HOWTO: enable 3d acceleration w/ Rage Mobility (mach64)

[oasick]

Hi Scottydogg.

What can you see if you white in console:

modprobe mach64

?

It's strange your error... maybe you haven't complete your configuration...

[Paingiver]

First of all, i want to thank to all people involved in this matter. I have a Compaq Armada M700 laptop which is in fact my girlfriend's. I have formatted the XP installed on it and i am trying encourage her to use Xubuntu.

For feedback: Oasick`s method works for me after a fresh insall and updates on Xubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. Now everything is so clear like mirror. Thanks again to all community.

[Glus]

Hi Forum Users,

I've tried install fresh gOS 2.0 system on my Compaq Armada M700. It's very old notebook and I not expect fireworks (Pentium III 600MHz and 256RAM ATI Rage Mobility). I want only prepare station to browse the internet, it's all. I'm using Windows XP before, but I think that Linux OS will be work more stable and without any problems.
The gOS 2.0 system is based on Ubuntu Gutsy.

I have a silly problem with my lcd display.I see on my screen all icons and windows but I have a horizontal blank lane on 1/3 top my screen. If I move any object (like window or icon) from bottom then on near this band part of window is cutted (hidden) and displayed behind this lane on the top of screen. It's look like sometimes any person using two monitors and drag window from one to second display behind monitor border (case).
My problem is because all elements of the screen is shifted to bottom and part of them is invisible and I have a border white lane inside screen about 2cm.

When I try install system again and select 1024x768x16 (not default 1024x768x24) all works fine on installation process but after reboot problem was again.

Technical details:
lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64)

I try edit grub and add line like vga=785 -- vga=0x317 but nothing.
My be I doing something wrong. I'm new linux user (lame).

Any idea ?
Thank you in advanced.

[JoshuaRL]

Try to reconfigure xserver. To do this, first backup xorg.conf in /etc/X11, and then boot into recovery console and try:

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

That seemed to work on the Latitude CPx that runs the same graphics card. Just go through the options and pick most of the default options. Pick the right resolution and finish. From what I understand, the problems stems from that the application that detects and configures video hardware in "dpkg" works better than the one included in the install. Hopefully they'll resolve this in Hardy.

Also you might need to update the "usplash" settings. Try:

sudo gedit /etc/usplash.conf

After you set the "xres" and "yres" settings appropriately, update the theme with:

sudo update-usplash-theme usplash-theme-ubuntu

That will fix the initial resolution setting. If you have noticed a really long time where the computer sits with a blank screen on bootup, this will fix that too. Hope that helps.

[Jay Jay]

I could really do with some help sorting this out, especially as I have three machines that use this infernal chipset!

The previous scripts repeatedly broke my OS and the most recent one ends in error messages when I run it.

"You needs three things:
- backported xserver-xorg-video-ati 6.6.193 from gutsy compiled with --enable-dri
- backported xserver-xfree-core 1.3 from gutsy (depended from xserver-xorg-video-ati)"

Can anyone offer some guidance or help to show me where I'm going wrong? I'd really appreciate it, thanks...

[Jay Jay]

Ok, not one to give up easily, I tried again and this time reached here:

 cp -iv 2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/drm/*.ko /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/drm/

Terminal responds with -

cp: overwrite `/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/drm/drm.ko', overriding mode 0644?

I press 'Y' and the process halts:

cp: cannot create regular file `/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/drm/mach64.ko': Permission denied

Does anyone know what's going wrong here? After all, It's worked for others from what I could see.

[Jay Jay]

Alright, I cracked it with a little trial and error and initiative...

cp -iv 2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/drm/*.ko /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/drm/

should be:

sudo cp -iv 2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/drm/*.ko /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/char/drm/

Plus:

depmod -a

should be:

sudo depmod -a

Now comes the moment of truth...

glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes

Hurrah, at last, I'm in business! Persistence pays I suppose. Thanks to Alex for his solution, but perhaps a revision is in order to include the necessary sudo's as other newbies in the same boat as me might not realise that the script needs a few minor edits...

[dingdizzle]

Hi guys,

I'm still having Problems with the 3D acceleration on my system. I'm using an older computer, and I've tried to get a stable system with 3D acceleration on Kubuntu 6.06.1, Kubuntu 7.10, Xubuntu 7.10, and now I'm back to Xubuntu 6.06.1.

The 7.10 Versions will easily freeze all the time after a while when I use them, 3D accleration successfully installed (Page 19 of this thread), or not.

Kubuntu 6.06.1 runs good and stable, a little slow though, and Xubuntu 6.06.1 works really good. The problem with either one of them though, once I install the 3D acceleration the computer will freeze regularly, which really is pretty annoying.

I therefore follow the instructions on Page 1 of this thread, and I have to set the default depth to 16 to make the 3D acceleration work.

glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes

My graphics card is an "ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro AGP 1X/2X (rev 5c)".

I'm not very good at computers and Ubuntu, I get things to work with detailed instructions from the wiki's and forums, but other that that I'm just screwed.
Does somebody have an idea how I can solve this problem and get the system running stable with 3D? I ran Kubuntu Dapper without 3D for more than a year now without 3D acceleration, and it runs so much smoother with 3D acc., I would love to keep it.

Regards,

dingdizzle

[dingdizzle]

Maybe these can help to find out what's wrong, would be really nice if someone had a look:

Xorg.0.log

xorg.conf

I really appreciate any help with this. Thanks a lot.

dingdizzle

[Paingiver]

First what is your system configuration?The problem occurs only you use 3d accerelator? Do you have a cooling problem? Is Ubuntu slow without 3D? Or is it slow anyway. If you insist using a Desktop Environment i suggest go XFCE. Or you can use only Window Manager which will be faster(Fluxbox,Openbox etc..)

Also you can make a custom Ubuntu or Debian install to fasten your computer.

And of course ArchLinux comes to mind when you think about speed.

Its not so hard to set it up.Nowadays i installed an ArchLinux to an old machine. I am trying to get work "mach64" module. I read the forums, they have done it before. And if i am succesful i will help you also.