radeon
Driver for ATI Radeon based video chips. License: MIT
Documentation and Support
Please check the included manual page (old version here) for configuration options. To see or submit real-world reports on the 3D acceleration performance of this driver, see the free3d.org wiki
There is an IRC channel #radeon on irc.freenode.net for radeon users and developers.
Development mailing lists are:
http://lists.x.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg-driver-ati
for the ati/radeon driver
and
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
for general Xorg development.
TV Out Support
Please check radeonTV for information about TV out support.
Dual-head Support
See the XRandR 1.2 documentation for how to set up multiple monitors.
Status
Driver releases 6.8.* and Mesa 7.0.x
3D for R100/R200 class chips is stable, 2D stable.
3D for R300/R400 class chips support is quite stable, 2D stable.
- R500/R600 class chips initial support
See also RadeonFeature and RadeonProgram for feature and supported program lists.
For an alternative R500/R600 driver see radeonhd.
For R300 and above there's also an ATIProprietaryDriver available, which is worse in many aspects but has better 3D performance and features.
Known Issues
User-submitted tips
Note that the below info is old and probably not correct for your hardware configuration. In most cases, an empty or minimal xorg.conf will work best.
Case: wide screen resolution
I'm not too sure where to include this information, so I'll leave it here. Please feel free to move/copy it somewhere else if it belongs to a more relevant web page/site.
My computer has an ATI Radeon 8500 LE video card and had a CRT monitor plugged into it, a ViewSonic GS790. I was running Fedora Core 4 at full 1600x1200 resolution when I bought my first flat panel, a Samsung SyncMaster 205BW (rather new at the time of writing, August 22th 2006). So recent that I couldn't make it display at its native resolution on my own with the help of Google, that is 1680x1050. After multiple attempts, I decided to head over #xorg on irc.freenode.net and ask for help. The much friendly people there made it work in a few minutes. So I'm here editing this page on my 205BW in 1680x1050.
So here are a few facts:
- The ATI Radeon 8500 LE does support 1680x1050.
- The monitor is plugged with its analog connector and it works fine.
- The monitor can even display at 1920x1440, though it wasn't the image I could get.
- X.org 6.8.2 (the version I have currently installed) supports the resolution.
The following configuration works for me. Pay attention to the following lines: HorizSync, VertRefresh, Driver, DisplaySize, Virtual.
Note that you should normally specify the driver "ati" in the Device section. The ati driver is a wrapper that loads radeon when needed.
xorg.conf
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
FontPath "unix/:7100"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "dri"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Samsung"
ModelName "SyncMaster 205BW"
Option "dpms"
# Important. At least on my setup it doesn't detect the size correctly.
# If not specified, the fonts may look very tiny.
# Numbers found on a random web site using Google.
DisplaySize 433 270
#
# Those are the magic values that make it all work.
#
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 63.0
## This allowed for resolutions in the 19AAxBBBB
## See also the Virtual directive in Display subsection below
#VertRefresh 56.0 - 83.0
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
# Other important bit. The radeon driver is mature enough, as been said in #xorg
Driver "radeon"
VendorName "ATI"
BoardName "ATI Radeon 8500LE"
# Options recommended on dri.freedesktop.org
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
Option "AGPMode" "1"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "1"
Option "ColorTiling" "1"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
# Fix the viewable area to 1680x1050, or something
Virtual 1680 1050
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSectionIn the course of trying to get this work, I've installed the ATI proprietary driver, fglrx, which replaces the OpenGL librairies and renders my DRI non-working. DO NOT install those drivers as they are NOT required to support a wide screen resolution like 1680x1050 on the 205BW. To uninstall the proprietary ATI driver (at least as of version 8.24.8), open a terminal, cd /usr/share/fglrx and then sudo ./fglrx-uninstall.sh.
