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rkmugen · **Posted:** Wed Aug 01, 2012 6:07 am

Basically, i'm starting off with theos911's post in the Manuals section, about checking to see if I've got video acceleration going...

@theos911
So, I tried the last few things you posted there, applying your suggested modifications to my xorg.conf... and what I end up getting would be kind of like if you were in Mac OS 9 (for example), going into the Monitors control panel, and setting it to 256 colors (8-bit). That's what I'm seeing. So absolutely, that speeds things up, but for me it doesn't seem like a substantial difference... like starting up Iceweasel, drawing a selection rectangle to select multiple icons/files.... the only really bad thing about it is that it screws up the colors of the Mint-X theme; noticeable when I open up a window, the colors of the navigation bar are pink, yellow, black, grey, and orange.... VERY odd.

ForcePCIMode was set to "true"
Driver was set to "fbdev"
HorizSync was set to 58-72
VertRefresh was set to 74-118

... and put pound signs (#) in front of both:
Disable "glx"
Disable "dri"

So i'm reverting back to my original xorg.conf.... for now.

And instead, I'll be trying to install the stuff seen on this thread:
http://mintppc.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&p=6798#p6793

The only thing I'm not sure of is whether I need to uninstall MESA 8.x before actually installing the older 7.x stuff...

I plan on uninstalling through Synaptic... then downloading all of the stuff from that page and installing through the Terminal...

str8bs · Joined:Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:12 pm Posts:111

You would not need to uninstall Mesa 8.
My mistake, I didn't notice your xorg.conf was missing color depth. Try this.

Code:

Section "Device"
     Identifier "Rage128Ultra"
     Option "ForcePCIMode" "true"
     Driver "ATI" #Once you get color, you can switch to fbdev to compare
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
     Identifier "ImacCRT"
##These won't change anything but the numbers
## that were there make NO sense vs. the display specs.
     Horizsync 58-62
     Vertrefresh 74-117
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "MyImacCRT"
    Monitor "ImacCRT"
    DefaultDepth 16 #If this works, try changing to 24.
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubsection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 16
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Module"
#Disable "glx"
#Disable "dri"
EndSection

This should get you software rendering at least. You will need GLX and DRI enabled or Mesa would be disabled anyway regardless of version.
You would have to add mode lines to get 800x600 and 640x480 which many games might want.

Here is what I have on mine. The mode lines will get you a display, but your CRT is different and so is your PRAM so I wouldn't expect them to fit your screen well. I commented them out here in case someone copies and pastes without thinking. Just remove the # before the first three if you want to see what they look like on yours.

Code:

###Str8bs July 1, 2012
###Works on iMac G3's 500/600mhz ATI Rage 128 Ultra AGP 2X 16mb
###Ubuntu 12.04 3.2.0-25 and 3.2.0-26 
###To enable hardware acceleration, install old mesa 7.11 per wiki http://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCKnownIssues 

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "iMacG3CRT"
    HorizSync 58-62
    VertRefresh 74-118
    UseModes "str8bsTWEAKED"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Rage128"
    Driver    "ATI"
    Option "ForcePCIMode" "true" ###Without this, I have to disable DRI.
    Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "TheOnlyOneIHave"
    Monitor "iMacG3CRT"
    DefaultDepth 24 ###Change to 16 or 8 for lower color depth.
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 16
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 8
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Module"
#    Disable "dri"
EndSection

Section "Modes"
    Identifier "str8bsTWEAKED"

    ###!!!!!! INCORRECT MODES CAN DAMAGE CRT SCREENS !!!!!!
    ####Please research and understand before using. These work on my two G3 iMacs.
    ####800x600 and 640x480 still don't fill screen. Searching solution. pclk?

    #Modeline "1024x768"  78.75  1024 1048 1144 1312 768 769 772 799 +hsync +vsync
    #ModeLine "800x600"   63.75  800 840 920 1064  600 603 607 628 +hsync +vsync
    #Modeline "640x480"   51.00  640 680 744 856  480 483 487 507 +hsync +vsync

