Newer ATI Radeon, ATI FireGL, and Nvidia GeForce/Quadro hardware support

Globe Trotter itsme_410 at yahoo.com
Thu Oct 23 16:13:07 UTC 2003 

--- "Mike A. Harris" <mharris at redhat.com> wrote:
> This document concerns the current state of the XFree86 video 
> driver support for ATI Radeon, FireGL, and Nvidia GeForce and 
> Quadro video hardware which is present in Red Hat rawhide, and 
> the current Fedora Core OS test release.  I'm posting this in 
> order to solicit feedback, and also to get more people involved 
> in reporting bugs and also notifying Red Hat and myself of any 
> missing hardware support, etc. for these 2 video drivers.
> 
> More information on the Fedora Project, and our current Fedora 
> Core test release can be found at:
> 
> 	http://fedora.redhat.com
> 
> 
> Just to be clear, this information does not apply to any previous
> Red Hat operating systems such as Red Hat Linux 8.0, 7.x, but is
> exclusive to Fedora Core test 3 and later.  Also, this video
> hardware support will also be released as an update for Red Hat
> Linux 9 in the near future, as:
> 
> 	XFree86-4.3.0-2.90.$RAWHIDE_RELEASE_NUMBER
> 
> 
> 
> ATI Radeon and FireGL support status:
> 
> XFree86 4.3.0, which is in Fedora Core test releases and rawhide
> currently, contains additional patches to support newer ATI
> Radeon and FireGL video hardware than what the stock XFree86 
> 4.3.0 release supports.  This support is a combination of 4
> things:
> 
> 1) Enhancements I've implemented myself voluntarily on 
>    weekends, etc. and included, which either have been committed
>    to XFree86 CVS already, or will be in the future hopefully.
> 
> 2) Code that I have backported from the XFree86 developmental CVS 
>    head, either developed by ATI, or by other people who work on 
>    the "radeon" driver.
> 
> 3) Code contributed to me directly by ATI.
> 
> 4) Code contributed to me directly by other developers.
> 
> Currently, our customized 4.3.0 "radeon" driver supports almost
> all ATI Radeon and FireGL hardware.  3D is supported on all video
> hardware up to and including the Radeon 9000 and 9100, FireGL
> 8700, 8800, and it may or may not also work on the 9200 hardware
> (untested).  2D support is present for all hardware including the 
> 9500/9600/9700/9800 series cards also, and the newer ATI FireGL 
> X1/Z1 hardware.
> 
> There are different variants of these cards out there however,
> and some cards have different PCI device IDs than others, and so
> for example, while Radeon 9800 is supported 2D only, it's
> possible that someone might have a Radeon 9800 card that is
> unknown to our pcitable, and unknown to the video driver, but
> which otherwise should/would work ok once the PCI ID is made
> known to the video driver and pcitable database.  About 2 weeks
> ago I updated the driver with a newer list of PCI IDs sent to me
> from ATI which was believed to cover all of the existing hardware 
> at the point ATI sent me the files.  I tested this on the 
> hardware I personally have available, and everything worked fine, 
> however I don't have one of every single card for every single 
> PCI device ID out there, so I can only vouch for the particular 
> chips I physically have available to test.
> 
> Since then a number of newer ATI Radeon and FireGL hardware has
> been released by ATI, such as the 9800Pro XT and SE, 9600 XT/SE,
> and new FireGL cards.  I do not yet have all of this hardware,
> however some of this hardware might work with the existing driver 
> currently in rawhide, while other cards might still need to have 
> their PCI IDs added before they're functional.  This also goes 
> for the Radeon Mobility, FireGL Mobility, and ATI Radeon IGP and 
> Mobility IGP chipsets.
> 
> Here is a list of all chips that the driver currently supports:
> 
> ATI Radeon QD (AGP)
> ATI Radeon QE (AGP)
> ATI Radeon QF (AGP)
> ATI Radeon QG (AGP)
> ATI Radeon VE/7000 QY (AGP)
> ATI Radeon VE/7000 QZ (AGP)
> ATI Radeon Mobility M7 LW (AGP)
> ATI Mobility FireGL 7800 M7 LX (AGP)
> ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY (AGP)
> ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LZ (AGP)
> ATI Radeon IGP320 (A3) 4136
> ATI Radeon IGP320M (U1) 4336
> ATI Radeon IGP330/340/350 (A4) 4137
> ATI Radeon IGP330M/340M/350M (U2) 4337
> ATI Radeon 7000 IGP (A4+) 4237
> ATI Radeon Mobility 7000 IGP 4437
