Bug 11349

Summary:	Radon Mobility 9700: poor 3d performance
Product:	Mesa	Reporter:	Nicolò Chieffo <84yelo3>
Component:	Drivers/DRI/r300	Assignee:	Default DRI bug account <dri-devel>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	medium	CC:	bugzi11.fdo.tormod
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	Other
OS:	All
Whiteboard:
i915 platform:		i915 features:
Attachments:	xorg.conf Xorg.0.log

Description Nicolò Chieffo 2007-06-23 04:48:39 UTC

xserver-xorg-video-ati version 6.6.3-2ubuntu6

This bug is about playing 3d games/apps with a Mobility Radeon 9700.
I've done tests with nexuiz (a complex 3d game like quake), smc (a simple super mario clone), google earth and compiz (git version 0.5.1)

- nexuiz: the game runs kindly fluid (though the cpu is used at 95%), with 60fps. l see this message in the console
*********************************WARN_ONCE*********************************
File radeon_mm.c function radeon_mm_alloc line 216
Ran out of GART memory (for 1048576)!
Please consider adjusting GARTSize option.
***************************************************************************
In fact in xorg.0.log I see this:
(II) RADEON(0): Using 8 MB GART aperture
(II) RADEON(0): Using 5 MB for GART textures

I tried to manually set gart to 128MB with the option GARTSize, but the situation didn't improve (except that the debug message is gone)
The result with fglrx is worse: good job!


- smc and google earth: The performance is near to 1 fps and the cpu goes immediately to 100% of use (centrino 1.6ghz), and I see these messages:
*********************************WARN_ONCE*********************************
File r300_render.c function r300Fallback line 441
Software fallback:ctx->Line.SmoothFlag
***************************************************************************
Try R300_SPAN_DISABLE_LOCKING env var if this hangs.

if I use driconf to enable the option "Disable low impact fallback" smc runs smooth (though with 70% cpu usage) but google earth hangs the whole system.
the result with fglrx is: smc has no cpu usage, google-earth has low cpu usage


- compiz: using compiz git version 0.5.1+git20070621-0ubuntu1 I see some problems in scrolling, animations and when changing to a virtual desktop that has some open windows. Scrolling is really slow and not acceptable, animations have some hungs that don't let them be fluid, and when I change desktop there is a 2 seconds laf before the windows are drawed
Of course I cannot test the performance with fglrx

Comment 1 Nicolò Chieffo 2007-06-23 04:49:07 UTC

Created attachment 10418 [details]
xorg.conf

Comment 2 Nicolò Chieffo 2007-06-23 04:50:21 UTC

Created attachment 10419 [details]
Xorg.0.log

revelant parts:
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address)
drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address)
drmOpenDevice: Open failed
drmOpenByBusid: Searching for BusID pci:0000:01:00.0
drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0
drmOpenDevice: open result is 7, (OK)
drmOpenByBusid: drmOpenMinor returns 7
drmOpenByBusid: drmGetBusid reports pci:0000:01:00.0
---------
(WW) RADEON(0): DRI init changed memory map, adjusting ...
(WW) RADEON(0): MC_FB_LOCATION was: 0xd3ffd000 is: 0xd3ffd000
(WW) RADEON(0): MC_AGP_LOCATION was: 0xffffffc0 is: 0xe07fe000
---------
(II) RADEON(0): Using 8 MB GART aperture
(II) RADEON(0): Using 5 MB for GART textures
(isn't 8MB a bit low?)
---------
(II) RADEON(0): Direct rendering enabled
(II) RADEON(0): Render acceleration unsupported on Radeon 9500/9700 and newer.
(II) RADEON(0): Render acceleration disabled
---------
glxinfo reports
libGL warning: 3D driver claims to not support visual 0x4b
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R300 20060815 AGP 1x x86/MMX/SSE2 TCL
(why agp 1x? I can handle 4x!)

