graphics cards and chips

[cast-fish]

Please can you tell the basics of graphics wih tinycore?

my laptop has a reasonable graphics chip.....ATI radeon mobility 7500 with DDR of 64 megs ram. and AGP 4x.

How does any of the above specs relate to using XORG with TCL......?..... and relate to things such as 3D...?

will XORG use the 64 megs of graphics card ram?.......XVESA wont?

i just wondered....



Earlier laptops of mine have only had standard graphics chips which SHARE some of the laptops
RAM...say 16 megs.

THis laptop is different. As mentioned above

thanks

Vince.

[curaga]

Xvesa/Xfbdev will only use a standard amount, which is usually 4-16mb. To use it all you need Xorg with a suitable driver.

Xorg is also needed for any 2d and 3d accel.

[cast-fish]

right


So XORG loaded and seems to be working...so then i guesse xorg is already using some suitable
driver by default?...Xorg?.....therefor it's using all 64 megs is it?


how would i know?...and how could i force it to use all Graphics chip ram?


Vince.

[curaga]

Read Xorg.0.log to find out.

[cast-fish]

OK Curaga...

back to square one

1) My laptop has a "ATI" radeon 7500 graphics chip with DDR 64 megs of ram.
2) As mentioned earlier in the post Tinycore does not  wholly use this graphics chip properly
by default.
3) You say it may be possible to force TCL to use the whole chip by using XORG
and an appropriate linux driver. 
4) As i mentioned earlier, XORG seems to work fine ok but i am unsure if it's seeing  the full graphics chip properly
5) Look at the XORG  org file you say.  That file seems to have thousands of  lines of text. You never thought to mention WHAT one would be looking for as an indication of the topic issue?
6) I see that TCL apps browser indeed contains x86 graphics drivers and indeed they have one for ATI chips, TCL also has a firmware tool for Radeon. 
7)  Considering the above info, my question is simple and repeated again.

 Is it possible to make this chip work right with TCL and what should be loaded, how?....and when?

Vince.

ps
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,15950.msg94051.html#msg94051

This is the same problem i got here as the above after loading the Radeon firmware and ATI driver.  "Wait for X failed" error......so how do i put in a wait loop?

Vince

[Juanito]

Use one of the tc tools to download/install the Xorg-7.7, xf86-video-ati and firmware-radeon extensions.

If you are already in the gui using Xvesa or Xfbdev, exit to the command prompt. If you are at the command prompt, enter "startx"

You'll need to search through /var/log/Xorg.0.log for messages about memory and firmware - something like the following might help:

Code: [Select]

$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -i ram

[Misalf]

I asked the webs about VRAM and throw this together real quick:

Code: [Select]

sudo lspci -v -s `lspci | grep -m 1 -i vga | awk '{ print $1 }'`
Look out for stuff like  [size=256M] .

This is what I get:

Code: [Select]

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Device 0110
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at dfe80000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
        I/O ports at d100 [size=8]
        Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at dff00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
        Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915



About the wait loop, maybe something like this:

Code: [Select]

SEC=60
while [ $SEC -gt 0 ]; do
dmesg | tail -5 | grep "Initialized radeon"
echo -ne "Waiting for VGA... $((SEC--)) \r"
done


[cast-fish]

right...many thanks for the reply's

I don't want to labour your forum people. Perhaps the radeon card
contains non typical ram called VRAM?...DDR 64 megs....

perhaps giving  the chip all the right drivers and everything may ONLY affect
the 3D performance of the machine under XORG.....and i don't really play
games much.....


in essence, i don't want to waste your time ....on something that isn't
necessary worth the hasstle...


a side note below

Please ignore the fact this Xsession screen GRAB mentions Xvesa......but aside from
that is there infact something WRONG with the "wait x" stuff anyhow?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

/usr/local/bin/Xvesa -br -screen 640x480x16 -shadow -2button -mouse /dev/input/mice -nolisten tcp -I >/dev/null 2>&1 &
export XPID=$!
waitforX || ! echo failed in waitforX || exit
"$DESKTOP" 2>/tmp/wm_errors &
export WM_PID=$!
[ -x ./.setbackground ] && ./.setbackground
[ -x ./.mouse_config ] && ./.mouse_config &
[ $(which "$ICONS".sh) ] && ${ICONS}.sh &
[ -d ".X.d" ] && find ".X.d" -type f -print | while read F; do . "$F"; done
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[cast-fish]

tc@box:~$ sudo lspci -v -s `lspci | grep -m 1 -i vga | awk '{ print $1 }'`
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [R               adeon Mobility 7500] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation Device 004a
        Flags: stepping, 66MHz, medium devsel, IRQ 11
        Memory at 88000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
        Memory at 80380000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 90000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0
        Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2



that is what mine shows under Xvesa?

seems to be indicating 128 megs of ram?....not the 64 megs i originally thought

Vince.

[Misalf]

Maybe it's 64MB dedicated + 64MB shared?

VRAM isn't non-typical, it's just video memory. Actually I asked the webs about "linux video memory".

As you can see, my netbook's integrated intel graphics chip is able to use 256MB RAM, yet it's performance is quite poor. Thats because the linux drivers for those video cards don't support all the available features. It's sufficient fore 2D things, though.

Your  .xsession  looks correct.

[cast-fish]

you may be right

Compaq laptops indeed often have embedded features......

that is to say it could be 64 vram and 64 system shared Ram. (making 128)

The radeon chip is certainly only 64 meg VRAM according to google.
"Radeon mobility 7500"


I remember my other older compaq laptop here....actually had 128 megs of RAM hard
soldered onto the motherboard. THen next to that is a spare RAM slot where
you can put another 256 max card or lower.

This newer laptop here is a very similar compaq....same era also
but with better graphics chip.

Vince

[cast-fish]

I asked the webs about VRAM and throw this together real quick:

Code: [Select]

sudo lspci -v -s `lspci | grep -m 1 -i vga | awk '{ print $1 }'`
Look out for stuff like  [size=256M] .

This is what I get:

Code: [Select]

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. Device 0110
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at dfe80000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
        I/O ports at d100 [size=8]
        Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at dff00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
        Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915



About the wait loop, maybe something like this:

Code: [Select]

SEC=60
while [ $SEC -gt 0 ]; do
dmesg | tail -5 | grep "Initialized radeon"
echo -ne "Waiting for VGA... $((SEC--)) \r"
done


again, where does this code go?

after the Wait command?
Before the Wait command?
Before everything in the xsession file?

Vince

[Juanito]

In re-reading the link above, it looks like the delay loop is only needed if you boot directly into the Xorg gui.

If you boot with Xvesa loaded then load Xorg (and the ati/radeon driver and firmware), exit to the command prompt and "startx", the loop shouldn't be required?

If you boot directly to the gui with Xorg (and the ati/radeon driver and firmware) loaded "onboot", then I guess the delay loop will need to come before the first line in ~/.xsession - make sure you use the Xorg command string and not the Xvesa command string.

[cast-fish]

ok Juanto thanks

Vince

[Juanito]

edited my post immediately above