Intel x3100, 2,4GhZ C2Duo, too weak for UT2004 ?

[starfly]

Hello,

Ive got an new Notebook, but ive got a Problem too ;-)

Ive read a lot information before i bought it, and my information was that the X3100 Graphic adapter isnt sooo worse... !

Now ive installed the Driver out of the Box from Hardy, but i got only 1100 Frames in glxgears, and compiz is Down !

My Notebook has : 3GB Ram, 2,4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, And an 965M Intel Graphics adapter !

Output of grep agp :

[ 32.301198] Linux agpgart interface v0.102
[ 32.417173] agpgart: Detected an Intel 965GM Chipset.
[ 32.418581] agpgart: Detected 7676K stolen memory.
[ 32.430734] agpgart: AGP aperture is 256M @ 0xd000000



---> My Problem Now : I want to play an Old Game like UT, an the strangest thing is : I Can push the resolution from 640 X 480 to 1280 X 800, the Perfrmance is still the same... It stucks a little bit, and the Performance over all is very horrible !

Any Suggestions how to push the Performace, so that i can play this game without problems ? because it seems like my Graphic adapter isnt giving all of its power !

Hope on ur Help :-)

Greets from Germany !

[starfly]

No one good news ? ;-) Like " Its an driver issue" ---> The missing performance !

[zgornel]

Have you played also with the details ? Remove foliage, high detailed textures and other options that stress the graphic card. You should be able to play it in 1280x800 with medium details. As for the power of the X3100, it is very very low : http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4154 .

[HappyHenry]

keep searching threads. It is a prob with the shared memory of the x3100 video. My setup is not reporting the right amount of memory. 64m! and the chip should allow up to 384m or shared ram-way more than Unreal needs. Im sure we can get unreal running fast frame rates once we get the dang memory sharing like its designed for.
The above link about x3100 being a "low" chip also states the the card is plenty for Unreal, "As you can see, the GMA X3100 actually acquits itself pretty favorably in UT2004, delivering solid performance all the way up to 1024x768 at medium settings"
You MAY be able to change settings in your bios for the memory on your system. My system bios will not give option for memory its a compaq 6710b but same vid chip as you. The specs on the x3100 say it can share 384m ram so I would not consider it, "very low," just needs some adjustments. I saw a thread was trying to find it again when i found yours. Ill post back when i find it. Good luck and please post solution when you get it---its out here somewhere i saw it lol

[trumpeteersman]

T61 Thinkpad
1.8gz Centrino Core 2 duo
1GB DDR2-667
Intel x3100
Kubuntu 8.04
Stock xorg.conf

I don't care about compiz for a laptop, but I would like to play some older games every once in a while.

I am also getting ~1000fps with glxgears. UT2004 plays jerky whether its on 640x480 lowest settings or 1280x800(WS) with medium-high settings. I have even tested UT2004 on Fluxbox and nothing seems to change the performance.(Except windowed mode crashes X)

I don't think it is a memory problem because lspci reports 256M for me:


$ sudo lspci -v -s 00:02.0
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Lenovo Unknown device 20b5
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 20
Memory at f8100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
I/O ports at 1800 [size=8]
Capabilities: [90] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 3


Here is my xorg.conf.


# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection



Any other ideas?

I will continue to look around...

[trumpeteersman]

Something strange is going on.
Even though lspci states that I am using 256Mb of memory for the x3100, my free -m says something different:


~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 985 889 96 0 58 544
-/+ buffers/cache: 286 699
Swap: 956 0 956



I have 1024Mb and free states that I have 985Mb, Is my video memory only using 39Mb of memory? This is not cool at all. I now think HappyHenry was right about the memory issue.

Why is lspci not giving me the correct video memory usage?

It seems as though the allocation problem is with the Intel driver.
However, does't the BIOS allocate the video memory before any OS boots us?

I am going to try to find out more. Anybody who has any ideas, PLEASE post.

[trumpeteersman]

I tried to set the VideoRam option to 128MB(131072kB) in the device section of xorg.conf, but the intel driver thinks it is better than me ... :p



Section "Device"
41 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
42 Option "UseFBDev" "true"
43 VideoRam 131072 # 128MB
44 EndSection



And it might very well be. The xorg logs say that it will use 256MB instead of the 128MB I set.

