ATI drivers....

D

digital_exhaust

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - May 2008
Joined
Aug 14, 2006
Messages
6,903
I'm seriously about out of patience here, and need some help.

Specs first...
P4 3g
1g memory
X1950pro 256m AGP
80g Barracuda
120g Caviar
2 Viewsonic VA1912wb displays
Ubuntu 7.10 32 bit

I have been trying to get my displays to work at 2880x900, and nothing I have tried has worked. Using the vesa driver, only one display is detected and all I can get is 1024x768. Using the fglrx driver, I get output to both displays, but they are mirrored at 1440x900. Using the built in screen manager, I am stuck with only "Screen 1" offered twice, and I cannot change anything when I select the second "Screen 1" box. Running ATI BigDesktop, I get a nice stretched display across both displays, but the only resolution I am offered is 2048x768, and that is unacceptable.

I have also tried the following,

Code: 
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg -p high

at which point 2880x900 is an option, but when I select that and reboot, the resolution is HUGE, and I mean so big I cant even see the entire log in box as it is only partially visible in the lower right hand corner of my secondary display....

Anyone have any idea what I can do to solve this problem? Or am I once again fucked due to the crappy ATI drivers currently available. I have read rumors of more complete drivers being included with Hardy, but I am hoping there is a fix available now... I really would like to be able to use my hardware.....
 
I quit on ATI a while back. So much so that I've bought an nvidia card and am selling the ATI. Can't wait to get it running next week. No more of this shit.
 
i have to agree. i made the switch from ati to nvidia. Nvidia drivers are a lot better/faster that its worth buying a cheap nvidia card instead of waiting around for ati to come out with better linux support.

but to try to help you with your problem... i would first make sure that your monitor supports that kind of resolution. if it does, then i would try installing the latest ati driver thats on their site. this will give you a control panel with better dual monitor support. i dont think youll be able to do it with a generic vesa driver.
 
I am hoping to get a new nVidia card for Christmas. My wife knows I want one, although the problem with the GT's being priced higher than they were intended could prevent me from getting one.

Anyway, I've been using ATI for about four years now, and I want to switch to nVidia. One of the biggest reasons is that they've got really good Linux drivers. I know ATI is working on it, but that doesn't mean they'll be very good for a long time.
 
If I was able to run dual CRTs on my board with integrated ATI graphics I would check out the dual monitor support for ATI. However, that's the only option I have as I have no PCI-e ATI cards.

I'm assuming you have the ATI drivers installed from ATI's site. If so, you should have the Catalyst Control Center. Are you or have you tried using the dual monitor setup through that? As I said, I have no experience with dual monitors with ATI in Linux and no way to test it at the moment. However, this is how I easily setup dual monitors with my nVidia card (but with the nVidia drivers of course) and had it setup as separate X screens.

 
i think i found your problem. your trying to run way too high of a resolution for your 19in monitor. 1440x900 is your native resolution.
 
Thanks for the thoughts, but......look closely at my specs and you'll see that I am trying to span my desktop across TWO 19" wide screens....1440 x 2 = 2880;)

SmokeRngs... I haven't tried the ATI drivers yet. I had attempted to use them on my 7.04 install, downloaded directly from ATI, no go. Once installed, set my resolution and screen preferences the way I wanted, then rebooted and nothing... hard lock and ultimately had to reinstall. I then decided to give Envy a shot and got the exact same results. I suppose at this point it worth a try, this is a clean install and I haven't got anything installed or stored on this machine that I need, so... yeah, I give that a try and let you know...

 
I use openSUSE instead of Ubuntu on most of my systems and there is an ATI repository for drivers for openSUSE. You may want to see if they have the same for Ubuntu. That way you won't have to worry about doing the installation manually and run into a lot of other problems.

The one system I have Ubuntu on uses integrated video and it's a PIII so I can't check out Ubuntu on it. Well, if I dug up my old Radeon 8500 I might be able to as I think that system has an AGP slot. It's just a pain in the ass to hook a monitor, keyboard and mouse to the system, though. If you want me to double check it, I might have a chance to get around to it tonight if you want.

