efika powerpc

[noeska]

Last week i recieved my efika mainboard. Together with an ati9250se and a 80gb harddisk i now have a small low energy consuming powerpc running on linux

power usage in watt is 22 watt. That is wile playing tux.

Unfortunately i have not yet set up linux correctly no sound and although dri is enabled i get only 5 -8 fps whilst playing tux. The efika with ati is capable of doing better: http://www.ppcnux.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6614 eg playing quake at 53fps on 1280x1024 resolution, but not for me yet.

Freepascal is working out of the box on the efika under linux.

More info: http://book.efika.org

[dmantione]

5 to 8 frames usually means software rendering. Get rid of that first. After that, take a look at these settings, which what I use for my Radeon M7. They improve the framerates a bit.



Section "Device"
BoardName "Radeon LW"
BusID "1:0:0"
Driver "radeon"
Identifier "Device[1]"
VendorName "ATI"
Option "MonitorLayout" "CRT"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AGPFastWrite" "true"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
EndSection


Looks my time on the 2.0.4 PPC/Linux release was well spent :wink:

[noeska]

Unfortunately a check on dri returns true in my opinion that means hardware rendering is turned on. Also the renderer returns r200 in the name.

[dmantione]

Does "glxinfo" say that direct rendering is enabled?

[noeska]

yes it does. :(

[dmantione]

That sucks. There are quite a few thing you could still try though. First try the options I listed above, they improve frame rates. The open source radeon driver initializes the AGP port at AGP 1x, you might want to increase the level. The page flipping is also an option that helps improving the frame rates.

Second, check the clock speeds of your Radeon. It might well be that it is clocked at a very low speed in the Efika to save power. Radeonfb prints a line line

"Radeon: Reference=27.00 MHz (RefDiv=12) Memory=230.00 MHz. System=160.0 MHz"

If it is too low you might look for ways to up the clock speed.

Lastly, upgrade Mesa to the latest version. The Radeon driver is under heavy development, using an outdated version can hurt performance.

[noeska]

I cannot directly execute radeonfb, but looking it up in the sys logs i see that memory is only using 40mhz.

Looking for a tool for overclocking i find rovclock (http://www.hasw.net/linux/), but it cannot compile for powerpc.

[dmantione]

A PowerPC device without framebuffer?! What do you use, standard VGA text mode?

Ok, that is the problem then, the memory for the 9250 normally runs at 250 MHz. Using Rovclock in my M7 (which is by default 275/275), I do not get a significanty framerate drops if I clock the core at a puny 100 MHz, however, a slowdown of the memory is immedeately noticeable. This means most applications are limited by memory rather than core speed.

Putting low speed memory on an Efika makes sense, it allows to keep the price low and it doesn't consume a lot of power.

I think there is one more thing you can try and that is to install Driconf and enable Hyper-Z, this should save some memory bandwidth.

[noeska]

radeonfb is already executed during kernel load. I cannot execute it from commandline.

With driconf i already tried hyperz and there was no noticeable difference with it turned on or off.

Once i get rovclock to compile i should try putting the memory at some higher speed.

Also could it help putting the ati card temporary in a pc, set memory to a higher speed and then put i back in the efika?

[dmantione]

If the ATi card is removable, you can do this. However, you need change the speed programmed in the BIOS of the card then. There are tools on the net available to modify a BIOS image.

However, thinking about this, Radeonfb reads the clock speed from the BIOS, however, on Efika there is no BIOS. It might be that Radeonfb falls back to the fail-safe defaults then, which might be a meagre 40 MHz.

It should print messages about wether it uses BIOS or fail safe defaults during startup.

[noeska]

Looking at the syslog the data actualy seems to come from the bios!!, but i think it is not.

Having the card put in my old PentiumII pc i can use rovclock and write new settings for memory speed. But when i put back in the efika it is back at 40mhz. Also when in the PentiumII pc and after setting new memory speed and then trying to run glxgears the pc freezes after a few frames.

Reading out the memory speed at my pc returns 330mhz, i think that is way to high, so rovclock seems not to be working correctly. Radeonfb does not report anything in the syslog on pc.

Also running ppracer (tuxracer) on my pc gives me about 12 fps. But then its xorg.conf is not optimized.

Next try is getting windows back on the pII. And see if i can write a proper memory speed from there. And also give tux racer a try there.

