# ATI Non-free driver?



## kalle97 (Jul 26, 2012)

Hi, I'm wondering if I can run GNU/Linux ATI's non-free on FreeBSD? I guess not since it's kernel modules involved but I have to ask since I'm adicted to a 3D game and need the 3D acceleration. 

Thanks, and sorry if my english is bad.


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## SirDice (Jul 26, 2012)

kalle97 said:
			
		

> Hi, I'm wondering if I can run GNU/Linux ATI's non-free on FreeBSD? I guess not since it's kernel modules involved but I have to ask since I'm adicted to a 3D game and need the 3D acceleration.


You guessed correctly.


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## wblock@ (Jul 26, 2012)

What card do you have?  The radeon driver from x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati has 2D and 3D acceleration for cards through the 4000 series.


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## kalle97 (Jul 26, 2012)

It's a Mobility Radeon HD5145 but it's not in the 5xxx series it's rebranded older card, I don't know which serie it's rebranded from though, I'll try to find out! 

Thanks for all response.


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## kalle97 (Jul 26, 2012)

It's a rebranded 4800 ati. 

Is the xf86-video-ati good for gaming, can I play with descent frame rate in Xonotic?


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## wblock@ (Jul 26, 2012)

kalle97 said:
			
		

> It's a rebranded 4800 ati.
> 
> Is the xf86-video-ati good for gaming, can I play with descent frame rate in Xonotic?



Haven't tried it, building now.  games/ioquake and games/openarena work well, I've never had success with games/alienarena.


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## kalle97 (Jul 26, 2012)

Okey, I'm holding my my thumbs crossed that it'll work with Xonotic.


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## wblock@ (Jul 26, 2012)

Seems the same as alienarena.  Maybe there are config settings that will make it work.  Otherwise, it's ten or fifteen seconds per frame.


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## kalle97 (Jul 26, 2012)

Okey, I think I have to wait with installing FreeBSD then, there is an upcoming tournoment so I need good frame rate.


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## wblock@ (Jul 26, 2012)

I think I spoke too soon.  With video set to low quality and at 800x600, it runs at about 100 FPS here.  There are probably other tricks.


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## kalle97 (Jul 26, 2012)

Wow, nice. I must try FreeBSD when I get home. 

Is it possible to dual-boot it with GRUB?
(really sorry for being off topic)


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## wblock@ (Jul 28, 2012)

Please start a new thread for new topics.

Correction: I had not even tried games/alienarena, but find it runs fine.  The game I was thinking of when I said I'd had "no luck" was games/nexuiz.  Like games/xonotic, I think it will run acceptably well if it is set to use OpenGL 1.0.


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## kalle97 (Jul 29, 2012)

Okey, Xonotic is forked off Nexuiz, so I hope it'll work. I'm playing quite competive so I really need those extra frames per second. Thanks for the help!


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## gour (Sep 25, 2012)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> The radeon driver from x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati has 2D and 3D acceleration for cards through the 4000 series.



On my desktop I have HD 4670, so I assume that should work OK?

Now I wonder, what is with HD 6320 on my netbook?

Does it have 2D or nothing except VESA driver can be used on those machines (native resolution is 1366x768) in 9.1??


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## adamk (Sep 25, 2012)

Yes, the HD4670 should have basic 3D support, though even in 2D the driver is quite buggy.

As for the HD6320...  It *might* support basic modesetting via the radeon driver (depending on what core is being used in that GPU) but, even if that's the case, there will be no 2D acceleration.  There's a good chance that even the radeon driver won't work, and you will have to use vesa.

Adam


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## gour (Sep 25, 2012)

adamk said:
			
		

> Yes, the HD4670 should have basic 3D support, though even in 2D the driver is quite buggy.



Huh...at least, it's possible to buy some cheap Nvidia cards and replace it.



> As for the HD6320...  It *might* support basic modesetting via the radeon driver (depending on what core is being used in that GPU) but, even if that's the case, there will be no 2D acceleration.  There's a good chance that even the radeon driver won't work, and you will have to use vesa.



Using vesa is certainly not the option.

For now I put Linuxmint on the netbook which is very simple install without need for almost any tweaking...

Otoh, we're waiting for RC2 to put Free(PC)BSD on our desktop.


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## m6tt (Sep 27, 2012)

It works really well for me with ATI HD4650...good framerates in most games.
The only bugs I have encountered were related to GLX compositing (like compiz) and there are patches around for those. If you're getting 10fps, you have something wrong with DRI, or you have everything set to high on a card that would choke under any OS. Probably explains buggy if you were using Mesa software rendering, some games don't work so well like that.


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## gour (Sep 28, 2012)

m6tt said:
			
		

> It works really well for me with ATI HD4650...good framerates in most games.



Good...I'm happy to have decent 2D performance - no time for gaming here.


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## m6tt (Sep 30, 2012)

Me either, but it's a good test for 3d. I was able to get rtcw to compile under freebsd and run, and it was quite playable.

You can tell if dri/drm is properly set up by installing mesa-demos and running 

```
glxinfo | fgrep 'Render'
```

The result should mention your card/driver.


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