stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Frank Van Damme]

Hello,

I have stability problems with my computer when using OpenGl applications. 
First of all, this is the hardware I am using that may be responsible:

- Motherboard: Soltek sl-75fvr with a kt400 chipset
- Cpu: Athlon Xp 2000+
- Video card: Ati radeon 8500 retail, 64 MB ddr.

Software I am using:

- distribution: Debian Sid
- Xfree86: version 4.3, packaged in Debian packages by Daniel Stone
<http://capricorn.woot.net/~daniels/sid/i386/>
- Linux kernel: version 2.4.21-pre5-ac3
- Quake3 + urban terror, tuxracer (old version 0.6), xmms openGL plugins.

The symptoms are as follows. Linux boots fine, the "radeon" kernel module
inserts with no errors. X also starts without problems and runs stably in
day-to-day work and during cpu-intensive tasks such as compiling. However, 
if Istart running OpenGL applications (games) (quake,tuxracer or whatever) 
themachine will freeze in anything from 2 minutes to an hour. The last frame
remains on the screen, but I can still login over ssh and reboot.
The drivers of this card are only stable since the latest XFree86 release, 
butsince I had hours of crashless fun with that card on another motherboard 
(anepox 7kxa which is now broken), and since the agp features of the kt400 
chipsetare only supported since kernel version 2.4.21-pre1, I supposed that 
was thecause of my problems.

Unfortunately I am unable to provide any useful error messages. The kernel 
doesnot oops or panic, there are no messages on stdout/stderr, X's log file 
does notshow anything, idem for syslog. I find only positive messages in 
dmesg:
Mar 30 23:07:34 dionysos kernel: Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff 
HartmannMar 30 23:07:34 dionysos kernel: agpgart: Maximum main memory to use 
for agp memory: 203MMar 30 23:07:34 dionysos kernel: agpgart: Detected Via 
Apollo Pro KT400 chipsetMar 30 23:07:34 dionysos kernel: agpgart: AGP 
aperture is 64M @ 0xe0000000

Mar 30 23:07:44 dionysos kernel: [drm] AGP 0.99 on VIA Apollo KT400 @ 
0xe000000064MBMar 30 23:07:44 dionysos kernel: [drm] Initialized radeon 
1.7.0 20020828 on minor 0Mar 30 23:08:02 dionysos kernel: [drm] Loading R200 
Microcode

If there is anything I overlooked, further info I can provide, let me know.

Thanks in advance,

Frank Van Damme.

-- 
Frank Van Damme    | "Saying 8MB of RAM doesn't do as much anymore is
http://www.        | like saying a gallon of water holds more than it
openstandaarden.be | did in 1988."                    --George Adkins

Re: stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Mark Watts]

On Saturday 12 Apr 2003 1:10 pm, Frank Van Damme wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have stability problems with my computer when using OpenGl applications.
> First of all, this is the hardware I am using that may be responsible:
>
> - Motherboard: Soltek sl-75fvr with a kt400 chipset
> - Cpu: Athlon Xp 2000+
> - Video card: Ati radeon 8500 retail, 64 MB ddr.
>
> Software I am using:
>
> - distribution: Debian Sid
> - Xfree86: version 4.3, packaged in Debian packages by Daniel Stone
> <http://capricorn.woot.net/~daniels/sid/i386/>
> - Linux kernel: version 2.4.21-pre5-ac3
> - Quake3 + urban terror, tuxracer (old version 0.6), xmms openGL plugins.
>
> The symptoms are as follows. Linux boots fine, the "radeon" kernel module
> inserts with no errors. X also starts without problems and runs stably in
> day-to-day work and during cpu-intensive tasks such as compiling. However,
> if Istart running OpenGL applications (games) (quake,tuxracer or whatever)
> themachine will freeze in anything from 2 minutes to an hour. The last
> frame remains on the screen, but I can still login over ssh and reboot.
> The drivers of this card are only stable since the latest XFree86 release,
> butsince I had hours of crashless fun with that card on another motherboard
> (anepox 7kxa which is now broken), and since the agp features of the kt400
> chipsetare only supported since kernel version 2.4.21-pre1, I supposed that
> was thecause of my problems.
>
> Unfortunately I am unable to provide any useful error messages. The kernel
> doesnot oops or panic, there are no messages on stdout/stderr, X's log file
> does notshow anything, idem for syslog. I find only positive messages in
> dmesg:
> Mar 30 23:07:34 dionysos kernel: Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff
> HartmannMar 30 23:07:34 dionysos kernel: agpgart: Maximum main memory to
> use for agp memory: 203MMar 30 23:07:34 dionysos kernel: agpgart: Detected
> Via Apollo Pro KT400 chipsetMar 30 23:07:34 dionysos kernel: agpgart: AGP
> aperture is 64M @ 0xe0000000
>
> Mar 30 23:07:44 dionysos kernel: [drm] AGP 0.99 on VIA Apollo KT400 @
> 0xe000000064MBMar 30 23:07:44 dionysos kernel: [drm] Initialized radeon
> 1.7.0 20020828 on minor 0Mar 30 23:08:02 dionysos kernel: [drm] Loading
> R200 Microcode
>
> If there is anything I overlooked, further info I can provide, let me know.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Frank Van Damme.

