|
Advice on getting ATI 3d acceleration to work?
Every so often, I’ll get it in my head to download and install a Linux distro, play with it for a week, then gradually begin returning to windows for one reason or another, reformatting the partition that had linux and overwriting lilo. However, eventually, I know I’ll do it all over again, hoping that in the intervening time, whatever reason I’d returned to windows for would have been resolved with some update or another, because I like linux. I like it a lot, and particularly like the look and general feel the version I’ve installed now gives me, but anyhow….
I’ve got a fresh install of Mandriva 10.2, duel-booting with Windows XP (Linux installed a few days ago), and I cannot for the life of me get the 3d acceleration to work. I’m all Googled out from the searches I’ve done. I even went so far as to reload it last night, and before work I loaded the nforce linux drivers for my mobo. Hopefully tonight a few of the how-tos I’ve found might actually provide the information I need.
The driver installations always seem to go without error, and I can have my LCD’s native resolution without issue. 2d rendering is perfect, but 3d rendering is all but nonexistent. Glxgears gets under 500 fps and the info reported that mesa3d is active. I do recall that though the nvidia agpgart appeared installed it wouldn’t load or couldn’t be found. I tried to recompile the kernel in order to get this working, but that had an error during patching and reported that it would only render in 2d. I also couldn’t seem to get menuconfig to work. Obviously I’m missing something, just not sure exactly what. It was at that point that I’d decided to cut my losses and try anew from a fresh install, since the only thing I’d added so far had been cedega and WoW so it wouldn’t be like I’d lost anything overly important.
On the plus side, all these attempts to get the drivers to load have provided a valuable learning experience, in that I’m starting to remember commands, even if I’m still trying to figure out the basics of the yummy and powerful command line. The install of the OS itself, as well as how easily I managed to get cedega to work and World of Warcraft to connect impressed me immensely..even if WoW ran at 1fps due to the software rendering.
But in the meantime, I thought it couldn’t hurt to get some more information or advice. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 XT, on an Asus A78XN-Deluxe(or whatever order those letters should be in…..) motherboard with nforce 2 chipset. The only thing that wasn’t installed during the loading of the OS that I installed myself was the nforce 2 driver from Asus’ website. As far as I know the kernel is 2.6.11. Any other info I’ll have to look up tonight. The X-server I’m running is x.org 8.6
Reviewing the above, I think I’ll put it into a format easier to see at a glance.
Mandrake 10.2
Ati Radeon 9800XT
Asus A87XN-Deluxe mobo
Nforce 2 chipset
Kernel: 2.6.11
x.org 8.6
The only other thing I did was download the rpm in preparation to install, before powering down and coming to work. So at this point in time, as I sit here at work typing this up, my box has about as fresh an install as it can get (and rueing the fact that I hadn’t left the computer on and a port forwarded so I could try telnetting in!). So any advice out there as to which particular how-to I should follow, or anything else I might need to download to get that blasted driver to work? It does appear that there might some issues between ATI and nforce mobos in linux, but the last thing my pocketbook needs is yet another excuse to buy a new motherboard. Personally I think my biggest issue in all this is the kernel module.
Its mildly disconcerting that I’m as mystified by this as the end-users I deal with daily are by the address bar in Internet Explorer….
Lastly, any links towards general information on the command line itself would be appreciated.
As for what I’m looking at at the moment, I’ve a list of links, which is a lot of information in and of itself, so I hope I’m on the right track, though as mentioned I’ve had some problems. Any additional advice would be very nice. I can’t help but think I’m overlooking something very simple yet very crucial.
|
