TCub
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join:2008-09-03
Olmsted Falls, OH
clubs:
 ·Cox HSI
4 edits |  ATi Radeon 3870's in Crossfire VS Ubuntu Linux 9.10... Help!
I'm convinced it's going to take a miracle to get this working right.. or a smart DSLR user... or a software update... or a Google search...
Right. Anyway. I have an Alienware m17 with an intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4 Gigawiggles, 2GB DDR3 Ram, a 250GD SATA HDD @ 7200RPM, and .....
TWO ATi HD3870's in Crossfire... each with a whopping 512MB OF GDDR3 GRAPHICS RAM!! FOR PERFORMANCE SO EXTREME, YOU'LL... well... *cough* It's uhh.. It's not working...
So here's the scoop.
Ubuntu 9.10 comes out. So I says to Mable, I says "Hey, Ubuntu 9.10! I know my ATi cards didn't work in 8.04 but I'm sure they've added support since then."
So I try installing it and... video crashes on install... So I try installing it and this time I use the video card safe mode feature (by pressing the F4 key upon installation) and VIOLA! It works. I'm in Ubuntu 9.10.
Everything's peachy. Until I install ATi Drivers... then it crashes... again. I'm about to get around to reinstalling Ubuntu 9.10 BUT after a fresh install I've got only limited video support... as in I can't even display my native res of 1440 x 900...
I tried the official ATi drivers and got nothing.. So.
Are any of you fine DSLRers running Ubuntu 9.10 with some sort of crossfire configuration? If so, I'd greatly appreciate knowing how you get it working! Also any suggestion would be awesome!
I'm going to install linux (again) tomorrow after work and possibly a little school work so I'll be able to play with it then. In the mean time, any and all help would be splendid.
Let me say that I searched Google for this already and I've found some evidence that ATi kinda sorta thought about making Crossfire work in Linux at one time in the land of Ubuntu 8.04 but what happened to that project I don't know.. I haven't found too many other people in the same boat as I.
One thing I'm considering is disabling one of the GPU's in Linux. Anyone agree? Anyone know how? 
Thanks a million in advance. You're all my heroes.
EDIT: Minor grammatical oopsies.
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Jason
Col. Panic
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join:2001-01-24
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| Only one of my systems has an ATI, and none of them are dual card... But...
A little googling, and it looks like Crossfire *should* be supported by the Catylist drivers that shipped with the Karmic release.
Have you tried installing, and using envyNG 'sudo apt-get install envyng-core' ?
It will find the latest available drivers out there on the 'intertubes based on info it gathered on your model card, and your systems dependencies.
Ultimately, it was the only way I got my older ATI card to work.
Install the program, then you can call up the textual UI by typing in a terminal window: 'sudo envyng -t'
Give it a shot, see if it can work some magic on them crossfires.
-Jason
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TCub
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join:2008-09-03
Olmsted Falls, OH
clubs: | I hadn't tried that! Thanks! Like I said I'll get to installing it later today. But I'll report back whatever happens.
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Selenia
join:2006-09-22
Pittsfield, MA
 ·Verizon Online DSL
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to TCub
Unfortunately, it is one of those things in the "might work" bucket. Have you tried looking at the release notes on ATI's site for your card? Have you tried compiling the driver yourself with ATI's binary installer? A couple things to try anyways.
@jason How old of a card? ATI officially dropped support for anything older than the r600 chipset. I have an r570 and 2 r580s(X1950 series) running very happily with the open source ari driver. Only a few tweaks were needed to get superb performance on a card that ATI actually never supported but could be forced to work with hacking the old fglrx driver. The new driver is improved, but again does not support older cards. Anything r580 and down should use the open source driver. Just make sure to force XAA, especially if you use KDE. PageFlip may be helpful for some chipsets. man ati for any other arguments that may help your card =) |
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TCub
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join:2008-09-03
Olmsted Falls, OH
clubs:
·Cox HSI
1 edit | reply to Jason
@Jason...
Thank you!! I've installed EnvyNG and it's now downloading what it thinks are the appropriate drivers! Hopefully it works!!
As Selenia said.. "it is one of those things in the "might work" bucket"... Hopefully it is in that bucket.. right now...
Ironically, the word "envy" in Italian is "invidia"... I'm certainly envious right now.. Used to be a "green guy" until I sort of inadvertently switched to the red side..
Snakeoil and I built a Linux box a while back with an nVidia card... works great. He persuaded me to install Ubuntu on my laptop and that's when we discovered.. ati and Linux don't play well...
UPDATE: It didn't work... same issue... boot to a black screen... back to the drawing boards... I could try compiling the drivers like Selenia mentioned but I'll have to do some research as to how I'd go about doing that..
Another thing I'm considering... what about disabling one of the GPU's in Linux? I'm guessing it's the CrossFire configuration that's killing this... "X" a GPU in Linux and I'd guess the normal ATi drivers should work.. I'll look into it.
