[all variants] ati+compiz=flickering video/open gl

[medivh]

I don't want to believe that it is not possible to use compiz and other OpenGL applications at the same time. With such big community and open software is it that much hard to solve that issue? I read that it works with nVidia cards but not with ATI.

I am really about to switch Ubuntu from Windows XP but i hate this kind of problems i face everyday. Do i have to turn of compiz whenever i want to run google earth or any other 3D application or stand that flickering issues. I am using awn and when i turn off compiz it also goes and therefore i cant reach open windows list.It is meaningless to decorate and customize all desktop with these apps and then turn them off before running an application.

So i think instead of spending time for other things, developers must solve hardware and driver related issues first.

[VeN0mizer]

You can blame ATI for the really @$&*(@#$& driver quality. They only fix about one to two minor bugs a month with their drivers. Sometimes I swear they have their company janitors working on them. My desktop has an nvidia card and it runs FLAWLESSLY. I can run WoW with compiz with no hitches whatsoever. However, with my laptop, I too get flickering and odd effects. If I could rip this POS video controller off of my laptops motherboard and replace it, I'd do it in a heartbeat....keep looking for driver updates from ATI man, it's all the advice I can give you atm :/

[Mr_Congeniality]

I've had NOTHING but problems with ATI drivers. My desktop used to have ATI, but I bought an NVIDIA 7900 GTX for it instead, and I couldn't be more happier.

Another situation, I had a dell E1505 and some dumb guy who was supposed to come and fix a fan problem with my laptop actually messed up the computer instead of fixing it, and I had a ATI card in that laptop, X1400 with hypermemory. Dell had to ship me a new laptop, and it has an NVIDIA 8600M card. There is definatly a difference between NVIDIA and ATI on Ubuntu. Even though ATI might be ahead in the arms race for next-gen graphic support, you should stick by NVIDIA because they are clearly not forgetting that people use Linux, too.

[moonbeam]

I'd just like to point out that the Xorg (non-proprietary) ATI drivers are rock solid for a lot of the older ATI cards (r2xx,r3xx and I believe things are getting better for r4xx and r5xx). I'm running an older (r350 based) ATI card with recent Xorg radeon drivers on my dev system, and they are extremely nice.

[slippynuxx]

What I find interesting about this bug (I experience it too) is that when my gnome-screensaver runs, there's a lot of flickering. But, if I open up the System > Preferences > Screensaver window and do previews, no flickering. That leads me to believe it's fixable.

[markbuntu]

If you want to fix the flickering widowed video problem you can edit the appropriate sections of your xorg.conf to look like this:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
Option "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Driver "fglrx"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "on"
Option "TexturedVideo" "off"
Option "VideoOverlay" "off"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
Option "Textured2D" "on"
Option "UseFastTLS" "1"
Option "BackingStore" "on"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group "Video"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "RENDER" "Enable"
Option "DAMAGE" "Enable"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Then run, in a terminal:

sudo aticonfig --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf

to write the changes to the actual ATI config file.

This will only work with the ATI driver 8.4 and newer. Also, you must have redirectfullscreenwindows checked in the compiz settings manager.

The TexturedVideo "off" option can cause some full screen playback problems for older cards and slower cpus but will get rid of the windowed playback flickering. You can turn it back on for full screen high def playback if you need to.

ATI has recently made a great change in their commitment to linux, releasing source code to the driver writers groups, etc. They also seem to be committed to proprietary driver updates for newer cards about every six weeks which includes 3 weeks of testing before release.

They are aware of this problem with compiz and OpenGL and are working towards a solution. The 8.5 and 8.6 drivers have a lot of improvements over the 8.4 in the repos. The screensaver problem is fixed. The Compiz problem will be fixed soon.

I expect that by the fall, ATI will be at least comparable to Nvidia.

[ok123jump]

Hmmm...

These suggestions didn't work for me. I have a Radeon 4870 HD.I still get flickering when I run "glxgears" or any screensaver.

Do you think this is a graphics card specific issue?

[theApokalypsis]

using the latest 8.10 drivers from ATI as they are doing a good job so far. I picked up a 4870 as well and even applying those reccomended settings I still get video flickering :S. A pain for animated desktops... All in all I am way more happy with ATI. With the nvidia drivers the 2D acceleration in for example css3/javascript web applications are slowed down to a crawl...

Perfect with ATI. Does anyone know if ATI releases beta drivers before the 3 weeks of testing? 8.10 was released mid Oct so I would assume somethings bound to come out soon.

[pelle.k]

You can blame ATI for the really @$&*(@#$& driver quality.

No this is a problem with Xorg. Or, to be more precise the lack of DRI2. Intel has the same problem. The thing is nvidia bypassed some features in xorg and wrote their own propreitary hardware acceleration in their linux drivers.
DRI2 was supposed to be included in xserver 1.5 (wich is in intrepid), but there was a change of plans unfortunately, so DRI2 will be included in xserver 1.6 (to be released pretty soon).

DISCLAIMER - i use an nvidia card, and it works very well. But this doesn't change the fact that ATI's drivers would probably perform identically if it hadn't been for that recent DRI2 mishap.

[kloispetie]

After performing the above mentioned procedure; I get this message:

Data incomplete in file /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Undefined Screen "aticonfig-Screen[0]" referenced by ServerLayout "Default Layout".

aticonfig: Parsing the configuration file failed.

The above error messages are reported from XFree86 and may assist you in

diagnosing the problem with your configuration input file. Try use -f option

to generate a new configuration file.



Anyone has an idea?


this is how my xorg.conf looks like after editing:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
Defaultdepth 24
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]"
Driver "fglrx"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "on"
Option "TexturedVideo" "off"
Option "VideoOverlay" "off"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
Option "Textured2D" "on"
Option "UseFastTLS" "1"
Option "BackingStore" "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" "lv3:ralt_switch"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
Option "AIGLX" "on
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "RENDER" "Enable"
Option "DAMAGE" "Enable"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group "Video"
Mode 0666
EndSection


Thank you very much