# Is Radeon HD 8490 supported?



## Dendros (Jan 3, 2019)

Hi all, I have this card and after installing FreeBSD (12.0 AMD64) in text mode, I wanted to install Xorg but it seems that my graphics is not supported. I did try some tweaks: installing drm-kmod (this seems to install the required firmware), enabling amdgpu, as per wiki advice (for Radeon > HD 7000) but Xorg always uses the VESA driver and I don't have acceleration. If I try to enable the radeon driver manually, X fails to start.
I have given up for now and installed Fedora but I would like to know if and when would my graphics card be supported in FreeBSD, because I would like to try FreeBSD again if my graphics would be supported.


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## johnblue (Jan 4, 2019)

Does not look like it is supported:

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=radeon&sektion=4&manpath=freebsd-release-ports


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## shepper (Jan 4, 2019)

johnblue said:


> Does not look like it is supported:


I would disagree with this.  radeon(4) actually does list the HD8000 series as supported.  This chip works in OpenBSD (reference) and FreeBSD's radeon support is further along - OpenBSD does not presently have amdgpu support.  I would start by reviewing your dmesg to see if the chipset is recognized and your /var/log/Xorg.0.log

If you have further questions post the relevant portion of `# dmesg | grep radeon` and the Xorg.0.log.


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## johnblue (Jan 4, 2019)

shepper said:
			
		

> I would disagree with this.


I disagree with your disagreement.



The codename for the 8490 chip is Caicos and is not listed as supported for the 8000's.

.. I could be wrong too.


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## shepper (Jan 4, 2019)

Wikipedia entry for Radeon_HD_6400 (Caicos) appears to be incorrect.



> Radeon HD 6400
> AMD released the entry-level Radeon HD 6400 GPU on February 7, 2011. Codenamed Caicos, it came to market at the same time as the Radeon HD 6500/6600 Turks GPUs. The sole Caicos product, the Radeon HD 6450, aimed to replace the HD 5450. Compared to the 5450 it has double the stream processors, GDDR5 support, along with new Northern Island technologies.





From the Wikipedia HD 8000 to add to the confusion


> *Radeon
> HD 8490
> (Caicos)* July 23, 20138753.57.0280N/AGDDR5
> 64-bit102490028.89
> 35



AMD has some video chips that can be driven by either the Terrascale Driver or the GCN driver.  The HD8490 is one of the those.
OpenBSD extended Terrascale coverage to the HD 8000/R200 series their last release.  I am not sure that FreeBSD extended Terrascale coverage in addition to the new amdgpu driver.

In Debian linux, the older Terrascale driver is recommended over the GCN driver for these transition chips.  It is supposed to be a little faster and more stable.  A web search can find the benchmarks where the same chip was tested with both drivers.

Corrected HD 8000 link with hashtag to table


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## johnblue (Jan 4, 2019)

shepper .. you pasted the wrong wikipedia article.  Here is what you were looking for:






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_8000_Series


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## shepper (Jan 4, 2019)

My link did not have the hashtag (corrected).

It is also confusing, AMD rebranded a number of their chipsets.  In spite of confusing documentation on the Web,  the original point remains - the HD 8490 should be supported by either by the Terrascale driver or the GCN2 driver.


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## tingo (Jan 5, 2019)

Yes, seems they used "Caicos" in the Radon HD 7000 Series as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_7000_Series


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## shepper (Jan 5, 2019)

Ran out of Islands


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## Dendros (Feb 24, 2019)

An update on this: I think I managed to enable acceleration for my card! What did I? I reinstalled FreeBSD 12, patched it to p3 then I installed xorg, drm-kmod and xf86-video-ati. But, as I said, X refuses to start with this combination so I tried some alternatives and finally found one that works, at least for me.
So, I deleted drm-kmod and xf86-video-ati from my system then installed drm-current-kmod and xf86-video-ati-legacy, entered this in rc.conf: `kldlist="/boot/modules/radeonkms.ko"` then restart.
With this configuration, X started and I see in Xorg.0.log that I have acceleration and the radeon driver is used. So, at least for now, the problem is solved.


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