> ATI FireGL 8700/8800 QH (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 QI (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 QJ (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 QK (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 QL (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9100 QM (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 QN (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 QO (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 Qh (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 Qi (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 Qj (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 Qk (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 Ql (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 8500 BB (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 7500 QW (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 7500 QX (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9000 Id (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9000 Ie (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9000 If (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9000 Ig (AGP)
> ATI Radeon Mobility M9 Ld (AGP)
> ATI Radeon Mobility M9 Le (AGP)
> ATI Radeon Mobility M9 Lf (AGP)
> ATI Radeon Mobility M9 Lg (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9000 IGP (A5) 5834
> ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 IGP (U3) 5835
> ATI Radeon 9200 5960 (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9200 5961 (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9200 5962 (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9200 5963 (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9200 5964 (AGP)
> ATI Radeon M9+ 5968 (AGP)
> ATI Radeon M9+ 5969 (AGP)
> ATI Radeon M9+ 596A (AGP)
> ATI Radeon M9+ 596B (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9500 AD (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9500 AE (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9500 AF (AGP)
> ATI FireGL Z1/X1 AG (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9700 Pro ND (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9700/9500Pro NE (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9700 NF (AGP)
> ATI FireGL X1 NG (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9600 AP (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9600 Pro AR (AGP)
> ATI Radeon Mobility M10 NP (AGP)
> ATI FireGL (R350) AK (AGP)
> ATI Radeon 9800 NH (AGP)
> ATI FireGL (R350) NK (AGP)
> 
> 
> If someone has an ATI Radeon or FireGL card which is not on this 
> list, it is currently not supported by the driver.  Run "lspci" 
> and look and see if it lists the card by name, or if it says 
> "unknown" or similar.  If lspci doesn't know what the card is, 
> even if it isn't on the above list, please file a bug report in 
> bugzilla, and include full details of the video card, and also 
> manually choose any Radeon video card from the list of hardware 
> in redhat-config-xfree86 and test the card out with X.  Report 
> any problems found in your bugzilla bug report.
> 
> I plan on improving our 4.3.0 radeon driver to support any new 
> cards that come out whenever I have the information I need to do 
> the work, and have some spare weekend-hacker time to do the 
> necessary volunteer work.
> 
> Currently the XT/SE cards wont work I don't think, however you
> can probably trick them into working by using the "ChipID" config 
> file directive in the config file to lie to the driver about what 
> card you have.  "man XF86Config" documents this option and how to 
> use it.  ie:
> 
> 	ChipId "0x4150"
> 
> That line would probably allow a Radeon 9600 SE/XT/whatever to 
> work by faking that it is a "Radeon 9600 AP".  You can get the 
> various PCI ID numbers for various supported cards from:
> 
> 	/usr/share/hwdata/pcitable
> 
> So, if your card is not autodetected by our config tool and/or 
> not autodetected by the video driver, please report a bug report 
> or request for enhancement in bugzilla, so that I at least know 
> about the missing hardware support and might be able to add 
> support for it when I have spare time, for future XFree86 4.3.0 
> update releases.  I can't guarantee any kind of speedy resolution 
> of course, but it'd be nice to have a list of various cards in 
> bugzilla that need work, so that when I do have the time to hack 
> on it, I can add them all at once.  ;o)
> 
> 
> 
> Nvidia support status:
> 