I'm running a KT400 based board (MSI KT4 Ultra) with a GeForce 4 Ti4200 (agp 
4x) on a custom compiled Mandrake 2.4.21 kernel.
I regularly play games such as Unreal Tournament / UT 2003 and Neverwinter 
Nights and I have to say that stability and performance is excelent.

I'm running Mandrake 9.0 which includes X 4.2.1, along with the latest nVidia 
binary drivers.

I certainly don't see any of the kind of application/X crash you are 
reporting. In fact, I've played NWN for most of a day with nothing going 
wrong that can't be attributed to the beta status of the game (the game 
doesn't crash, I just get some graphical glitches which are fixed by 
reloading a saved game).

If I can be of any more assistance, shout.

Mark Watts.

Re: stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Frank Van Damme]

On Saturday 12 April 2003 17:08, Mark Watts wrote:
> I'm running a KT400 based board (MSI KT4 Ultra) with a GeForce 4 Ti4200
> (agp 4x) on a custom compiled Mandrake 2.4.21 kernel.
> I regularly play games such as Unreal Tournament / UT 2003 and Neverwinter
> Nights and I have to say that stability and performance is excelent.
>
> I'm running Mandrake 9.0 which includes X 4.2.1, along with the latest
> nVidia binary drivers.
>
> I certainly don't see any of the kind of application/X crash you are
> reporting. In fact, I've played NWN for most of a day with nothing going
> wrong that can't be attributed to the beta status of the game (the game
> doesn't crash, I just get some graphical glitches which are fixed by
> reloading a saved game).
>
> If I can be of any more assistance, shout.

I am not sure, but I though nVidia cards were different. I have used a tnt2 
before I had my radeon (I used it with that previous motherboard) and back 
then, I have been advised to compile kernels without AGP support since the 
nVidia drivers wouldn't use them anyway (despite the fact that it was a 4x 
agp card). NVidia seems to have his own method of accessing the agp bus.

-- 
Frank Van Damme    | "Saying 8MB of RAM doesn't do as much anymore is
http://www.        | like saying a gallon of water holds more than it
openstandaarden.be | did in 1988."                    --George Adkins

Re: stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Mark Watts]

On Saturday 12 Apr 2003 7:10 pm, Frank Van Damme wrote:
>
> I am not sure, but I though nVidia cards were different. I have used a tnt2
> before I had my radeon (I used it with that previous motherboard) and back
> then, I have been advised to compile kernels without AGP support since the
> nVidia drivers wouldn't use them anyway (despite the fact that it was a 4x
> agp card). NVidia seems to have his own method of accessing the agp bus.

I'm not entirely sure how I tell what agp gart I'm using, but I have 'agpgart' 
loaded as a module...

Mark.

Re: stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Frank Van Damme]

On Saturday 12 April 2003 20:20, Mark Watts wrote:
> > I am not sure, but I though nVidia cards were different. I have used a
> > tnt2 before I had my radeon (I used it with that previous motherboard)
> > and back then, I have been advised to compile kernels without AGP support
> > since the nVidia drivers wouldn't use them anyway (despite the fact that
> > it was a 4x agp card). NVidia seems to have his own method of accessing
> > the agp bus.
>
> I'm not entirely sure how I tell what agp gart I'm using, but I have
> 'agpgart' loaded as a module...

I found it in the readme file of the nvidia drivers:

<QUOTE>
There are several choices for configuring the NVIDIA kernel module's
use of AGP: you can choose to either use NVIDIA's AGP module (NVAGP),
or the AGP module that comes with the linux kernel (AGPGART).  This is
controlled through the "NvAGP" option in your XF86Config file:

         Option "NvAgp" "0"  ... disables AGP support
         Option "NvAgp" "1"  ... use NVAGP, if possible
         Option "NvAgp" "2"  ... use AGPGART, if possible
         Option "NvAGP" "3"  ... try AGPGART; if that fails, try NVAGP

The default is 3 (the default was 1 until after 1.0-1251).
</QUOTE>

In other words, you use linux's agp drivers.

So it's probably not the agp driver that causes "hangs". 

-- 
Frank Van Damme    | "Saying 8MB of RAM doesn't do as much anymore is
http://www.        | like saying a gallon of water holds more than it
openstandaarden.be | did in 1988."                    --George Adkins

Re: stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Nuno Silva]

Hello!

Frank Van Damme wrote:
> Hello,
> 

[..snip..]