Here is what my /var/log/Xorg.0.log says:

(WW) intel(0): VideoRam configuration found, which is no longer recommended.
(II) intel(0): Continuing with default 262144kB VideoRam instead of 131072 kB.
(II) intel(0): Kernel reported 234496 total, 1 used
(II) intel(0): I830CheckAvailableMemory: 937980 kB available


Some interesting snippits from the xorg logs:

(WW) intel: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0:2:1) found
(==) intel(0): Using EXA for acceleration
(WW) intel(0): Bad V_BIOS checksum
(II) intel(0): Primary V_BIOS segment is: 0xc000
(II) intel(0): VESA BIOS detected
(II) intel(0): VESA VBE Version 3.0
(II) intel(0): VESA VBE Total Mem: 7616 kB
(II) intel(0): VESA VBE OEM: Intel(r)Crestline Graphics Chip Accelerated VGA BIOS
(II) intel(0): VESA VBE OEM Software Rev: 1.0
(II) intel(0): VESA VBE OEM Vendor: Intel Corporation
(II) intel(0): VESA VBE OEM Product: Intel(r)Crestline Graphics Controller
(II) intel(0): VESA VBE OEM Product Rev: Hardware Version 0.0
(II) intel(0): detected 7676 kB stolen memory.
(WW) intel(0): Register 0x61200 (PP_STATUS) changed from 0xc0000008 to 0xd0000009
(WW) intel(0): PP_STATUS before: on, ready, sequencing idle
(WW) intel(0): PP_STATUS after: on, ready, sequencing on
(WW) intel(0): EXA greedy migration mode enabled.
(II) intel(0): Fixed memory allocation layout:
(II) intel(0): 0x00000000-0x0001ffff: ring buffer (128 kB)
(II) intel(0): 0x00020000-0x00029fff: HW cursors (40 kB)
(II) intel(0): 0x0002a000-0x00031fff: logical 3D context (32 kB)
(II) intel(0): 0x00032000-0x00041fff: exa G965 state buffer (64 kB)
(II) intel(0): 0x00042000-0x00042fff: overlay registers (4 kB)
(II) intel(0): 0x00100000-0x0073ffff: front buffer (6400 kB) X tiled
(II) intel(0): 0x00740000-0x019fffff: exa offscreen (19200 kB)
(II) intel(0): 0x0077f000: end of stolen memory
(II) intel(0): 0x01a00000-0x0203ffff: back buffer (6400 kB) X tiled
(II) intel(0): 0x02040000-0x0267ffff: depth buffer (6400 kB) Y tiled
(II) intel(0): 0x02680000-0x0467ffff: classic textures (32768 kB)
(II) intel(0): 0x10000000: end of aperture
(II) intel(0): direct rendering: Enabled
(WW) intel(0): Option "UseFBDev" is not used


(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x23
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x24
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x25
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x26
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x27
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x28
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x29
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2a
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2b
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2c
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2d
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2e
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2f
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x30
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x31
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x32




I just got an update for the intel driver. My versions are now:
xserver-xorg-video-i810=2:1.7.4-0ubuntu7
xserver-xorg-video-intel=2:2.2.1-1ubuntu3.6

Doesn't seem to make a difference.

However, since the xorg.conf does not specify driver, I don't which one is used. I am going to play around with some xorg.conf settings...

[trumpeteersman]

I added some things to the xorg.conf.
First I added a "Module" section which was missing and added some modules which I psudo-randomly choose:

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "dri"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
EndSection




I added this to the "Device" Section:
Option "XVideo" "On

And this at the end:

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection


None of this has made any difference.

Could anyone with a newer Intel chipset that can play games fine please post their xorg.conf?

With gfx at the absolute minimum and with 320x200 resolution, UT2004 gets a framerate of 1-75. Going from ~1fps to ~75fps every freaking second. A fluctuating fps like that makes it VERY hard to play.

[AbtZ]

I don't know if mucking around in xorg.conf will help. I think it's a driver issue.

In WinXP my X3100 works with UT2K4 flawlessly. I run the game on high settings, with no problems.

[rcsdnj]

Any updates on this? I'm having the same problem.. the X3100 card is almost unusable for anything 3D on Ubuntu, and performs as good as expected on Vista.. :(

[trumpeteersman]

None yet.