> The "nv" driver in 4.3.0 supports the majority of Nvidia hardware 
> that existed in February 2003, plus it has code to support 
> similar hardware that Nvidia planned on shipping later than that, 
> but which the driver will claim is "unknown Nvidia blah blah" and 
> try to drive it nonethless.  The "nv" driver *only* supports CRT 
> displays officially, flat panel display types are not officially 
> supported, but the driver has experimental support which might or 
> might not work depending on the exact brand/make/model/phase of 
> the moon, etc.  It is also possible that there are newer Nvidia 
> boards that aren't supported or just don't work at all for one 
> reason or another.
> 
> User's experiencing problems with the "nv" driver, be they 
> general bugs, or lack of support for their particular card, 
> should also file bug reports in Red Hat bugzilla, however they 
> should also file them in XFree86 bugzilla as Nvidia doesn't 
> release their specifications nor any detailed information on how 
> their hardware works, so adding support for new chips is nowhere 
> near as simple as doing it for the Radeon driver.  All Nvidia 
> "nv" driver related bug reports if filed in Red Hat bugzilla, 
> should also be filed at: http://bugs.xfree86.org including 
> complete details of any problems, and having config file and log 
> file attachments.
> 
> Where possible, I will try to also update the Nvidia "nv" driver
> to support newer Nvidia hardware as volunteer time permits.
> 
> NOTE: This is STRICTLY for the Red Hat/XFree86 supplied "nv" 
> driver.  DO NOT file bug reports about using the proprietary 
> Nvidia video drivers, as we do not support those drivers at all.  
> Any problems experienced while using the Nvidia proprietary 
> drivers should be reported to Nvidia directly and discussed on 
> their end user web support forums (don't have the URL handy) as 
> this is Nvidia Inc.'s preferred mechanism for handling problems 
> in their drivers.  If a user is using both the proprietary and 
> the "nv" driver on their system and having problems with the "nv" 
> driver, before reporting problems, disable the proprietary driver 
> and it's kernel module completely, then do a full system reboot 
> in order to reset the video hardware to it's default power on 
> state, as the different drivers can and do program the Nvidia 
> hardware a bit differently and this can cause the 'nv' driver to 
> fail once the proprietary driver has been used since boot time.
> 
> 
> Final comments:
> 
> I must ask politely that people please do NOT email me personally
> for help configuring their hardware or solving X configuration
> problems, etc.  I generally get 20-50 or more email requests for
> special help from people when I send an email like this out, and
> unfortunately, I really truely do not have time to help that many
> people out individually.
> 
> Any email based tech support or discussion of any problems should
> take place on xfree86-list at redhat.com, or
> fedora-devel-list at redhat.com, or even xfree86 at xfree86.org, so
> that numerous developers and other people can possibly assist
> with a given problem someone is experiencing. Any generic
> questions about future X support or development should also be
> directed to one of those mailing lists, or dri-devel on
> sourceforge, rather than directly to me.
> 
> Bug reports and RFEs should be filed at:
> 	http://bugzilla.redhat.com
> 	http://bugs.xfree86.org
> 
> 
> While this email is rather lengthy, if I've missed anything and
> someone decides to respond, please respond on the mailing list
> that you received this email from and do not reply directly to me
> privately.  I'll probably reply to any discussions on our mailing
> lists that crop up from this mail, but probably ignore all 
> private replies.  ;o)
> 
> Thanks in advance for testing out this new hardware support, and
> for contributing bug reports and enhancement requests so that we
> can hopefully end up being able to support the latest video
> hardware for y'all.    ;o)
> 
> Enjoy.
>]

Thank you very much! Btw, will the ATI Radeon R300 NG FireGL X1 be supported?

Best wishes!


> -- 
> Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
> OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat
> 
> 
> --
> fedora-test-list mailing list
> fedora-test-list at redhat.com
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-test-list


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