> 
> The symptoms are as follows. Linux boots fine, the "radeon" kernel module
> inserts with no errors. X also starts without problems and runs stably in
> day-to-day work and during cpu-intensive tasks such as compiling. However, 
> if Istart running OpenGL applications (games) (quake,tuxracer or whatever) 
> themachine will freeze in anything from 2 minutes to an hour. The last frame
> remains on the screen, but I can still login over ssh and reboot.

And X is taking 99% of your CPU?

I have the *same* problem (mind the "99% from X" clause) with a nvidia 
geforce2. Couldn't find what the source of this was... But I can tell 
you that it's not the kernel.. I tried many combinations of kernel + 
nvidia drivers (that were running OK for many months) and it still 
freezes X. So, to me, it's X or glibc or something else, but:

As I don't need GL accell I just installed the nv driver from X :)

Anyway, back then I found some reports of people having the same 
problem. Google for it ;)

Regards,
Nuno Silva

Re: stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Mark Watts]

On Saturday 12 Apr 2003 8:26 pm, Frank Van Damme wrote:
> On Saturday 12 April 2003 20:20, Mark Watts wrote:
> > > I am not sure, but I though nVidia cards were different. I have used a
> > > tnt2 before I had my radeon (I used it with that previous motherboard)
> > > and back then, I have been advised to compile kernels without AGP
> > > support since the nVidia drivers wouldn't use them anyway (despite the
> > > fact that it was a 4x agp card). NVidia seems to have his own method of
> > > accessing the agp bus.
> >
> > I'm not entirely sure how I tell what agp gart I'm using, but I have
> > 'agpgart' loaded as a module...
>
> I found it in the readme file of the nvidia drivers:
>
> <QUOTE>
> There are several choices for configuring the NVIDIA kernel module's
> use of AGP: you can choose to either use NVIDIA's AGP module (NVAGP),
> or the AGP module that comes with the linux kernel (AGPGART).  This is
> controlled through the "NvAGP" option in your XF86Config file:
>
>          Option "NvAgp" "0"  ... disables AGP support
>          Option "NvAgp" "1"  ... use NVAGP, if possible
>          Option "NvAgp" "2"  ... use AGPGART, if possible
>          Option "NvAGP" "3"  ... try AGPGART; if that fails, try NVAGP
>
> The default is 3 (the default was 1 until after 1.0-1251).
> </QUOTE>
>
> In other words, you use linux's agp drivers.
>
> So it's probably not the agp driver that causes "hangs".

You're right - I don't have any NvAgp options in my X config.

Not sure these will help but here are some of the versions of thinks I run:

[mwatts@rebecca mwatts]$ xdpyinfo
name of display:    :0.0
version number:    11.0
vendor string:    Mandrake Linux (XFree86 4.2.1, patch level 3mdk)
vendor release number:    40201000
XFree86 version: 4.2.1

glibc-2.2.5-16mdk

NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-4349.run (uses custom compiled kernel interface for 
2.4.21)

[root@rebecca linux-2.4.21-0.12mdk]# grep AGP .config
CONFIG_AGP=m
CONFIG_AGP_INTEL=y
CONFIG_AGP_I810=y
CONFIG_AGP_VIA=y
CONFIG_AGP_AMD=y
# CONFIG_AGP_AMD_8151 is not set
CONFIG_AGP_SIS=y
CONFIG_AGP_ALI=y
CONFIG_AGP_SWORKS=y

Re: stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Denis Vlasenko]

On 12 April 2003 15:10, Frank Van Damme wrote:
> compiling. However, if Istart running OpenGL applications (games)
> (quake,tuxracer or whatever) themachine will freeze in anything from
> 2 minutes to an hour. The last frame remains on the screen, but I can
> still login over ssh and reboot. The drivers of this card are only

Can you login over ssh and collect useful info?
Top, ps, various /proc/* files?
--
vda

Re: stabilty problems using opengl on kt400 based system

[Frank Van Damme]

On Monday 14 April 2003 11:16, Denis Vlasenko wrote:
> On 12 April 2003 15:10, Frank Van Damme wrote:
> > compiling. However, if Istart running OpenGL applications (games)
> > (quake,tuxracer or whatever) themachine will freeze in anything from
> > 2 minutes to an hour. The last frame remains on the screen, but I can
> > still login over ssh and reboot. The drivers of this card are only
>
> Can you login over ssh and collect useful info?
> Top, ps, various /proc/* files?

Yes, what I noticed is that a) the app in question disappears immediately when 
the problem occurs (but the image on the screen freezes) and b) which Nuno 
Silva said: X starts eating all the cpu (instead of the app). 

-- 
Frank Van Damme    | "Saying 8MB of RAM doesn't do as much anymore is
http://www.        | like saying a gallon of water holds more than it
openstandaarden.be | did in 1988."                    --George Adkins