Resolution ATI

[Phil Meyer]

Carroll Grigsby wrote:
> On Monday 28 May 2007 2:12:59 am Olaf Hartmer wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> I have installed Core 6. But I have a problem with the resolution.
>>
>>
>>
>> My computer has the following graphic cartd installed:
>>
>>
>>
>> ATI X1600 AGP.
>>
>>
>>
>> But I can only select the following resolutions: 640 *480, 800 * 600.
>>
>> And even worth. Only 640 * 480 is working. If I select the other
>> resolution, it is not accepted.
>>
>>
>>
>> Under Windows I am using 1280*1080.
>>
>>
>>
>> What do have to do?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> For test reasons, I installed Ubuntu. I had also problems, but I could
>> install a test graphical driver with the following commands:
>>
>>
>>
>> 1.)    apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx
>>
>> 2.)    sudo aticonfig --initial
>>
>> 3.)    sudo aticonfig --overlay-type=Xv
>>
>>
>>
>> How can I solve this problem?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Best Regards
>>
>> Olaf
>>     
>
> Olaf:
> You will find the answer to your question -- and many others that you may 
> have -- at this site:
> http://www.fedorafaq.org/
>
> -- cmg
>
>   
Kind of ...

The real problem is that the ATI X1000 (R6) cards are not supported by  
any of the open source drivers that ship with FC6 (or F7 for that 
matter).  So what happens is that you get defaulted to the 'vesa' 
driver.  That works ok for 2D, but it also is very limited in what 
resolutions it will display.

For example, the vesa driver will not display 1920x1200.  There are 
others, also.

So you are stuck with the fglrx driver from AMD/ATI.  Well, its not 
going to make you happy to learn that Linux support from AMD/ATI is very 
poor currently.  You can install the driver using instructions from the 
FAQ, as suggested, but you may not get all you wanted.

For example, the AMD/ATI fglrx driver does not support the new Composite 
extension in X.  That means you cannot run Beryl or Compbiz with the 
AMD/ATI driver, uless you also use the XGL version of the X server from 
Novell -- yuck!  The same is true for all versions/distributions of 
Linux.  Ubuntu cannot help here. :(

The fglrx driver for 3D is also about %25-%50 slower than the same card 
under XP.  The phoronix.com site repeats the Linux graphics benchmarks 
every AMD/ATI release, and has not shown a significant performance 
upgrade, ever.

So for us AMD/ATI X1000 (R6) owners, we are less than second class 
citizens currently.

There is work going on to support these cards in open source drivers, 
and AMD/ATI have even hinted about providing code to open source, but 
today it is all vapourware.

My advice:

Load the fglrx drivers, but don't use Beryl or Compbiz and don't expect 
performance for gaming, and you can be happy. :)

The short version from the FAQ:

# rpm -ihv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm
# yum install kmod-fglrx

Good luck!