drivers
180			and kernel modules
181	swift	1.22	</li>
182	swift	1.17	</ul>
183	swift	1.7
184	swift	1.21	<p>
185	nightmorph	1.50	If you want to use AMD/ATI's <e>internal</e> agpgart support instead of the Linux
186	swift	1.23	kernel one, the agpgart driver and the chip set specific driver (in your kernel
187	swift	1.21	configuration) must be built as modules or not at all.
188			</p>
189	swift	1.7
190	nightmorph	1.43	<note>
191			Please read the <uri link="/doc/en/dri-howto.xml">Hardware Acceleration
192	nightmorph	1.50	Guide</uri> for more information on installing drivers for your AMD/ATI graphics
193	nightmorph	1.43	card.
194			</note>
195	swift	1.7
196	peesh	1.1	</body>
197			</section>
198			<section>
199			<title>Configuration</title>
200			<body>
201	swift	1.7
202			<p>
203	swift	1.54	You may not need to manually create <path>xorg.conf</path> or modify it if you
204			are using the open-source radeon driver. Try running without it first. If this
205			fails, you can use the auto-configuration option of X:
206	swift	1.7	</p>
207
208	lu_zero	1.10	<pre caption="Autoconfiguring X">
209	blubber	1.5	# <i>X -configure</i>
210	peesh	1.1	</pre>
211	swift	1.7
212			<p>
213	nightmorph	1.55	If you use the proprietary ATI drivers, you can get assistance for configuring
214	swift	1.54	X through the <c>aticonfig</c> application (which is part of the
215			<c>ati-drivers</c> package).
216			</p>
217
218			<p>
219	lu_zero	1.9	For more information on how to get a basic <c>xorg.conf</c> configuration file,
220	fox2mike	1.35	please refer to the <uri link="/doc/en/xorg-config.xml">Gentoo X Server
221			HowTo</uri>.
222	swift	1.7	</p>
223
224			<note>
225	nightmorph	1.49	PPC, AMD64, and x86 users can use the <c>xac</c> stand-alone X configuration
226			tool by emerging <c>x11-misc/xac</c>, but isn't required.
227	swift	1.7	</note>
228
229	nightmorph	1.47	<impo>
230			If you're using <c>ati-drivers</c>, then you'll need to disable <c>radeonfb</c>
231			(and probably any other framebuffer drivers) in your kernel config, as it
232			conflicts with the built-in framebuffer in <c>ati-drivers</c>.
233	swift	1.7	</impo>
234
235	peesh	1.1	</body>
236			</section>
237	nightmorph	1.36	<section>
238			<title>Switching to OpenGL</title>
239			<body>
240
241			<p>
242	nightmorph	1.50	Once X is installed, configured, and running, it can use the AMD/ATI OpenGL
243	nightmorph	1.36	libraries:
244			</p>
245
246	nightmorph	1.37	<pre caption="Running eselect">
247			# <i>eselect opengl set ati</i>
248	nightmorph	1.36	</pre>
249
250			</body>
251			</section>
252	peesh	1.1	</chapter>
253	swift	1.30	<chapter>
254			<title>More Resources</title>
255			<section>
256			<body>
257
258			<p>
259	nightmorph	1.38	Please read the <uri link="/doc/en/dri-howto.xml">Hardware Acceleration
260	nightmorph	1.50	Guide</uri> for more information on configuring your AMD/ATI graphics card.
261	nightmorph	1.38	</p>
262
263			<p>
264	nightmorph	1.50	More information on Gentoo Linux and the AMD/ATI Radeon binary drivers can be
265			found on the <uri
266	swift	1.30	link="http://odin.prohosting.com/wedge01/gentoo-radeon-faq.html">Wedge
267	nightmorph	1.50	Unofficial Gentoo ATI Radeon FAQ</uri>, and on the <uri
268			link="http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Main_Page">Unofficial AMD Linux Driver
269			Wiki</uri>.
270	swift	1.30	</p>
271
272			</body>
273			</section>
274			</chapter>
275	peesh	1.1	</guide>