Output of a few commands:
xrandr -q
SZ: Pixels Physical Refresh *0 1680 x 1050 ( 435mm x 272mm ) *60 1 1400 x 1050 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 2 1280 x 1024 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 3 1280 x 960 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 4 1280 x 800 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 5 1152 x 864 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 6 1280 x 768 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 7 1280 x 720 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 8 1024 x 768 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 9 800 x 600 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 56 10 848 x 480 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 11 640 x 480 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 12 640 x 360 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 13 400 x 300 ( 435mm x 272mm ) 60 Current rotation - normal Current reflection - none Rotations possible - normal Reflections possible - none
xdpyinfo
name of display: :0.0
version number: 11.0
vendor string: The X.Org Foundation
vendor release number: 60802000
X.Org version: 6.8.2
maximum request size: 16777212 bytes
motion buffer size: 256
bitmap unit, bit order, padding: 32, LSBFirst, 32
image byte order: LSBFirst
number of supported pixmap formats: 7
supported pixmap formats:
depth 1, bits_per_pixel 1, scanline_pad 32
depth 4, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
depth 8, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
depth 15, bits_per_pixel 16, scanline_pad 32
depth 16, bits_per_pixel 16, scanline_pad 32
depth 24, bits_per_pixel 32, scanline_pad 32
depth 32, bits_per_pixel 32, scanline_pad 32
keycode range: minimum 8, maximum 255
focus: window 0xa00007, revert to PointerRoot
number of extensions: 31
BIG-REQUESTS
DAMAGE
DOUBLE-BUFFER
DPMS
Extended-Visual-Information
GLX
LBX
MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
MIT-SHM
MIT-SUNDRY-NONSTANDARD
RANDR
RECORD
RENDER
SECURITY
SGI-GLX
SHAPE
SYNC
TOG-CUP
X-Resource
XC-APPGROUP
XC-MISC
XFIXES
XFree86-Bigfont
XFree86-DGA
XFree86-DRI
XFree86-Misc
XFree86-VidModeExtension
XInputExtension
XKEYBOARD
XTEST
XVideo
default screen number: 0
number of screens: 1
screen #0:
dimensions: 1680x1050 pixels (435x272 millimeters)
resolution: 98x98 dots per inch
depths (7): 24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32
root window id: 0x48
depth of root window: 24 planes
number of colormaps: minimum 1, maximum 1
default colormap: 0x20
default number of colormap cells: 256
preallocated pixels: black 0, white 16777215
options: backing-store NO, save-unders NO
largest cursor: 64x64
current input event mask: 0xda001f
KeyPressMask KeyReleaseMask ButtonPressMask
ButtonReleaseMask EnterWindowMask StructureNotifyMask
SubstructureNotifyMask SubstructureRedirectMask PropertyChangeMask
ColormapChangeMask
number of visuals: 16
default visual id: 0x23
visual:
visual id: 0x23
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x24
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x25
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x26
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x27
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x28
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x29
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x2a
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x2b
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x2c
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x2d
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x2e
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x2f
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x30
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x31
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x32
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bitsIf fonts look tiny in applications, the solution is NOT to hack your around by adding Xft.dpi: 96 in your ~/.Xdefaults, but rather to include the DisplaySize directive in your xorg.conf, as specified above. This may be because X.org does not detect your monitor's physical size correctly. That can be checked by running grep -i dpi /var/log/Xorg*. The value in my log file was initially (75, 75); when I added the DisplaySize statement in xorg.conf, the reported DPI had jumped to (98, 98) and the fonts now render correctly.
Gentoo
I must add that the above setup works fine for me on Fedora Core 4 and 5. On gentoo I have a different experience though. I can only set the screen to 1680x1050 with the following configuration file:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/default/ghostscript"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/corefonts"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "dri"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" "altwin:left_meta_win"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Samsung"
ModelName "SyncMaster 205BW"
Option "dpms"
DisplaySize 433 271
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
#Modeline "1680x1050@60" 154.20 1680 1712 2296 2328 1050 1071 1081 1103
ModeLine "1680x1050" 146.8 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "radeon"
VendorName "ATI"
BoardName "ATI Radeon 8500LE"
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
Option "AGPMode" "1"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "1"
Option "ColorTiling" "1"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1680x1050"
#Modes "1680x1050@60"
#Virtual 1680 1050
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSectionBut then the screen seems to have a improper refresh rate, although xdranr -q shows 60 hertz. The screen is NOT correctly set with the above configuration file, but I can't seem to fix it.