[all variants] Guide to Get the Best Performace from the GMA 500

[sammyboy405]

*Update* If you are trying Out 9.10 Karmic. You can get some good install Instructions here http://swiss.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1253406 All the Performance tweaks found here on this thread will still work on 9.10 after you have installed the driver. Just Make sure you have the Latest and Greatest Kernel installed before proceeding with the 9.10 version of the GMA 500 drivers *Update*

Im Modifying these procedures and Including New steps, and tweaks that have been proven to work thus far. This should work for any system having a GMA500 Video Chipset. Although it was written using a Dell Mini 10. So I Have not tested it on any other system. But there is no reason why it wouldn't work on other systems.

Before Starting this Make sure you have the Latest Kernel. As of right now its .15 But if there is one Higher Make sure you have it before performing the steps below.

First lets check to make sure you have the latest Kernel version before we proceed.
From the Terminal:

uname -a

This will display your Kernel version. If it is 2.6.28.15 or Higher You are done. And continue down below. If it is not then do the following steps:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Reboot
go back into a terminal

uname -a

Make sure your Upgrade happened. If it did and you want to get rid of your old Kernel you can do:

sudo apt-get autoremove

If not, no harm done, it wont hurt anything to leave it other than eat up about 100meg of space. Just continue on with the Guide.

---Continue on From here if you have the Newest Kernel Version---

From the Terminal:
Add this to your repository

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-mobile.list

add these 2 lines

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

then ctrl+o (which saves it)
Then ctrl+x (To Exit)

Now you need to authenticate the keys

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys C6598A30

[/code]Now that your Ubuntu-Mobile Key is added do the Following.

The Following Packages need to be Installed Most are Dependences.

* psb-firmware - Binary firmware for the Poulsbo (psb) 3D X11 driver
* psb-modules - Kernel module built for -generic or -lpia kernel
* psb-kernel-source - Kernel module for the Poulsbo (psb) 2D X11 driver
* psb-kernel-headers - Kernel module headers for the Poulsbo (psb) 2D X11 driver
* xpsb-glx - X11 drivers for Poulsbo (psb) 3D acceleration
* poulsbo-driver-3d - Metapackage for the 3D Poulsbo (psb) X11 driver.
* poulsbo-driver-2d - Metapackage for the 2D Poulsbo (psb) X11 driver.



From a Terminal (this should install all the above):

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d psb-firmware

Reboot
Make sure you have NO USB devices Hooked up as this will cause conflicting results with the poulsbo-driver-3d drivers. (see fix below for stability)

Once rebooted open a terminal and make a back up of your xorg.conf file.(fresh install may have a null xorg.conf file this is normal and ok)

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

Open up your xorg.conf and add the below contents inside it.

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Make the Section "Device" Look like this :

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
        Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
        Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection

(Optional) add the following to the bottom of your xorg.conf file this will allow you to be able to do a CTRL+ALT+Backspace to restart your GUI/X11 session.

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option  "DontZap"       "False"
EndSection

Add the following Line at your risk. It could have mixed results. Ive have very good luck thus far performance wise with it.

        "AccelMethod" "UXA"

Reboot one last time and you should be rocking and rolling. Now what this did is allow the 3d Drivers to be installed and are in Partial use. Compiz and any other 3d Software "May" Not work I haven't 100% tested it. But modifying your xorg.conf with the above setting will allow you to be able to use External USB Devices with out random freezes.

If you have a fresh install you may need to recheck your xorg.conf file after you reboot as when the xserver configures itself it may put back the default settings. Those that had xserver setup before hand you should be fine. But if you feel that something isnt right, you may want to go and check your xorg.conf file again and be sure that the options are still there.

Leave out the xorg.conf if you don't plan on using anything USB. Although since your keyboard / touch-pad is technically USB I still had random Freezes Have 3d Enabled.

So I Highly Recommend using my xorg.conf example. I have had great success with it.

For those who are getting DRM errors after Upgrading from / to a new Kernel after doing the Old Procedures I had listed here do the following.

sudo apt-get install psb-kernel-source

Reboot and then you should be good to go again. You may want to add the 3d to give you some extra performance. If so just start from the top of this message and start from the beginning like you where installing for the first time. and that should do the trick.

I want to thank the MyDellMini Forum members who helped me sort all this out and been patient with me. meecect and durj. If you have a Dell Mini and need some more additional help or want to be in our community follow the link MyDellMini

Also for those Brave souls who would like to take things a step further and tweak the performance. Follow the Guide / Step / Suggestion found here on the Ubuntu forums. Do not do those Steps unless you know what you are doing. It Does require some Linux Knowledge. And It has you upgrade to the 2.6.30 Kernel. So it "May" not work with the PSB Drivers. The Tweaking guide was written for desktop style Intel Video cards and not Portable. So use this information at your own risk if you decide to play with tweaking the performance. Ive gone as far as I can take it until I decide to bite the bullet and try out the 2.6.30 Kernel. Once I get some more time I will play with 2.6.30.

