Radeon 4500 series VESA: M92

[nickmrad]

I got a HP laptop with ATI Radeon 4500 HD mobility series. I installed ubuntu 12.04, but noticed that the OS recognized my graphics as VESA: M92. Is this normal becuase i read somewhere that VESA: M92 doesn't give out the full performance of the graphics card. If so can I install a new driver that performs better?

[Mark Phelps]

If you're using System Info to get those results -- that basically does not work properly.

Ubuntu installed Radeon drivers for your PC automatically. If it hadn't, you'd be seeing black blank screen.

Unless you're planning on doing intensive 3D gaming, or you're overclocking your GPU and need to do temperature management, you don't need the restricted AMD drivers.

[nickmrad]

the problem is that i'm experiencing visual lags, that is if i move lets say the terminal around it does mini jumps and doesn't move smoothly, same thing happens when i minimize a window. Moreover i enabled the visual effects in compiz but they are not working.
I got windows 8 also installed on the laptop and all of the visual effects work perfectly so the problem isn't with the graphics card.
will the restricted drivers solve my problem?

[Pilot6]

To see driver correctly install mesa-utils.
You can install it from Software Center or in terminal

sudo apt-get install mesa-utils

Also you can install a proprietary driver from AMD, but with your card you need a fglrx-legacy.

If you give me some information, I can guide how to do it.

Open terminal and run these commands. Then post the result here.

uname -a
dpkg --list | grep xserver-xorg

[Yellow Pasque]

the OS recognized my graphics as VESA: M92. Is this normal

It's normal (albeit confusing since a lot of users automatically assume they're using the generic VESA driver).

[QIII]

The fglrx driver in the Precise repo (except 12.04.2) will probably work, so installing fglrx and fglrx-amdcccle from the standard Precise repo (except 12.04.02) will probably work.

For 12.04.2 and beyond you will have to use the default open source Radeon driver because of the upgrade to X Server 1.13.

[nickmrad]

ok so i typed in the commands:

nicolas@nicolas-HP-Pavilion-dv6-Notebook-PC:~$ uname -a
Linux nicolas-HP-Pavilion-dv6-Notebook-PC 3.2.0-23-generic-pae #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 22:19:09 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

nicolas@nicolas-HP-Pavilion-dv6-Notebook-PC:~$ dpkg --list | grep xserver-xorg
ii xserver-xorg 1:7.6+12ubuntu1 X.Org X server
ii xserver-xorg-core 2:1.11.4-0ubuntu10 Xorg X server - core server
ii xserver-xorg-input-all 1:7.6+12ubuntu1 X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
ii xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.7.0-0ubuntu1 X.Org X server -- evdev input driver
ii xserver-xorg-input-mouse 1:1.7.1-1build3 X.Org X server -- mouse input driver
ii xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 1.5.99.902-0ubuntu5 Synaptics TouchPad driver for X.Org server
ii xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse 1:12.8.0-1 X.Org X server -- VMMouse input driver to use with VMWare
ii xserver-xorg-input-wacom 1:0.14.0-0ubuntu2 X.Org X server -- Wacom input driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-all 1:7.6+12ubuntu1 X.Org X server -- output driver metapackage
ii xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.99~git20111219.aacbd629-0ubuntu2 X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI display driver wrapper
ii xserver-xorg-video-cirrus 1:1.3.2-4build1 X.Org X server -- Cirrus display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-fbdev 1:0.4.2-4ubuntu2 X.Org X server -- fbdev display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-geode 2.11.13-2build1 X.Org X server -- Geode GX2/LX display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.17.0-1ubuntu4 X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-mach64 6.9.0-1build2 X.Org X server -- ATI Mach64 display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-mga 1:1.4.13.dfsg-4build2 X.Org X server -- MGA display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-neomagic 1:1.2.5-2build2 X.Org X server -- Neomagic display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20111201+b5534a1-1build2 X.Org X server -- Nouveau display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-openchrome 1:0.2.904+svn1050-1 X.Org X server -- VIA display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-qxl 0.0.16-2 X.Org X server -- QXL display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-r128 6.8.1-5build2 X.Org X server -- ATI r128 display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:6.14.99~git20111219.aacbd629-0ubuntu2 X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI Radeon display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-s3 1:0.6.3-4build2 X.Org X server -- legacy S3 display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-savage 1:2.3.3-1ubuntu1 X.Org X server -- Savage display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion 1:1.7.5-1build2 X.Org X server -- SiliconMotion display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-sis 1:0.10.3-3build2 X.Org X server -- SiS display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-sisusb 1:0.9.4-2build2 X.Org X server -- SiS USB display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-tdfx 1:1.4.3-4build2 X.Org X server -- tdfx display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-trident 1:1.3.4-2build2 X.Org X server -- Trident display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-vesa 1:2.3.0-7build2 X.Org X server -- VESA display driver
ii xserver-xorg-video-vmware 1:12.0.1-1ubuntu1 X.Org X server -- VMware display driver

i installed a driver form amd website and enabled a driver in the additional driver section ( called fglrx). yet the problem persists.

[Pilot6]

That is not completely true. It is possible to use fglrx-legacy with 12.04.2. But you need to install xserver-xorg instead of xserver-xorg-lts-quantal. And use patched driver for 3.5 kernel or use 3.2.

[Pilot6]

Show me next command please

lspci -k | grep VGA -A2

[Yellow Pasque]

i installed a driver form amd website and enabled a driver in the additional driver section ( called fglrx)

You did both? Sigh...