In the meantime, anyone familiar with this? Any more suggestions?
Thanks a TON btw for the current support! You're both awesome in my book!
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Selenia
join:2006-09-22
Pittsfield, MA
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| It's 99% likely it's the crossfire, if you have not messed with anything vital in X. I know the HD3870 is supported and now the fglrx driver works out of the box in Ubuntu for most. Only older chips are a problem, for which you should use the ati open source driver. I don't believe the Open Source RadeonHD driver supports crossfire at all but do believe even it supports the HD3870. It has great 2D performance but awful 3D, if 3D at all. fglrx would be recommended at this point if 3D matters. If it doesn't, an edge to open source drivers as they try to remain equally compatible with different applications for nix variants. The bad news is these drivers writers have to write their source code from scratch, so it takes longer for full support for newer cards, especially crossfire even more so than 3D. I have however, occasionally seen the binary work where the package has failed, which is why I made the suggestion. |
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Jason
Col. Panic
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join:2001-01-24
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said by Selenia  :@jason How old of a card? ATI officially dropped support for anything older than the r600 chipset. I have an r570 and 2 r580s(X1950 series) running very happily with the open source ari driver. Only a few tweaks were needed to get superb performance on a card that ATI actually never supported but could be forced to work with hacking the old fglrx driver. The new driver is improved, but again does not support older cards. Anything r580 and down should use the open source driver. Just make sure to force XAA, especially if you use KDE. PageFlip may be helpful for some chipsets. man ati for any other arguments that may help your card =) Its not that old of a chipset, I cant remember off the top of my head, Its no spring chicken, but its not ancient.. Maybe 5 years old?
envyng found the drivers fine for me.
TCub : You may have better experience disabling one of the cards as you suggested, but how / if one would accomplish this, is beyond my experience (sorry)
I seem to recall reading a post in a google search a while back about someone who did this very thing (disable 1 card on a crossfire) and got it to work, but where I read that, I don't remember.. (Fat lot of help, I am, Eh?  )
Sorry I couldnt help more.. Im sure theres a way, Im just not sure what it would be, as I've exhausted my limited knowledge.
-Jason
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TCub
Premium
join:2008-09-03
Olmsted Falls, OH
clubs:
·Cox HSI
| I've got a lot of work to do today (webOS Doctor 1.2.1, install webOS 1.3.1, hack webOS 1.3.1, Economics homework, continue watching Season 1 of House, play video games...) but sometime today I'll be reinstalling Ubuntu and I'll begin my quest to disable one of the video cards. After that I'll use EnvyNG to find the appropriate drivers and hopefully then I'll be set!
The Radeon HD3870 isn't too new but not real old as Jason mentioned. ATi is in the 5xxx range now so it's about two generations ago. Still supports the latest version of DirectX and what not (not that Linux users care too much about that right now) and these cards are at the top of the game in that generation. Having two of them adds even more spice.
The laptop I'm using (for school, B.S. in Game and Simulation Programming and playing video games of course) is an m17... a.k.a OCZ Whitebook. One of the first, if not the first to use ATi's crossfire solution to use two video cards. I bought the laptop last January when it was fresh off the production line and I see now Alienware is selling them with 4xxx series cards.. ah well.. early adopters fee? They perform wonderfully in Windows 7 with Direct X 11 so I'm happy. I can also swap them out and throw in the 4xxx's later (90% sure). If I can get Linux running someway somehow, I'll be completely satisfied.. if not then... well I guess my next laptop will have to be "green"..
Thank you both SO much for the help Jason and Selenia! You had some great ideas and they almost worked. I'm definitely getting closer to making these things roar. It's much appreciated.
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Selenia
join:2006-09-22
Pittsfield, MA
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My r570 and r580 chips are newer than that. You would probably be best served by the open source "ati" driver. I am willing to wager you don't have a chip the new fglrx supports, at least officially. The Radeon HD series began the series of chips(r600 and up) that the new fglrx supports. My x1950 cards(r570 for PRO r580 for XTX) came out before those and is actually a better performer than the first Radeon HD cards. I would try using it next time, as it is installed in Ubuntu by default, but doesn't always use it by default(I had to hand edit xorg.conf to tell it to use it). This time, it's up to you. I do not recall if EnvyNG changes anything you may have to put back. You could probably look at the script and determine that. I don't have it on hand atm.
@TCub You're very welcome. Maybe it will just work with the next driver release. That is always a possibility in the Linux world. Of course, there may be more tinkering to be done, if you are so inclined. I personally haven't tried Crossfire as it is in earlier development still and I have had no need to put myself through that pain, as of yet. I have been watching its development though as I do see it as an area of interest for me once it's better supported. Almost anything I do is well done by my current GPU setup, except in rare instances my driver still does not support X function which can usually be worked around because it's Linux(by forcing extensions, etc if you're curious) =) |
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