why is my ati9700 running slow

[TucUp]

ive got a radeon 9700 and running mandrake 9.01.
when i go to run any games that are with linux it is so slow.  what gives, im so lost with ho to install drivers and set it up.

and what is 4 (something) X....drivers and 3d etc.

any ideas

thick guy aasking

[Calum]

you're not thick, you just don't know the answers yet!

i don't know, so maybe a gamer type will know more than me, but the 4 something X thing i can tell you about.

the X server is what enables programs to display graphical information onscreen. basically the X server is what allows a GUI to occur in *nix systems.

in linux for intel type machines, the free and open source X server is XFree86 and the current version is 4.2 (or maybe 4.3 now) however many linuces still come with XFree86 version 3.6 (i think, it's 3.something anyway) for in case the newest one won't work with your video card. my ATI Rage seems to work better with Xfree 3.x than Xfree 4.x, but when i turn off hardware acceleration (which is possibly something to do with the '3d' you mentioned, i am no expert but), it seems to work fine, but i really don't know if it would be good enough for games, and i only have a celeron 700 anyway, so i can't tell if it's the video card or the CPU that's slow.

that's all i can help you with, but i am sure somebody else will come along soon.

[ March 31, 2003: Message edited by: Calum: crusader for peace & freedom ]

[Pantso]

quote:Originally posted by TucUp:
ive got a radeon 9700 and running mandrake 9.01.
when i go to run any games that are with linux it is so slow.  what gives, im so lost with ho to install drivers and set it up.

and what is 4 (something) X....drivers and 3d etc.

any ideas

thick guy aasking

From Gillingham hey? I lived there when I was studying in the UK. Anyway, enough ranting..

To your problem now. First of all, go to http://www.xfree86.org and have a look at their drivers support page, to see if your card is listed there.

It is very likely that you have selected the wrong driver for your card during setup, OR there is no hardware acceleration for your card in Xfree86.

However, I did not understand the version of Mandrake Linux you are now running. If it is version 9.0, then it comes with Xfree86 4.2.* but if it is version 9.1, it comes with Xfree86 4.3.*.

Anyway, go to the Xfree86 page and have a look for yourself. I'm sure you will find your answer there.    

[TucUp]

thx guys,

I had a look around and found there to be a LOT of prblems with setting up an ATI Radeon 9xxx graphics card in Mandrake version 9.1, with Xfree86 4.3.

there seems to be a lot of advice on editting files and reconfiguring this n that but as im a complette novice in linux...this is a new world to me

the graphics i get at the moment are fine for files and video but if i want to run a game (radeon 9700 pro is a pure game card) then im stuck. a lot of card for simple graphics.

do you think I would be beter running red hat or other platform, or is mandrake ok.

I downloaded ati drivers but i got error messages saying incorrect version.

im tired now so will sleep it off and explore tomorrow.
thx again for your help and advice

[Ice-9]

If you only have problems when you try to run games it's more likely to be a driver problem than a problem with Xfree.

I use an nVidia-based card so I can't really help you with the installation of the drivers, and I think there might be an issue with them having no support for your version of Xfree yet.
But I also read somewhere that Mandrake 9.1 came with 3D capable drivers, although that might have been for nVidia-cards only ....

My suggestion would be to keep an eye on this page
ATI driver page and eventually run the "Check.sh" script to see if your version of Xfree is supported.
Otherwise I would contact their support and ask about it.

[KernelPanic]

If you downgraded your distro to a version with Xfree 4.2.x that would better. But how long it will take ATI to make a driver release for 4.3 is unknown. I really cant see you having much luck with a version of X that ATI aren't supposrting as before they began making drivers for linux Radeon 3d support was baaaaad.
It really depends how much you want to play your games.

RH8.0/ MDK8.2/ Slackware 8.1 all use Xfree86 4.2.x

[Ice-9]

Tux, just out of curiosity ...
How would one downgrade from Xfree 4.3 to version 4.2?
Could it be as simple as uninstalling the rpm packages and install the older ones?
Wouldn't that break some stuff?

[Pantso]

quote:Originally posted by Ice9:
Tux, just out of curiosity ...
How would one downgrade from Xfree 4.3 to version 4.2?
Could it be as simple as uninstalling the rpm packages and install the older ones?
Wouldn't that break some stuff?

I think Tux meant to say that it is better to downgrade from one distro to another and not actually from a newer version of Xfree86 to an older one.  

[preacher]

As usual X11 you post a biased childish response. I truly doubt that red hat has better drivers for this video card than mandrake. The real trouble is the people who write the drivers. Nvidia itself writes drivers for linux, while ATI assists third party developers to write its linux drivers. The result I believe is diminished performance although I have no proof of this.

[Calum]

okay, X11's comments are certainly totally wrong in this case. from my experience, red hat 8 and mandrake 9 both had EXACTLY the same issues with my ATI Rage (not radeon) card, and slackware 9 (which uses Xfree 4.3, to eliminate confusion, RH8 and Mdk9 both use xfree4.2) did not have those issues.

I really think the key issue is probably the 3d support here, but i have little to know knowledge about it.

still saying one extremely cutting edge popular distro has "better drivers" than another extremely cutting edge popular distro is not realistic.

[Faust]

quote:Use RED-HAT 9.0 as it has BETTER DRIVERS then WOMANDRAKE (mandrake) which is very COOL.

Red hat *SUCKS.*  Stick with mandrake its far better then Red Hat on so many levels (packages, presentation, drivers, not a P.O.S., not selling out, not "gimmicky" etcetera etcetera.)
Hey lets make a linux OS with no xine...
Mandrake kicks red hats arse.

[Pantso]

Same old X11. Both RedHat 8.0 and Mandrake 9.0 include the same version of Xfree86, hence the same drivers, except for Mandrake 9.1 which comes with Xfree86 4.3. And X11, when are you going to stop posting nonsense? What you're doing could seriously mislead and confuse the person that started this thread, let alone a Linux newbie.

[Faust]

quote:I truly doubt that red hat has better drivers for this video card than mandrake. The real trouble is the people who write the drivers. Nvidia itself writes drivers for linux, while ATI assists third party developers to write its linux drivers. The result I believe is diminished performance.

True.

the nv / ati drivers are distributed with XF86 (i believe...) so if mandrake has a recent version of XF86 then theres no problem with the drivers that red hat wont have too.  That said the nv drivers suck due to the fact that they've been reverse engineered (which is difficult) so the same probably applies to the ati drivers.  Grab the newest official ati drivers (dont bother changing XF86 its almost definitely fine) and install them.  Also make sure none of the "glide" drivers are installed or rpms' for openGL because most of them are for voodoo chips and they can cause conflicts making the 3d situation worse, not better.

i spent *ages* getting openGL and my GPU to work properly in mandrake but its worth it if you can...
 

[Calum]

and mandrake aren't any less gimmicky than red hat either. supermount by default, you must use the mouse to log in, fucked versions of plugger, flaky upgrade management. mandrake are very good, don't get me wrong, but they are not better than red hat, or vice versa, in my humble opinion. right, that's knocked that on the head, now we were talking about buggy video drivers?