radeonhd

1. radeonhd - The Driver for AMD GPG r5xx/r6xx Chipsets

The radeonhd driver, or xf86-video-radeonhd is an X.org video driver for R500 and newer ATI graphics devices.

It is being developed by Novell for AMD, with the free documentation provided by AMD.

The driver supports full modesetting (read: any mode is useable, not only those provided by the BIOS), which is backwards compatible to RandR 1.2. But the driver still lacks more advanced features like 2D, 3D and video acceleration as the information for such an implementation hasn't been made available yet.

Contents

  1. radeonhd - The Driver for AMD GPG r5xx/r6xx Chipsets
  2. Recent Changes
  3. Supported Hardware
  4. More Information
  5. Getting and updating the radeonhd source code
  6. Installation
    1. Common problems during builds
  7. Known Bugs & Limitations
  8. Reporting Errors
  9. Troubleshooting, Q & A
    1. I only get a very jittery display
    2. My monitor isn't detected
    3. My monitor section isn't used any longer
    4. How do I enable / disable an output after a monitor has been plugged in / removed?
    5. How do I set up multiple monitors?
    6. How do I configure a multimonitor setup statically?
    7. My Gnome/KDE/whatever panel shows up on the wrong monitor
    8. xrandr returns with BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
    9. Why is radeonhd so much slower than avivo?
  10. Examples

2. Recent Changes

Version 1.2.1

Version 1.2.0

Version 1.1.0

Version 1.0.0

3. Supported Hardware

The radeonhd driver supports video cards based on the following ATI chips:

This section is taken straight from the radeonhd(4) man page, and should be kept in sync with radeonhd(4) and the src/rhd_id.c file in the source.

4. More Information

The mailing list for the radeonhd driver is radeonhd@opensuse.org , you can subscribe to this mailing list by sending a mail to radeonhd+subscribe@opensuse.org.
For more information on this mailing list, please visit http://lists.opensuse.org/radeonhd/

Overview of recent updates to radeonhd: http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=xorg/driver/xf86-video-radeonhd

The git repository with the radeonhd source code: git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/driver/xf86-video-radeonhd

Report bugs at: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=xorg&component=Driver/radeonhd

Also there is an IRC channel #radeonhd on freenode.net. IRC logs at phoronix' radeonhd.org.

The radeonhd:packages page lists your source for dep, rpm, etc. packages.

ATI is providing free documentation for the chips. Beware, this is extremely technical.

5. Getting and updating the radeonhd source code

Released radeonhd tarballs can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.freedesktop.org/pub/individual/driver/

The name of the tarball will be xf86-video-radeonhd-<version>.tar.bz2

The developer version of radeonhd is maintained in the git repository found at git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/driver/xf86-video-radeonhd

You can find information on using git at the git website http://git.or.cz/ and a short intro at http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Infrastructure/git/Developers

You can get a copy of the repository like this: 

   $ git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/driver/xf86-video-radeonhd

This will create a directory xf86-video-radeonhd in the current directory by default, or the given directory my-radeonhd otherwise.

If you have not made any local changes and want to update you source code with the newest stuff from the official radeonhd repository, you can run this: 

   $ git pull

If you HAVE made local changes and committed them locally to your master branch (with git commit -a), you will be better off running 

   $ git fetch
   $ git rebase origin

If you're using more branches, read the git docs.

6. Installation

With X.Org 7.0 and later: 

   $ ./autogen.sh
   $ make
   $ make install

This will litter all kinds of compiled files throughout your source tree.
Please note: make install will usually install to /usr/local. On Linux X is usually installed in /usr. To change this, you need to add the argument --prefix /usr to autogen.sh, i.e.: ./autogen.sh --prefix /usr.

With X.Org prior to 7.0: 

   $ xmkmf -a
   $ make EXTRA_INCLUDES="-I/usr/include/xorg" all
   $ make install

This uses imake and is for compatibility with older systems.

To avoid building in your source tree, do: 

   $ mkdir _b && cd _b
   $ ../autogen.sh
   $ make
   $ make install

Runs the build in _b/ - and if something is completely messed up, you can safely remove the _b/ directory and create a new one without affecting any source files.

Hint: If you happen to have multiple branches in your git source tree, you

Note that none of these methods will install the rhd_conntest tool. The "xmkmf" method always requires a separate "make" run in utils/conntest. The other two will build rhd_conntest by default if its requirements are met.

6.1. Common problems during builds

6.1.1. Problem:

output of ./autogen.sh: 

autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoconf
configure.ac:35: error: possibly undefined macro: XORG_DRIVER_CHECK_EXT
      If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow.
      See the Autoconf documentation.
autoreconf: /usr/bin/autoconf failed with exit status: 1

6.1.2. Solution

Your system lacks one or more of these files: 

    /usr/share/aclocal/xorg-macros.m4
    /usr/share/aclocal/xorg-server.m4
    /usr/share/aclocal/xorgversion.m4

Make sure you have all required X.org development packages installed. These may be called xorg-dev, xorg-x11-server-sdk and xorg-x11-util-macros, or something similar.

7. Known Bugs & Limitations

The following subsystems have not been implemented yet or show some limitations:

The following known bugs have not been resolved yet (ordered by severity):

8. Reporting Errors

When reporting an error with bugzilla, please be sure to attach your xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log. Please use -logverbose 7 for the Xserver in this case. If the error is related to RandR, please verify the xrandr version you are using, and attach the output of xrandr -q; xrandr -q --verbose.