I did install windows to test out the gfx though.
I had to delete my swap and boot partitions because Windows was completely astounded that I had 4 primary partitions on ONE drive. I moved the contents of boot back to the root partition and deleted the swap and boot mounts in /etc/fstab. I also replaced the UUIDs for the drive names (/dev/sda1) in both the /etc/fstab and the /boot/grub/menu.lst.

I also turned the swappiness to 0 since I don't have swap anymore.

So far the only game I tried out so far on Windows was Oblivion. I tweaked it and was able to play it at 10-40fps as stable as Oblivion is capable of.

I wonder if anyone with a x3100 is actually able to play anything 3d in Linux. It is sad the the x3100 seems so bad and it is one of the best Intel chips. My old integrated GeForce4 mx 440se kicked *** when I got it, was able to play the newest games at the time.(at low to medium settings though)

If anyone finds anything, please post it here.

[trumpeteersman]

I tested portal on Windows and was able to play with settings set to medium low.

I still haven't been able to find a solution. This and the 2MBps slow Intel wireless are the last problems I have with Ubuntu.

Anybody?

[starfly]

Oho i founf my own threat with still the same <problem, sorry 4 that :-(


Problem is still the same, good performance in windows, super bad performance in linux.. it has to be a driver problem ! Another problem is the memory allocation.. theres always only 8mb stolen memory... still when running games etc.

I cant set the memory in Bios, so we have to find at first a way to set the memory allocation in linux 2 our graphic card :-)

after that we just have to find a way to push the drivers for our new cards, because NOW theres only a way that our chips work, but theres no support for power !

Another thing iam arguing wiht : In windows theres an Special driver for Performance for the 3100 chips in development... and in linux weve got to work with 3D in such slow performance... Sorry for my english, but iam very very upset !

[kirys]

I do have the same problem, Hardy drivers are an old version, did someone tried to compile latest intel drivers to test if there are performance improvements?
Cya

[starfly]

Ive Tryed a vew dasy ago, but it seems 2 be the same... I dont know if the drivers are the same **** like the old ones or my "Compiling Professionals" are not good enough to get them well running...

In the end, ive got Direct rendering but no better performance...

I think the Problem is that all these Intel drivers, relay on old chipsets, only tweaked fot the new ones... Even enough to get them running...The Only way seems to be the windows way : Developing a complete new, exactly matching driver for our modern chipsets of the X3100 !

[kirys]

I do not have windows :)
AFAIK Windows drivers are developed also by intel staff so maybe we just have to wait more... sigh

[starfly]

" Wait More " ?!

Ive got a Notebook, 1200€ ! And a Graphic chip that cant play games from 2004 ?! Sorry but my opinion about intel is : FuXX ShiXX !

Iam so tired to search about drivers, only ewant to play an old game...its very very boring to use a system with an non useable driver ;-)

[kirys]

When I bought this laptop I was aware that the intel driver is slow, but for the kind of laptop I was searching there was no alternative with a non intel chip :/

Nvidia released some buggy chipset lately so even if I could afford an nvidia alternative i would have been worried about reliability :/

Linux driver have many issues (not only performance related) like interpolation of video (the only one that works well is VLC) chunky shapes in compiz, strange behavior with the docking station (I had to remove the standard *ubuntu script that set the resolution and replace with a script of mine) and many more....

I think that maybe we should send our complains to the driver staff rather that this forum.

[starfly]

Absolutly right !

[starfly]

A windows game from 1999 isnt runnig quite well !:(

[trumpeteersman]

I can play N64 games with Mupen64(VERY buggy) without too much problems from the gfx. Google Earth's built-in flight sim is usable, but still jerky and tends to freeze for 10 seconds when the gfx for crashing comes up. Neverputt and Neverball works great.

I am going to get a RAM upgrade within the next few weeks and see if that helps. I currently have 1 gig of ddr2 667 cas 7 latency. I am going to get 4 gigs of ddr2 667 cas 5 latency.

We could try to contact Intel, but I don't think they care. Is there a project that uses Intel's Open Source driver code to write community made drivers? I need to learn assembly...