 
SmokeRngs said:
IIf you want me to double check it, I might have a chance to get around to it tonight if you want.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the offer, but no need. The older ATI cards work very well.. I've got an older system running a Radeon 7000 AGP and it is smooth as butter. It's the newer chips that have been giving me such a hard time...... we really need to get some work done on the open source drivers.....

 
digital_exhaust said:
Thanks for the offer, but no need. The older ATI cards work very well.. I've got an older system running a Radeon 7000 AGP and it is smooth as butter. It's the newer chips that have been giving me such a hard time...... we really need to get some work done on the open source drivers.....

Click to expand...

The reason I mentioned the 8500 was because it's the oldest card which is supported under the newer drivers if I remember correctly. The 7xxx series of cards uses an older and no longer updated driver. I also have a 9600XT but it's currently in use in another system and I don't think the 8500 is in use. I didn't feel like powering down two systems to do the test.

Although now that I think about it, the 8500 might actually be in use in a system that can't be powered down. in which case I would need to use the 9600XT which is probably a better card to work with for this. It's the newest ATI card I have, though. If the problem is with cards even newer than that, then there's not much I can do.

 
Unless I'm confused (which there is a VERY good chance that's case... long day) I think the problem is with the X1xxx series, I'm not sure if the older chips are affected as well, they may be, but I'm not sure. I had a 9800pro I was going to try, but.... well, I killed it recently, so that's not really an option anymore...

I've been fighting with possibly the most infested machine I have ever seen all day, and I have all but promised the owner that he will have it back tomorrow, so I haven't had a chance to play around with Envy or the ATI drivers much at all today... maybe, just maybe I'll get to it tomorrow.... if I don't kill myself first.... I mean really, a Win2k machine with no a/v... ever....never had any and the owner expects everything to be okay? Hate to admit it, but I think this one may have me licked... that aside, I feel it's my responsibility to upgrade him to XP anyhow......

 
I tried ATI back when the Radeon 9600 Pro was a premier card :D

Back then Linux drivers were simply a joke and well...not much has changed for ATI. I also switched to nVidia and could not be happier.

Running:

- GeForce 5200
- GeForce 7600GT
- GeForce 8600GTS
 
I just took an x1900xt out of service in one of my systems. I can likely see my way to popping it into a spare and hooking up two monitors, I have a pile of them in the basement.

I'll need to pick up a new power supply, but I was going to do that anyway... this'll just bump my time table. I'm guessing Fedora results won't be of intense interest to you, so I'll pull down the 7.10 image.

Unless someone else pipes up, I'll get the PS tomorrow and do some tests over the next couple days.

 
I have the system running, but can't do too many tests on it for the next day or two, since I have my little guy. I'll report back as soon as I can do a few more things :)
 
Charlie_D said:
I have the system running, but can't do too many tests on it for the next day or two, since I have my little guy. I'll report back as soon as I can do a few more things :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the efforts man, I hope you can come up with something..... I seriously think my head is going to explode... I know this can be done, but I just can't seem to figure it out..

Oh, and have a good time with your son, kids are what life is all about:)

 
I will, give me until tomorrow morning, I completely killed my install last night:)

I'm re-installing right now, and once I have it set back up, I'll post my xorg here.... thanks again for the efforts!
 
Okay... good news. I've got everything working the way I want, but now the problem is that all text rendered in my browser is really blurry..... It's fine anywhere else, but honestly reading this as I type is almost nauseating...

Any ideas?

 
What browser are you using and have you tried a different one?

 
SmokeRngs said:
What browser are you using and have you tried a different one?

Click to expand...

Firefox and Opera.... Opera is a little bit better... I think, it may just be my imagination. I have a pretty strong feeling that it's my card.

I've got Big Desktop working acceptably (using the ATI driver and CCC, thanks for that)...2560x1024 is not exactly what I want, but close enough. I can't enable any desktop effects at all, but I can live with that for now.

I'm going to mess around with Emerald today and see what I can come up with there..... Thanks for the help guys....

 
Thanks for the link... I've read through more tutorials on how to get big desktop and Compiz running at the same time, and everyone is different, and most of the responses indicate that they don't work.

I've spent the better part of last night and this morning getting this install tweaked to my liking, and I think at this point I'm going to forget about Compiz on this machine. I've got it running flawlessly on a couple other installs and I'm good with that. I really, really hope that we will see some improvements made with the ATI drivers soon..... Thanks again for the efforts and help, I do appreciate it.

 
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