[dmantione]

Rovclock can change the clock speeds of a running card. As soon as you shut down or reset, the effect of Rovclock is lost. As soon as you start your computer, the BIOS initializes the default clock speed. This default clock speed can be changed by a Radeon BIOS programmer. Such a programmer can modify a BIOS image which you can flash into the card.

What makes you think Radeonfb reads the clock speed from the BIOS? Is radeonfb active on your desktop PC at all? If yes, it should print clock rates.

[noeska]

Yes in the syslog i find a line about reading from the bios
and the radeonfb puts out a line with details about clock and memoryspeed. I should lookup my password for the pgd forum so i can copy and paste from the syslog.

I do think radeonfb is up and running as whilst booting i see a tux at the top of the screen, below is text.

So a radeon bios programmer is what i need, does such a program exist?

[dmantione]

Radedit is a good BIOS editor:

http://www.radeon.ru/bios/util/radedit/

You'll have to use Windows though.

[noeska]

I cannot make a backup from the bios under windows, the option is disabled under ati tool.

Also here is an partial dump from the syslog


Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb_pci_register BEGIN
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: PCI: Enabling device 0000:00:10.0 (0002 -> 0003)
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: aper_base: 80000000 MC_FB_LOC to: 87ff8000, MC_AGP_LOC to: ffff9000
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb (0000:00:10.0): Found 131072k of DDR 64 bits wide videoram
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb (0000:00:10.0): mapped 16384k videoram
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: Found Intel x86 BIOS ROM Image
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: No ATY,RefCLK property !
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: Retrieved PLL infos from BIOS
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: Reference=27.00 MHz (RefDiv=12) Memory=240.00 Mhz, System=166.00 MHz
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: PLL min 20000 max 40000
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: 1 chips in connector info
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: - chip 1 has 2 connectors
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: * connector 0 of type 2 (CRT) : 2300
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: * connector 1 of type 3 (DVI-I) : 3221
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: Starting monitor auto detection...
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: I2C (port 1) ... not found
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: i2c_adapter i2c-1: unable to read EDID block.
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika last message repeated 2 times
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: I2C (port 2) ... not found
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: I2C (port 3) ... found CRT display
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: i2c_adapter i2c-3: unable to read EDID block.
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika last message repeated 2 times
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: I2C (port 4) ... not found
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeon_probe_OF_head
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: i2c_adapter i2c-1: unable to read EDID block.
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika last message repeated 2 times
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: I2C (port 2) ... not found
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: i2c_adapter i2c-3: unable to read EDID block.
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika last message repeated 2 times
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: I2C (port 4) ... not found
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeon_probe_OF_head
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: I2C (port 3) ... found CRT display
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: Monitor 1 type CRT found
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: EDID probed
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb: Monitor 2 type no found
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: hStart = 1328, hEnd = 1440, hTotal = 1688
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: vStart = 1025, vEnd = 1028, vTotal = 1066
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: h_total_disp = 0x9f00d2^I hsync_strt_wid = 0xe053a
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: v_total_disp = 0x3ff0429^I vsync_strt_wid = 0x30400
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: pixclock = 9259
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: freq = 10800
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: freq = 10800, PLL min = 20000, PLL max = 40000
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: ref_div = 12, ref_clk = 2700, output_freq = 21600
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: ref_div = 12, ref_clk = 2700, output_freq = 21600
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: post div = 0x1
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: fb_div = 0x60
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: ppll_div_3 = 0x10060
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 160x64
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb (0000:00:10.0): ATI Radeon Y`
Mar 1 21:31:47 efika kernel: radeonfb_pci_register END


Having had the card in windows seems to have had a good effect on the memory settings as it now is 240mhz!!! No further effect though, lets try ppracer once more.

[dmantione]

240 MHz?! That is pretty normal. You wrote 40 MHz above...

Ok, we're at a dead end then, 240 MHz is enough to get reasonable frame rates.

[noeska]

I am sure it said 40mhz before. No difference in speed though. So memory is not to blame.

Looking at /var/log/xorg.0.log i see:



(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x23
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x24
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x25
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x26
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x27
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x28
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x29
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2a
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2b
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2c
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2d
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2e
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x2f
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x30
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x31
(WW) AIGLX: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x32
(II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized /usr/lib/dri/r200_dri.so


I hope these are non important.

Also i noticed that the memory usage of the efika is of direct influence on 3d speed, at least for tux-racer.