Comment 3 Tormod Volden 2007-06-23 06:57:23 UTC

Can you please try 6.6.192 also? (Ubuntu packages on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XorgOnTheEdge)

Comment 4 Nicolò Chieffo 2007-06-23 14:14:24 UTC

I've tried them but the performance is not improved at all, and the error messages about r300Fallback are still here. I haven't tried google earth because now I don't want to crash the system again

Comment 5 Roland Scheidegger 2007-06-23 14:44:40 UTC

New driver should use higher agp mode by default, you can enable it with "Option" "AGPMode" "4" manually, but it's unlikely to make a lot of performance difference. When you see those fallback messages for things not implemented, software rasterizer is used so it's expected that performance is very low and cpu usage at 100%. Not sure why cpu usage is quite high even when hw rendering is used, maybe it's just state overhead or vertex submitting or something not very well optimized - you could use oprofile to get a rough idea.
compiz should run better with current ddx and dri drivers.
The google earth gpu lockup (maybe - you didn't say if the box is truly dead or it just appears to be dead) could (or not, I don't know but it would be worth a try) be fixed by a newer dri (mesa) driver.

Comment 6 Nicolò Chieffo 2007-06-23 15:19:43 UTC

You're right for the AGP part, I didn't notice it! I hoped that also GARTSize could be right detected!
Will the not implemented parts developed sooner or later, or are they discontinued now?
I will try oprofile, though I'm not sure how to use it...
When you say that compiz should run better with new drivers you mean GIT version or the one I just installed? I hope the GIT version, since the one I am using does not improve anything...
google earth with the option "disable low impact fallback" hangs the whole system: I even tried sysrq keys but nothing happened!

Comment 7 Nicolò Chieffo 2007-06-24 02:45:26 UTC

I've tried google earth with ati 6.6.192. The situation is a bit different:
I can move the mouse, but I cannot do anything. again keyboart shorcuts to recover the system are not working.

Comment 8 Michel Dänzer 2007-06-25 00:34:28 UTC

(In reply to comment #7)
> I've tried google earth with ati 6.6.192. The situation is a bit different:
> I can move the mouse, but I cannot do anything. again keyboart shorcuts to
> recover the system are not working.

As Roland mentioned, the version of Mesa generally matters more for 3D apps than the version of xf86-video-ati. Have you tried Mesa 7.0 or GIT?

To get better compiz performance, you need to build and run the xserver GIT master branch (which also requires the Mesa GIT master branch) and the xf86-video-ati GIT master branch built against that with EXA.

Also, please don't mix in several issues into a single bug report.

Comment 9 Nicolò Chieffo 2007-06-25 02:27:53 UTC

I'm not using git.

I will file new bugs for compiz and google earth, sorry.

Now this bug is about poor 3d performance and hi cpu usage for the missing implementations that fall back to software render.

Is there some developer still interested to implement them?

Comment 10 Michel Dänzer 2007-06-25 02:37:30 UTC

(In reply to comment #9)
> I will file new bugs for compiz and google earth, sorry.

Don't bother for compiz, or I'll just resolve it as fixed due to the improvements in the current GIT versions. Also please only file a new bug for Google Earth after trying Mesa GIT or at least the 7.0 release.

Comment 11 Jerome Glisse 2007-06-25 02:56:00 UTC

(In reply to comment #9)
> Is there some developer still interested to implement them?

It will get implemented once any one got time to do it. If
you got time and motivation you welcome to jump in.

Comment 12 Nicolò Chieffo 2007-06-25 11:11:48 UTC

You were right. I now installed mesa 7.0 and google earth will not crash with the option disable low impact fallback! Thank you for the suggestion

Sorry I don't have the knowledge to help you writing missing functions, sorry!

In the end, this bug will be only to remember that there are missing functions in the r300 code.

And I will open a new bug about hi cpu usage in some 3d apps (such as glxgears). Can I open it now, or will I have to install a newer version of xorg or ati before?

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