ATI wierdness... one boot low res, the next hi

[richardf]

I've had nothing but problems with my ATI x1950 card with multiple distros. Tried PCLinusOS which I really like but no matter of beating my head against a wall could get me higher than 1280x1024 res when my Dell 2005FPW will push 1680x1050. Also tried Mint, Dream and Ubuntu (the worst) and none of them would allow me to use Beryl.

My first boot with the Sabayon LivedCD tonight resulted in pretty much the same. Tried a few updates but that didn't help and things got worse. Soooo... I rebooted and WTF? My screen defaults to 1680x1050 with all 3d operable. Beryl is screaming and after thrashing the system for an hour, she is still stable.

I don't get what changed but I am liking the way this is going for now.

I see it is using VESA which I've heard produces crappy output but I see nothing I don't like so far. Here's the relevant part of my xorg.conf file;

# **********************************************************************
# Monitor section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of monitor sections may be present

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "Generic Monitor"
#Option "DPMS"

VertRefresh 43 - 60
HorizSync 28 - 80

EndSection

# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

# Any number of graphics device sections may be present

Section "Device"
Identifier "VESA"
Driver "fglrx" # do not remove vesa
#Option "RenderAccel" "on"
#Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"
#Option "BusType" "PCI"
#Option "ColorTiling" "on"
#Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
EndSection


# **********************************************************************
# Screen sections.
# **********************************************************************

Section "Screen"

# The Identifier, Device and Monitor lines must be present

Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "VESA"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
#Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"

# The favoured Depth and/or Bpp may be specified here

DefaultDepth 24

SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
ViewPort 0 0
Modes "1680x1050" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubsection

SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
ViewPort 0 0
Modes "1680x1050" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubsection

SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
ViewPort 0 0
Modes "1680x1050" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubsection


EndSection

[richardf]

By tomorrow I will have a video to show how snappy this thing is. I am running an overclocked Dual Core with 2 gigs of ram and I can play a video full screen while punishing Beryl and not a hiccup can be seen. This is sweet.

Now on to solving my boot problem when I try to install it.

[richardf]

*sigh* I crashed Sabayon trying to get Portage working and after 4 reboots have not been able to get it to run at 1680x1050 again.

I saved my xorg.conf and tried overwriting the created one with the working on but xorg misbehaved badly.

[Fitzcarraldo]

"I see it is using VESA which I've heard produces crappy output but I see nothing I don't like so far."

It's not using VESA, it's using fglrx. The "VESA" in your xorg.conf is just an identifier, i.e. a sort of section title. You could edit "VESA" in the Graphics Device Section and in the Screens Section and change it to "Hello Mother" and it would still work the same. Likewise, the "# Do not remove vesa" is just a comment. You could delete that comment completely or change it to "# This is just a comment" and it would still work.