    ###Tweaked from these CVT outputs and xorg log
    ####FromXorgLog
    #Modeline "1024x768"x75.0   78.75  1024 1040 1136 1312 768 769 772 800 +hsync +vsync
    ### 1024x768 74.90 Hz (CVT 0.79M3) hsync: 60.29 kHz; pclk: 82.00 MHz
    ###CVT output
    ###cvt 1024 768 75
    ### 1024x768 74.90 Hz (CVT 0.79M3) hsync: 60.29 kHz; pclk: 82.00 MHz
    #Modeline "1024x768_75.00"   82.00  1024 1088 1192 1360  768 771 775 805 -hsync +vsync
    ### cvt 800 600 95
    ### 800x600 94.77 Hz (CVT) hsync: 60.37 kHz; pclk: 63.75 MHz
    #ModeLine "800x600_95"   63.75  800 848 928 1056  600 603 607 637 -hsync +vsync
    ###cvt 640 480 117
    ### 640x480 116.33 Hz (CVT) hsync: 60.14 kHz; pclk: 51.00 MHz
    #Modeline "640x480_117.00"   51.00  640 680 744 848  480 483 487 517 -hsync +vsync
EndSection

EDIT: Just clarify. Without hardware acceleration you won't seen any real performance bump. Downgrading Mesa is required to achieve that for those who have OLD cards that are not supported by Mesa 8 (like Rage 128.) However, you want to at least have software rendering when you glxinfo | grep render
or many games that look for GL just won't run.
I have NOT tested installing the Ubuntu packages in straight debian yet.

rkmugen · **Posted:** Wed Aug 01, 2012 8:59 am

Alright, so I just went straight to install those 4 .deb files using

Code:

dpkg -i *.deb

and was able to downgrade to MESA 7.11 from 8.x. Then I took a look at my xorg.conf just to double-check that it didn't have anything weird from that earlier attempt.

My xorg.conf now looks like:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier "Configured Mouse"
   Driver "mouse"
   Option "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Option "ForcePCIMode" "true"
Option "NoInt10" "true"
#Driver "fbdev"
Driver "r128"
Option "UseFBDev" "false"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
#HorizSync 58-72
#VertRefresh 74-118
Horizsync 30-65
Vertrefresh 50-75
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen    "Default Screen"
EndSection

Section "Module"
#Disable "glx"
#Disable "dri"
EndSection

And so, NOW... when I issue the glxinfo command to see if I indeed have graphics acceleration, I'm rewarded with:

Code:

~ $ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: VA Linux Systems, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Rage 128 PowerPC
OpenGL version string: 1.2 Mesa 7.11
OpenGL extensions:

And so, according to this page http://mintppc.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1034 I have some sort of acceleration going... but I was expecting the System Profiler to say that I have AGP2x working.

And you know what's weird? When I changethe entry for ForcePCIMode in my xorg.conf to "false", everything hangs when I try to log in after a reboot.

However, when i run

Code:

glxgears -info

I saw that my FPS reached a peak of 305.969 FPS.

So, am I missing something? Am I running off of some software renderer or do I really have hardware acceleration?

str8bs · Joined:Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:12 pm Posts:111

rkmugen wrote:

And so, according to this page http://mintppc.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1034 I have some sort of acceleration going... but I was expecting the System Profiler to say that I have AGP2x working.

And you know what's weird? When I changethe entry for ForcePCIMode in my xorg.conf to "false", everything hangs when I try to log in after a reboot.

That is the bug I linked in the other thread. It is not related to Mesa but either Rage 128 driver or, more likely, kernel/uninorth-agp . And it is a bummer.

Quote:

So, am I missing something? Am I running off of some software renderer or do I really have hardware acceleration?

You have hardware. To compare, disable ("Un" # in your config) DRI or change to FBDEV (You will have to correct your color depth) and it will revert to software.

Code:

glxinfo | grep render

If you see "...renderer String ...Software" you are using Software (CPU/not GPU) rendering that emulates GL. DRI Wiki

Also, just glxgears is a good indicator, but it is NOT a benchmark. iMac G3 won't get anywhere near 300fps (at the default 300x300 window size) without hardware acceleration. Not all software will take advantage of hardware acceleration. So, don't expect miracles.

theos911 · Joined:Sun Jun 19, 2011 8:07 pm Posts:410

Just to clarify, those packages do not replace mesa-utils. They are just the old drivers that were removed past 7.11.2. It is basically reinstalling the 7.11.2 drivers. mesa-utils 8.x just happens to be backwards compatible with them.

aka - you want to have mesa-utils version 8.whatever it is installed from the repos AND those 4 .debs installed with dpkg -i. (All for *buntu currently, until straight debian gets a repackage of those drivers.)

Yes, that is the same string my xubuntu install has. You are trying this from MintPPC, right?

If so, this is a confirmation that the drivers work in debian with no further modifications. <--- Needs Confirmation

theos911 · Joined:Sun Jun 19, 2011 8:07 pm Posts:410

I can confirm that the ubuntu packages work fine out of the box on MintPPC 11. However, you must install libglapi-mesa first, or you run into dependency issues.

Hardware acceleration in MintPPC on r128 8-)