I recently decided to upgrade my old desktop instead of buying a new one. I figured I would go ahead and max out the specs on the motherboard while I was at it. I had a standard AGP slot and the best graphics card I could find for AGP was the Radeon HD 4650 (AGP 1GB GDDR2). So I ordered the parts and went on my merry way.
I installed the card and did a fresh install of 9.10, hoping to max perform my "new" system. The card was acting kinda fishy on the live boot and I had to reboot a few times before it magically worked. I got installed etc and when I booted it worked, but it turned out performance was painful. When using Firefox the delay when scrolling down the screen was literally unbearable. No problem right, I used the restricted drivers app to go ahead and install the ATI drivers hoping that it would auto-magically fix things.
System booted but once I logged in the screen would just fill with freezing and garbage so it was impossible to get anything done.
I did some research and basically it seems as though there are three main options for drivers with X and ati cards in ubuntu.
- radeon: the default driver that was running originally
- radeonhd: another open source driver
- fglrx: the proprietary ATI driver
I experimented with all three options but this is what ended up being my solution.
Download your ATI driver using this site: AMD Graphics Drivers & Software
Just select Linux in the OS Select column.
You should end up with something like this,
Code:
ati-driver-installer-10-3-x86.x86_64.run
downloaded to your computer.
Now we need to shut down X and run some terminal commands. Open up a terminal from Applications > Accessories > Terminal
If you are following along here you need to print the tutorial because this will kill your screen to the terminal
This will shut down X so we can modify X's settings.
Browse to the downloaded file. ie
Code:
cd /home/user/Downloads/
Make the file executable
Code:
chmod +x ati-driver-installer-10-3-x86.x86_64.run
Launch the file
Code:
sudo ./ati-driver-installer-10-3-x86.x86_64.run
Now just follow through the installer. Once the installer is finished we need to setup the driver.
Code:
aticonfig --initial
This should set up a new xorg.conf file in your /etc/X11/ folder. Browser to the X11 folder.
Now is the critical part, we need to modify some of the directives in the xorg.conf file to make things work better. We will use a terminal text editor which can be kinda tricky, but find a tutorial on vi or nano if you need help.
Browse down to where it says and find the line for Option "DRI" and make it read
Code:
Option "DRI" "true"
Then scroll down to the bottom of the file and we will add a new section that reads like this
Code:
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "1"
EndSection
Now save and close the file. Make sure your changes saved by double checking the file re-close the file and now we are ready to go.
Hopefully everything will come up just fine, if it locks up, try a reboot.
Here is my final xorg.conf file.
Code:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
FontPath "built-ins"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "dri2"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "SPT"
ModelName "X7S-NAGA II"
HorizSync 24.0 - 80.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
#DisplaySize 340 270 # mm
EndSection
Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "SWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "Dac6Bit" # [<bool>]
#Option "Dac8Bit" # [<bool>]
#Option "BusType" # [<str>]
#Option "CPPIOMode" # [<bool>]
#Option "CPusecTimeout" # <i>
#Option "AGPMode" # <i>
#Option "AGPFastWrite" # [<bool>]
#Option "AGPSize" # <i>
#Option "GARTSize" # <i>
#Option "RingSize" # <i>
#Option "BufferSize" # <i>
#Option "EnableDepthMoves" # [<bool>]
#Option "EnablePageFlip" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoBackBuffer" # [<bool>]
#Option "DMAForXv" # [<bool>]
#Option "FBTexPercent" # <i>
#Option "DepthBits" # <i>
#Option "PCIAPERSize" # <i>
#Option "AccelDFS" # [<bool>]
#Option "IgnoreEDID" # [<bool>]
#Option "DisplayPriority" # [<str>]
#Option "PanelSize" # [<str>]
#Option "ForceMinDotClock" # <freq>
#Option "ColorTiling" # [<bool>]
#Option "VideoKey" # <i>
#Option "RageTheatreCrystal" # <i>
#Option "RageTheatreTunerPort" # <i>
#Option "RageTheatreCompositePort" # <i>
#Option "RageTheatreSVideoPort" # <i>
#Option "TunerType" # <i>
#Option "RageTheatreMicrocPath" # <str>
#Option "RageTheatreMicrocType" # <str>
#Option "ScalerWidth" # <i>
#Option "RenderAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "SubPixelOrder" # [<str>]
#Option "ShowCache" # [<bool>]
#Option "ClockGating" # [<bool>]
#Option "VGAAccess" # [<bool>]
#Option "ReverseDDC" # [<bool>]
#Option "LVDSProbePLL" # [<bool>]
#Option "AccelMethod" # <str>
#Option "ConnectorTable" # <str>
#Option "DefaultConnectorTable" # [<bool>]
#Option "DefaultTMDSPLL" # [<bool>]
#Option "TVDACLoadDetect" # [<bool>]
#Option "ForceTVOut" # [<bool>]
#Option "TVStandard" # <str>
#Option "IgnoreLidStatus" # [<bool>]
#Option "DefaultTVDACAdj" # [<bool>]
#Option "Int10" # [<bool>]
#Option "EXAVSync" # [<bool>]
#Option "ATOMTVOut" # [<bool>]
#Option "R4xxATOM" # [<bool>]
#Option "ForceLowPowerMode" # [<bool>]
#Option "DynamicPM" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "fglrx"
VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName "HD 4650"
Option "DRI" "true" # [<bool>]
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "1"
EndSection
How To: Configure ATI Radeon HD 4650
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