Video driver for ATI mobile

[siplus]

After having problems with a FC2/win2k duel boot, and becoming extremely annoyed at windows, i reformatted/repartitioned and am (for now) 100% linux on my laptop.

the only problem is that i need to play games in linux, since i no longer have a windows install to boot. right now, i am working on getting Neverwinter Nights to work (Native version http://nwn.bioware.com/downloads/linuxclient.html ) however it is running extremely slow on my laptop. i updated to the lastest thinking maybe it was a problem with the original linux port, but i have come to the conclusion that it must be the video driver that is making this game slow.

this laptop is a Toshiba Satellite 1115-S123 (here is a pdf file w/ some more infomration: http://wildebeest2.dyndns.org/siplus/fi ... a1115-s123 ) that has a ATI mobile (16mb) graphics card. The ATI site said to look on manufacturer website for the graphics driver ( http://www.ati.com/support/products/pc/ ... index.html ), but Toshiba does not have support for linux ( really long link )

what should i do? is there another place i can look for ATI drivers for my laptop's video card?[/url]

[Void Main]

I'm guessing it's a GL game? If so you probably aren't running an accelerated video driver which you'll need to get any sort of respectable performance out of it. I also have an ATI mobility in my laptop but I have never searched for any accelerated drivers for it. The closest I have come are installing these drivers:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... p_id=12629
http://gatos.sourceforge.net/

which allowed me to run xine, MPlayer and other video apps in full screen and perform better. This will not give you better GL performance though. My guess is that if there are proprietary accelerated drivers for it they would likely come from ATI.

My benchmark app is Tux Racer. It runs slower than molasses in January if you don't have accelerated 3D GL support. If you do then Tux screams. I have a GeForce card in my desktop machine for this kind of stuff. I'll look around some more but I won't promise anything.[/list]

[siplus]

i have found one solution (in case anyone searches for this in the future)

somewhere i read, it said that this game (NWN) was optimized for 24bit, and i had mine running in 16bit. simply raising the # of colors in the system-config-display raised my FPS from about .3 to 5-6 in game, and 20 in menus.

this has made the game acceptible, but i know i can get more power out of this 16mb vid card than 5 frames per second. i ran across some people saying that if you close out of almost all other service and run x & nwn from console that it gives more "power".

i'm sure there are other things to do too, i'll keep looking

[Griffin518]

Do you know if the laptop video card is technically labeled as "Radeon" ? That may help us point you to the right drivers....

[siplus]

it's an "ATI M6-C graphics controller"

that was coming off of the toshiba spec sheet i linked to.

i guess it isn't a raedon. hmm...

http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html

i'm guessing that if they offered a driver, that it would be under 'mobile', but that just redirects you to the page i mentioned earlier about having to get it from the manufacturer.

[Void Main]

What is really important is what lspci says:

As you can see, I have an ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x:

# lspci

Code: Select all

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64)


# lspci -v

Code: Select all

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation Armada E500
        Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 11
        Memory at 40000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
        I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Memory at 41000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [50] AGP version 1.0
        Capabilities: [5c] Power Management version 1


# lspci -vv

Code: Select all

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation Armada E500
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping+ SERR- FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 66 (2000ns min), Cache Line Size 08
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
        Region 0: Memory at 40000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
        Region 1: I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Region 2: Memory at 41000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [50] AGP version 1.0
                Status: RQ=256 Iso- ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA+ ITACoh- GART64- HTrans- 64bit- FW- AGP3- Rate=x1,x2
                Command: RQ=1 ArqSz=0 Cal=0 SBA- AGP- GART64- 64bit- FW- Rate=<none>
        Capabilities: [5c] Power Management version 1
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-


[Griffin518]

it's an "ATI M6-C graphics controller"

that was coming off of the toshiba spec sheet i linked to.

i guess it isn't a raedon. hmm...

http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html

i'm guessing that if they offered a driver, that it would be under 'mobile', but that just redirects you to the page i mentioned earlier about having to get it from the manufacturer.

It's not going to be a different graphic processing chip than some other, standard card they produce. It's just not cost effective to engineer a completely new processor. My question was geered towards the fact that ATI has different drivers for "Rage" and "Radeon" cards.

[siplus]

Code: Select all

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M6 LY (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems: Unknown device ff00
        Flags: bus master, stepping, fast Back2Back, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 10
        Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable)
        I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
        Memory at d0100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2


so it is labed as radeon.

on ati's linux driver page, they list Radeon drivers for 8500, 9000, 9100, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, and 9800. which of these divers do you think would help me, Griffin518?

[Void Main]

I think ATI has a nice Forum you might also want to check in case you don't get much help here. nVidia has a great one and I believe ATI's is just as good. Someone there would surely be able to tell you if something will work for you.

[Griffin518]

I think ATI has a nice Forum you might also want to check in case you don't get much help here. nVidia has a great one and I believe ATI's is just as good. Someone there would surely be able to tell you if something will work for you.

That's a good idea... siplus: to answer your previous question: I think they're all the same driver, so it doesn't matter which one you download. I don't know why they're splitting them out now. Give the 8500 one a shot.

-Griffin-

[siplus]

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