If you want to report a crash try to get a decent stack backtrace (bt full) in gdb. You have to compile with debugging information (-O0 -g3) or install -debuginfo packages for that. If a -debuginfo package for the Xserver is available for your distribution, please install it as well. It does not have any negative side effects apart from using space on your harddisk.

If you don't get any output on your monitors at all, please add Option "NoRandR" to the "Device" section in your xorg.conf, and verify whether this issue is related to RandR or to general modesetting.

9. Troubleshooting, Q & A

See also examples below for a complete setup.

9.1. I only get a very jittery display

You probably used the fglrx driver before. It doesn't restore the linebuffer completely on exit. You have to reboot your system to get this fixed. In some rare cases you might even have to power it off and restart it. Suspend to disk & resume is reported to work on many systems as well.

9.2. My monitor isn't detected

On R5xx hardware the description of the hot plug detection (HPD) pins in the AtomBIOS connector table is often broken. Please try using 

Option "HPD" "swap"

in the "Device" section. If this helps, please test all outputs (as far as possible with your equipment), and report your findings to the mailing list. Reports should include your Xorg.0.log (the working version) and your results regarding testing.

If this doesn't help, please try: 

Option "HPD" "off"

This disables HPD detection completely. In some cases the HPD pin of the GPU doesn't seem to be connected to the DVI connector although it is advertised in the BIOS.

NOTE: Option "HPD" should always only be a workaround until the quirks table in the driver has been updated. ALWAYS report if it is needed to get your monitor running.

If you are using a KVM switch for your analog monitor and this monitor isn't detected correctly please try without the KVM switch. Analog displays are detected thru 'load detection' ie detection of the terminating resistors on the monitor side. The VGA standard requires 75 Ohm resistors on the RGB lines. Some KVM switches seem to not meet these requirements.

9.3. My monitor section isn't used any longer

Right. This is standard with RandR. Now the monitor sections have to specified with 

Option "monitor-<output_name>" "<monitor_name>"

in the "Device" section. You can get all output names of your card with xrandr -q. See also example below.

Behavior of monitor sections is different to standard modesetting in radeonhd. With standard modesetting a monitor section replaces the EDID detected monitor (thus typically reducing the maximum mode size to 1024x768), in RandR it doesn't. It's not exactly clear in which cases which parameters are overridden by the monitor section and how to override EDID detected parameters and modes in the RandR case.

9.4. How do I enable / disable an output after a monitor has been plugged in / removed?

xrandr --auto

9.5. How do I set up multiple monitors?

xrandr --output <output_name> --right-of <other_output_name>

If this fails, the most common reason is the following: The X.org framebuffer cannot be resized after initialization (yet). You have to either configure this statically (see below), or specify the maximum needed size with 

Virtual <width> <height>

in the "Display" subsection of the "Screen" section.

If xrandr is not able to unclone displays (monitors show the same screen still), and you have set virtual correctly, it can also be that you need a newer xrandr (1.2.3 or git), and potentially also a newer xserver. You can try to explicitly set the used Crtc with --crtc 1 or 0.

xrandr -q prints the maximum frame buffer size in the first line of its output.

9.6. How do I configure a multimonitor setup statically?

Add (mostly empty) monitor sections for your monitors like described in the answer above. Then add 

Option "RightOf" "<other_monitor_name>"

to the monitor section representing your right monitor. Alternatively, you can use LeftOf - working correctly only with the latest Xserver (bugfix). Of course there's also Above and Below.

You can also use <other_output_name> instead of <other_monitor_name>. Also read man 5 xorg.conf.

9.7. My Gnome/KDE/whatever panel shows up on the wrong monitor

Add your preferred monitor to 

Option "RROutputOrder" "<monitor_name>"

in the "Device" section. This reorders the RandR outputs, which is reflected in the Xinerama screen order. You can specify any number of outputs, separated by spaces or comas. Note that this is a radeonhd specific option, it won't work with other drivers.

9.8. xrandr returns with BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)

Get a newer xrandr (1.2.3 or git), and potentially also a newer xserver. If it still happens, send a mail to radeonhd@opensuse.org or file a bug at freedesktop.org. You can get the newest xrandr from git by 

git-clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/app/xrandr

9.9. Why is radeonhd so much slower than avivo?

There may be an old, obsolete line in your xorg.conf file from some fglrx setup a long time ago: 

Option "mtrr" "no" # ancient, obsolete option: REMOVE IT!

If you have such a line, removing it can speed up radeonhd considerably.

General note: As a rule, one does not need any xorg.conf file with Xserver 1.4 and up, so it is always a good idea to make sure you really need all the statements in there.

10. Examples

Example xorg.conf (minimal for Xserver 1.3 and up), e.g. no input devices or modes configured, monitors configured by EDID data): 

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "External"
        Option       "RightOf" "Panel"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Panel"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "MyCard"
        Driver      "radeonhd"
        Option      "monitor-VGA_CRT1/DAC_A"  "External"
        Option      "monitor-PANEL_LCD1/LVDS" "Panel"
        Option      "RROutputOrder"           "PANEL_LCD1/LVDS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "MyScreen"
        Device     "MyCard"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth     24
                ## This is superfluous and actually harmful with a
                ## static configuration. Enable for dynamic config only.
                #Virtual   2704 1050
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Example call to configure multiple screens dynamically (set Virtual in xorg.conf for that to work): 

xrandr --output VGA_CRT1/DAC_A --right-of PANEL_LCD1/LVDS