Ati mobility radeon 7500 in linux

[calyco]

Ive gotten really comfortable using Ubuntu the last few months but because of the lack of 3D support for the radeon 7500 I decided to switch back to Win XP. The only thing keeping me from solely using Ubuntu is being able to run MOHAA. I was wondering if anyone had any info regarding future support for this specific card under linux/Ubuntu. Or if there is a debian based distro that has full 3d support for this gfx card.

 

[bersl2]

The 7500 is supported by the DRI. I found the package xlibmesa-dri to be the chipset-specific drivers, so apt that to at least get the libraries in place. You will need to change a few things in xorg.conf or XF86Config after this.

 

[drag]

Yes.. the Free DRI drivers will support this card.

Probably during installation a non-accelerated driver was choosen for compatability sakes. You'd probably only have to change a couple lines in your X's configuration file to enable 3d acceleration.

If you google around you can probably find some sample x configs, and some howtos. Keep in mind that you shouldn't have to recompile anything (like the kernel or compile dri modules or anything like that).

After editing the file you log out of X and just hit ctrl-alt-backspace to restart your X server. That way it re-reads the config and then you do:
glxinfo

At the beginning of the output from the command it will tell you if DRI is enabled or not. You may need to edit the /etc/modules file and put modules to load their in correct order to get full AGP support. (depends) (also you'd want to run at 16bit color for better performance)

 

[calyco]

I added a few lines to my xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility 7500 M7 (RV200 LW)"
Driver "radeon"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
#newstuff
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "True"
EndSection

Changed the default depth to 16 under Section "Screen" and changed TCL mode in driconf to Software. My fps jumped from 600-800 to 1400+ in glxgears. At least Im on the right track. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[WobbleWobble]

If you go to Synaptic, the ATI drivers should be there. Just search for it in Synaptic.

And I thought proper ATI driver for Linux was "fglrx"? (You should be changing your xorg.conf "Driver" line to "fglrx" instead of "radeon")

Go to your shell and type is "flgrxinfo" and it should say ATI Radeon... instead of the default MESA drivers.

 

[calyco]

Thats the thing, fglrx does not work with this specific card. I searched for info and even tried installing it but it dosent work, only the radeon 8500 and up is supported. Enemy Territory is running flawlessly now so Im a happy camper