I wrote this kinda quick, im hoping I haven't left anything out. This should work on Kubuntu and Ubuntu. I have not Tried Xubuntu, But I bet it will work fine on it as well.

I will do my best to keep this updated as new versions come out. And fixes for existing issues like the USB / 3d issue.

[sammyboy405]

some Typo's fixed and Additional links added.

[duanedesign]

great contribution.

I am sure GMA500 Video Chipset and Dell Mini 10 owners will greatly appreciate this.

[s-tobe]

is this procedure valid for netbook remix 9.04 on my asus 1101ha as well or for just plain jaunty j.

I tried this procedure on UNR 9.10 and it failed on install xserver-xorg-video-psb which was failing due to libdrm-poulsbo1. If I install the libdrm-poulsbo1 package the netbook remix and all other xserver packages will be removed. That seems to be destructive.

Is there a solution for Karmic in case the above answer is NO?

[gururise]

So can anyone confirm if 3d and video acceleration are working? I know there are some patches for Mplayer to add va-api, will those work with this driver? I really want to get rid of Vista on my Acer Aspire One (AO751h)

[sammyboy405]

Originally Posted by gururise So can anyone confirm if 3d and video acceleration are working? I know there are some patches for Mplayer to add va-api, will those work with this driver? I really want to get rid of Vista on my Acer Aspire One (AO751h)

3d Works. But there is a catch 22

if you dont use anything USB 3d will work. The minute you plug anything in or do anything with USB you will either freeze immediately or have random freezes. I had compiz running quite nicely, I just cant deal with the freezes because I use a USB Mouse and a External HD sometimes.

in the xorg.conf file the option for DRI is disabling the 3d part but still allowing, I think they called the XV drawing feature to still work wich gives you a little bit more of a graphics performance boost.

And yes when I made this I should of just Put Ubuntu 9.04 All Variants.

Glxgears for me is showing an avg of about 124fps Not sure how good glxgears is though.

[sammyboy405]

Updated to show for .15 Kernel.

[sammyboy405]

Hey can someone Explain this for me. Im a bit out of my league here.

http://koldfront.dk/gitweb?p=psb;a=summary

I Ran across this via another forum. But is it me or is that looking like the Ubuntu-Mobile team is working on some new stuff for the PSB?

Can someone that uses git decrypt what im seeing there?

Also I Dont know if there is any hope on this. But it seems the folks over at Fedora came up with a solution for the PSB

http://www.happyassassin.net/2009/08...ompiz-support/

Maybe someone that has the Ubuntu force inside them can take a look at what they did and make it work for Ubuntu?

[sammyboy405]

Ive been running a new config setup. Thought id share it. Haven't had any lock ups yet. AND im getting 130 to 150fps with Compiz Working.

Here it goes. Im going off memory on what I did. You must already have done guide written above.

I Perfer nano to edit. ctrl+o to save and ctrl+x to exit

Open A Terminal:

sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

You should find a line that looks like this (your root UUID and kernel version will/may vary)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-14-generic root=UUID=c34d1d57-59d3-4f6f-abc1-fd83aea4 ro quiet splash

Change it to this (bold is to emphasize what needs changing)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-14-generic root=UUID=c34d1d57-59d3-4f6f-abc1-fd83aea4 ro quiet nosplash mem=786mb

This tells grub to force the kernel to recognize only 786mb of the installed 1GB, leaving 238mb free for the graphics adapter to use. The “nosplash” option prevents any sexy graphics being displayed during boot. I’m not sure if this is *essential* but it seemed like a good idea?

Now for Compiz.

sudo nano /usr/bin/compiz

press ctrl+w and type whitelist and press enter.

WHITELIST=”nvidia intel ati radeon i810 fglrx”

Change it to this:

WHITELIST=”psb nvidia intel ati radeon i810 fglrx”

Now your going to need to edit a line in your xorg.conf file. Doing this will allow for 3d effects.

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Find the line

Option "DRI" "off"
and make it look like
 Option "DRI" "on"

Now Reboot.

Once Rebooted

click System -> Preferences -> Appearance and click the Visual Effects tab. I chose “Normal” just to get things started…

Now Hope and Pray? LOL Have fun with it .. Also Check out X.Org Wiki - Home check out there FAQ there on some different options you can do inside your xorg.conf file with the 3d/2d settings.

Also Play with the Memory settings for the Kernel. I just choice a semi round number. I also installed compizconfig-settings-manager to fine tune the compiz setup you might or might not want to try it? Rotating desktop seems to work.

[divan0]

Great news! Thank you for sharing this!