Radeon

Xf86-video-ati

Radeon is part of the Linux open-source graphics driver stack for AMD/ATI Radeon graphics cards that is often replaced by fglrx, the proprietary alternative, due to seemingly poor 3D acceleration and threading (soon to be provided by Mesa).

The performance issues are generally caused by generic Xorg profiles which have to cater to a myriad AMD GPUs with a different feature-set and capabilities, forcing them to only enable features that are common to most cards, or none at all (thus, the driver works as is).

To combat this, one must look at the feature matrix to determine what performance oriented options are safe to enable.

Building from source

This guide will attempt to improve 3D acceleration (or outright enable it, if it's disabled) by making use of the new feature-set, namely, DRI3.

Warning: This is quite bleeding edge and might not work. Should it fail, you will be on your own.

Before starting

Check your cards feature-set: https://wiki.freedesktop.org/xorg/RadeonFeature/#index6h2 "Decoder ring for engineering vs marketing names" will tell you what model your card actually is.

Back your xorg.conf up by issuing sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf~

Requirements & dependencies

`--  media-libs/mesa  (>=11.0, preferably -git[1])
`--  x11-libs/libdrm  (>=2.4.58, preferably -git[2], since this is the library DRI uses)
`--  x11-libs/libpciaccess (>=0.8.0)
`--  x11-base/xorg-server (ideally, >=1.17)
`--  x11-libs/glamor (>=0.6)
`--  virtual/udev
`--  x11-proto/fontsproto
`--  x11-proto/randrproto
`--  x11-proto/renderproto
`--  x11-proto/videoproto
`--  x11-proto/xextproto
`--  x11-proto/xf86driproto
`--  x11-proto/xproto
`--  sys-devel/automake  (>1.15)
`--  sys-devel/autoconf  (>=2.69)
`--  sys-devel/libtool  (>=2.4)
`--  sys-devel/m4
`--  x11-misc/util-macros  (>=1.18)
`--  media-fonts/font-util  (>=1.2.0)
`--  virtual/pkgconfig
`--  x11-proto/glproto
`--  x11-proto/dri2proto
`--  x11-proto/dri3proto
`--  x11-proto/xineramaproto

Certain package managers can automatically build the dependency tree for you. However, you ought to double check to make sure the above requirements coincide, in terms of versions.

• Aptitude: run sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-video-ati;
• Yum: run sudo yum-builddep xorg-x11-drv-ati;
• Portage: emerge the actual driver to satisfy all dependencies;
• BUILDPKG (Arch): run sudo makepkg -s xf86-video-ati.

Compiling

1. git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati
2. cd xf86-video-ati
3. ./autogen.sh --prefix=/opt/xorg
4. make
5. sudo make install

Example xorg.conf: http://pastebin.com/raw/aE3e21Bn

IMPORTANT: Recompiling the driver will become a necessity after each major X upgrade (eg: 1.16 --> 1.17, not 1.16 --> 1.16.4), due to ABI changes.

Testing

To ensure DRI3 is enabled, run cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -i DRI3. Output should be as follows:

[    14.031] (**) RADEON(0): Option "DRI3" "on"
[    16.723] (**) RADEON(0): DRI3 enabled

External links

• For more info (eg: building libdrm and mesa from source)
• Real world benchmarks