[kirys]

Maybe we should check latest intel driver first.
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/

anyone knows of a tutorial? :)

[xnerdx]

I am having the same problem, I recently purchased a Toshiba Satellite A205-S5000 laptop. Not a "top of the line" model but it sure as hell beats my desktop. I added Ubuntu 8.04 over the sh@@y vista OS and then had serious problems. After going through hell I got my wireless card to work on Ubuntu. The next problem was getting the general appearance settings in ubuntu to work, to do this I had to edit my xorg.conf and under the Device section change the vesa driver to intel. After doing this I was able to change my appear settings as well as use compiz. The problem now is I am trying to use Wine to emulate Spore, I checked wine and the latest version supports Spore. I downloaded the latest version and installed it and then tried to run it and get a fun little error that states that I do not meet the min requirements to run spore. I checked the Min requirements on spore and the X3100 GMA 965 is clearly supported. I have been trying to compile these stupid mesa drivers but they aren't working and I am going INSANE. If you look up my posts I have been trying to resolve this problem but nobody seems to know what to do. After researching about how to share RAM with the card through BIOS I can't find ANYTHING in my BIOS about allocating RAM. I am just extremely frustrated so please someone help.....

[zgornel]

I am having the same problem, I recently purchased a Toshiba Satellite A205-S5000 laptop. Not a "top of the line" model but it sure as hell beats my desktop. I added Ubuntu 8.04 over the sh@@y vista OS and then had serious problems. After going through hell I got my wireless card to work on Ubuntu. The next problem was getting the general appearance settings in ubuntu to work, to do this I had to edit my xorg.conf and under the Device section change the vesa driver to intel. After doing this I was able to change my appear settings as well as use compiz. The problem now is I am trying to use Wine to emulate Spore, I checked wine and the latest version supports Spore. I downloaded the latest version and installed it and then tried to run it and get a fun little error that states that I do not meet the min requirements to run spore. I checked the Min requirements on spore and the X3100 GMA 965 is clearly supported. I have been trying to compile these stupid mesa drivers but they aren't working and I am going INSANE. If you look up my posts I have been trying to resolve this problem but nobody seems to know what to do. After researching about how to share RAM with the card through BIOS I can't find ANYTHING in my BIOS about allocating RAM. I am just extremely frustrated so please someone help.....

Best thing is to wait for 8.10 . The intel driver receives continuous improvements but they make it only to newer distributions and yes ... compiling the intel driver from scratch is really a pain. If you can't wait, follow the intructions here: http://www.intellinuxgraphics.org/install.html . I recommend recompiling the mesa 3d support also. If compilation errors should occur, you also must install build dependencies for the driver.

[kirys]

The intel driver receives continuous improvements but they make it only to newer distributions

This is one thing I don't really understand, x11 drvers are something that have such a big influence on user experience.
Current version have so many serious issues (performance is just one of the many and not the most important) that I think that it should be replaced with a newer version.

[xnerdx]

To report back on this issue, I have downloaded the Ubuntu 8.10 beta release (So far more problems than before haha). I have read that the 8.10 release will have more support for the intel drivers, I am hoping that in the final release (October 30) I will hopefully be able to get it to work. The beta so far is just a pain in the a$$... waiting for it though... Most people at my school are getting excited for Halloween parties and such, me I am excited for 8.10 the day before "Halloween" :)

[zoomy942]

As of today, my ATI desktop card got its drivers in 8.10. now i am hoping my tablet pc with the x3100 will.

[saint-takeshi]

the memory thing is fine, the chip only cuts off as much as it needs from the sytem memory at any given time, so it's probably only using 8-32MB when you don't actually have a game/3d app running.

(if your laptop came with windows on it, you'll remember in the windows x3100 driver, you can manually set the amount, or let it be handled dynamically...unless you didn't screw around with it, but what's the point in having a laptop if you're not gonna poke about in the driver settings looking for stuff to break? ...that's why i started using linux all those years ago, ran out of stuff to break in windows...that, and i didn't have a harddrive for a while, so had to use liveCDs for about 3 weeks, by which time i was already being drawn in by the shiny, shiny "new stuff to break" factor)

getting 3d acceleration and direct rendering to work on anything but stock Geforce/Radeon 1-2 year old hardware under linux is always a massive pain in the ****, but you feel so friggin' clever when you finally get it working. me, i'm holding out hope for intrepid final sweeping us intel 965GMA users off our graphical little feet...i had simillar hopes pinned on Hardy with its better ATI support, back when i used a desktop PC (since getting the laptop, my tower machine has been gathering dust and slowly getting stripped down as my friends break stuff in their PCs and need mine to replace it) and they more or less delivered on that, i was able to play a few games (PlaneShift is gorgeous if you get your hardware working right)

:guitar:

[starfly]

Now using Intrepid Ibex Beta for 2 Weeks, but in the intel area nothing has changed...Ive got to say, its going to be slower than faster...

