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Thread: ATi Open drivers are coming of age... :)

  1. #491
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    More Radeon Power Management Improvements

    Posted by Michael Larabel on April 27, 2010

    The last time we talked about the open-source ATI power management support was a month ago when we shared that the in-kernel Radeon support started to utilize the I2C support and provided GUI idle IRQ support, support for changing the GPU clocks when the engine is idle, and support for turning down the number of active SIMDS when running in a lower power stage for the ATI R600 ASICs and later. Days later the initial thermal monitoring support came about along with other Radeon DRM changes. This month we now have more reliable memory re-clocking support.


    Read more:

    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=ODE5Mg

  2. #492
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    Better PM than binary driver maybe ?
    I tried to use the overclock utility from here:
    http://www.overclock.net/linux-unix/...rds-linux.html
    ...but even trying to set the voltage and frequencies at the supported minimum the card is still noisy /I got Sapphire HD4870/. If the mentioned above Open Source driver PM support is better than the binary, then there will be only one disadvantage in 3D... I'll try it after I upgrade /to Lucid/, last time didn't succeed to enable it on karmic.

  3. #493
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    You are using kernel .34 I take it?

    The one from Dave Airlied's site is the best for PM at the moment.

  4. #494
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    I'm still not sure which driver I will use when I install Lucid as my main system (which won't be today). I like the open source drivers since they take less memory and work better with KDE, but I have two issues with the open source drivers.

    1. PM is disabled when using dual screens. I was told on xorg's bugzilla that this is the intended functionality to avoid graphical glitches.
    2. I have Thinkpad T500 with a dock and two external dual monitors (one DVI one VGA). According to Lenovo specifications the laptop's LCD is disabled when using dual external monitors which is how it works with fglrx. With the open source drivers the LCD is magically enabled and the DVI monitor is using the settings of the LCD, which corrupts the display on the DVI. The workaround is either to start the computer with one external monitor disconnected or enable DVI and disable LCD in xrandr until they get it right, but it doesn't always happen on the first try and it sometimes creates some funky visual effects. It should affect anyone with a laptop and external dual monitors. I think that having external monitors with the same resolution as the LCD might also be a workaround (since it will only appear to be working, while it isn't). I guess there are not many people with my setup out there since my bug report seems to be going nowhere.

    I still really want to use the open source drivers but there are patches around which should fix my issues with fglrx, so I might still opt for the proprietary option.

  5. #495
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    The only positive thing I can say is that at least there is a choice.

  6. #496
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    Don't get me wrong, I don't think that open source drivers suck or anything, it's just that my particular situation sucks. On my office Lenovo Desktop, with dual screens, I have seen in the last year or so since ATI stopped supporting its card how the open source drivers improved dramatically and even if I don't use them in 10.04 I will revisit the open source driver in time for 10.10.

  7. #497
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    Hopefully kernel .35 will have the PM advancements mentioned in the phoronix article linked to further up the page. The kernel & associated packages will have expanded support for the ATi GPU stuff, just how the tasks to be worked on are prioritised though we just have to wait & see. Hopefully your multi-monitor problem gets solved soon.

  8. #498
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    Hi, I went through the whole thread and found a lot of food for thought.

    However I could not answer one question:
    This Power Management stuff that is being implemented the recent months usually mentions R600.
    However I'm using thinkpad t60 with ATI X1400 (R500) that is idling at 65C and causing my whole laptop to be quite hot and noise because of the constant need to run the fan at above 3000RPM.
    Does anybody know if there is something in the works for the PM of R500 cards? Or even if these cards support such PM.


    BTW:
    Re power management, I use lm-sensors & powertop, to get readings on my machine, though others get more information than I do on the iMac.

    It seems like ACPI is inaccessible for powertop at least, so I don't get the readings that I would like to see. I get the following error:

    no ACPI power usage estimate available

    Does anyone know of any other software for reading temp sensors & fan speeds?
    PowerTOP can read and estimate power usage based on the power drawn from a laptop's battery. So even on a laptop you should be on battery power and off AC to have ACPI readings.

  9. #499
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    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    Quote Originally Posted by georgi.dunchev View Post
    Hi, I went through the whole thread and found a lot of food for thought.

    However I could not answer one question:
    This Power Management stuff that is being implemented the recent months usually mentions R600.
    However I'm using thinkpad t60 with ATI X1400 (R500) that is idling at 65C and causing my whole laptop to be quite hot and noise because of the constant need to run the fan at above 3000RPM.
    Does anybody know if there is something in the works for the PM of R500 cards? Or even if these cards support such PM.
    It says that the PM for the R500 is mostly done here:

    http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

    Quote Originally Posted by georgi.dunchev View Post
    BTW:
    PowerTOP can read and estimate power usage based on the power drawn from a laptop's battery. So even on a laptop you should be on battery power and off AC to have ACPI readings.
    Yes I know, others do quite well out of PowerTop, but my alu' iMac seems to be just a little too Applyfied for all of PowerTop to work properly.

    As I say, it doesn't run hot & it's not noisy at all so I'm not really too concerned. I would like to see the numbers though.

  10. #500
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    491

    Re: ATi Open drivers are comming of age... :)

    If someone could help me with selection...

    Just installed 10.04, so 2.6.32-21 generic is what my kernel is I think.

    What should I download? New to trying this...

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