ati.2

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Overview

ati.2 drivers allow you to take advantage of video and TV playback features of cards made by ATI, inc.

Radeon TV-input code has been merged into X.Org CVS, to appear in release 7.0.

These drivers should work fine with any Mach64, Rage128 or Radeon card, in particular:

  • All-in-Wonder classic (Mach64): XvImage, TV-in (NTSC)
  • All-in-Wonder Rage128 16mb (Rage128): XvImage, TV-in (NTSC)
  • All-in-Wonder Rage128 Pro 32mb (Rage128): XvImage, TV-in (NTSC)
  • All-in-Wonder Radeon (Radeon): XvImage, TV-in (NTSC)
  • Rage Mobility-P (Mach64): XvImage
  • Rage Mobility-M3 (Rage128): XvImage
  • Radeon 64mb: XvImage

Here XvImage refers to the ability to accelerate movie playback (mpeg, DVD) by converting and scaling YUV images in hardware.

Installation

Do _NOT_ mix XFree drivers (i.e. 4.2.0 drivers are meant _only_ for 4.2.0).

4.2.0 and 4.3.0 ati.2 source and binaries must only be used with drm-kernel for acceleration. Regular drm drivers will cause lockup with Radeons.

Installing ati.2 binaries

  • Download tarfile from our download area
  • Backup your /usr/X11R6/ directory (or wherever you installed XFree 4.3.0)
  • Make sure that /usr/X11R6 points to the directory where you installed XFree 4.3.0. It could be a symlink, it could be a hardlink.
  • Change directory to /usr and unpack the archive:
        tar zxvf ATI-4.3.0-X.i386.tar.gz
    
    This will install some additional modules and replace some binaries that are part of standard XFree86 4.3.0 installation.
  • Restart X server if it was running.

Please make sure to install _ALL_ of ati.2 binaries (if you compile _apply_, _make_ and _install_ patches (see ati_xv/README)). If you just install modules it will _not_ work. Installation process for 4.2.0 is identical (s/4.3.0/4.2.0).

Note: many people have reported problems installing over RPM or DPKG based installations. These problems stem from the fact that package maintainers get creative and put XFree86 in non-standard places. Our "official" recommended way is to either compile XFree86 4.3.0 tree yourself (this way you can develop too) or to use plain XFree86 binaries - the ones in .tgz format.

Installing from CVS

  • Decide whether you want to try out "stable" branch or "developmental" branch(extra unstable)
  • Follow instructions on accessing CVS to obtain ati.2 module. To get the developmental branch add -r devel before ati.2
  • To compile CVS you will an XFree86 tree. To find out which one study ati.2/README.gatos.
  • Download or checkout with CVS the XFree86 tree you need. Follow instructions to compile and install it.
    DO NOT DELETE IT.
  • Go to ati.2 directory and type:
    xmkmf /path/to/your/xfree86/tree
    make
    make install
    
  • Restart X server if it was running.
  • This is it. You can try editing any files in ati.2 directory - to try out your changes repeat the commands above (though it is not necessary to run xmkmf unless you edited Imakefile)

Getting 3d acceleration to work

Unless specially noted (or if you are using CVS and stumbled onto a bug) 3d acceleration should work fine with ati.2. If you are experiencing problems please try to use DRI debugging guide to debug your installation.

If you are compiling from CVS you will also need to patch and recompile Mesa drivers located in xc/libs/GL/mesa/src/drv/radeon and xc/libs/GL/mesa/src/drv/r200. You can obtain required patches here:

Rage128 cards 3d acceleration has not been tested at the moment and might break when used concurrently with km, however there should be no problems when using it with only ati.2 modules.

GATOS specific /etc/XF86Config options

RageTheatreCrystal
Possible values are 2700 or 2950. Normally autodetection should work fine
RageTheatreTunerPort, RageTheatreCompositePort, RageTheatreSVideoPort
These options should be specified only if BIOS is not present or autodetection fails. Possible values span integers from 0 to 6.
TunerType
should be specified when BIOS is not available or autodetection fails. Possible values span integers from 0 to 31, but not all tuner types are in use at the moment.

Notes

  • If you have problems getting your monitor to work, try specifying
    Option "composite_sync" "off"
    
    in the Device section of your XF86Config file.

TODO list for CVS code

  • Add definitions for futher transition to switchable deinterlacing modes
  • Find the cause for 1-pixel jitter that some people are seeing. (No idea so far.)
SourceForge Logo http://gatos.sourceforge.net/ati.2.php was last modified by Vladimir Dergachev 2:18am Monday, August 08th 2005