The 3D Graphics are now full of Graphicerrors (like Neverputt etc)...

[zgornel]

Did an install on my laptop - has a i915GM chipset so, a pretty old graphics card. The driver in Kubuntu 8.04 is a v2.2 with which I could not play anything. Then added deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/melchiorre/ubuntu hardy main to /etc/apt/sources.list and installed the 2.4 driver. Things got a little bit better, I recommend you should try it and see if any improvements appear.
Edit: I was able to run DOOM3 (~5 fps) - native and through wine, warsow (playable) and Quake 3 (through wine) - this is a huge improvement since the times of (K)Ubuntu 7.04, the last that I tried on the machine.

[kirys]

I've tried the intel fo that repository, it is 2.4.0.
Alien arena is still unplayable (at least for me :P) while the the video issues are worse.
The issue with kaffeine and gstreamer are still the same while now the playback quality with VLC (that with previous version had no issues) is worse.

[kirys]

do anyone knows how to see the version of the installed graphic driver?

[zgornel]

do anyone knows how to see the version of the installed graphic driver?

Do a cat /etc/var/log/Xorg.0.log | less, scroll and at some point you shoud see: (II) LoadModule: "intel"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//intel_drv.so
(II) Module intel: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
compiled for 1.4.0.90, module version = 2.4.0
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 2.0


kirys, might be that the improvements are only present in some graphic chipsets and not across the whole range. What chipset do you have ?

[kirys]

Mobile Intel® GM965 (X3100).

Video playback quality is really disappointing, gaming performance is not so important for me, but watching a video is something that (IMHO) should never be "bad".

Anyway I've discovered that I cannot compile the "unstable" branch cause it needs a more recent version of the drm module, I think that it is a kernel module, and actually I don't want to mess with the kernel.

It seems that I'll have to upgrade to watch a video at decent quality...

I'm missing NVidia ^_^

[zgornel]

Mobile Intel® GM965 (X3100).

Video playback quality is really disappointing, gaming performance is not so important for me, but watching a video is something that (IMHO) should never be "bad".

Anyway I've discovered that I cannot compile the "unstable" branch cause it needs a more recent version of the drm module, I think that it is a kernel module, and actually I don't want to mess with the kernel.

It seems that I'll have to upgrade to watch a video at decent quality...

I'm missing NVidia ^_^

Yes, unfortunately X3100 has issues and the DRM module is indeed a kernel module. Regarding the upgrade, I think 8.10 uses also the 2.4 driver (maybe a slightly modified version of it). You should read some more reports on it's behavior before upgrading.

[kirys]

I don't think I'll upgrade to 8.10 mostly cause having the v2.4.1 of the driver (i'm using 2.4.2 right now) will not solve my video issues I'll wait for 9.04 ^_^ maybe for that release we will have a proper driver for the x3100.

[zgornel]

Yep. And by that time they will have integrated also the KMS support for intel ;)

[trumpeteersman]

I am not going to upgrade to 8.10 or higher because KDE 3.5 is no longer in the repositories and I do not like KDE 4.

As for the wine issues xnerdx had: Among other games, Europa Universalis III said that I did not have enough video ram. I think that is a bug with the game that does not correctly detect for variable video memory. This also holds true for the Windows when I tried to install it. So that issue doesn't seem to be a Linux-only issue, just bad programming on the game side.

Latest Intel video update broke GoogleEarth layers. It also causes greater instability. Version: 2:2.2.1-1ubuntu13.7

Latest Kernel upgrade gave me working wifi LED.
Happy that it works, annoyed that it blinks... ;)


I hope LTS for Hardy will have continued Intel updates. Perhaps, by chance, Intel will accidentally upgrade the drivers.

[kirys]

Latest intel diver are not compatible with the kernel of hardy (well I've not yet update the kernel so I don't know if latest ubuntu hardy kernel is compatible with the 2.5 driver).

So it's difficult that the issues I have with my x3100 will be solved under hardy.