[rv350] games crash X or freeze system if compiz is turned on

[Freyr Gunnar Ólafsson]

I installed gutsy rc and updated. Then I installed openarena and ran it. It crashed. So did nexuiz and alienarena.
I'm NOT running any propriatery driver (fglrx), I'm using the free radeon driver. The games run fine if I turn compiz off.
I have a radeon9700 mobile (this is a laptop).
Please let me know what further information would be helpful and how I can provide you with it.

Thank you for your attention.

[Freyr Gunnar Ólafsson (gnarlin)]

This is what lspci says about the radeon mobility card:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]

[Freyr Gunnar Ólafsson (gnarlin)]

When I run glxgears I get the following message:

*********************************WARN_ONCE*********************************
File r300_mem.c function r300_mem_alloc line 225
Ran out of GART memory (for 1048576)!
Please consider adjusting GARTSize option.
******************************************************************************

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this bug as a bug in xserver-xorg-video-radeon.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this bug as a bug in xserver-xorg-video-ati.

[Freyr Gunnar Ólafsson (gnarlin)]

Is there anything happening with this bug? It's really irritating to not be able to run opengl games without having to turn off compiz.
Can't someone please look into this?

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please attach your X server configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) and X server log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) to the bug report as individual uncompressed file attachments using the "Attachment:" box below. Could you please also try to run without any /etc/X11/xorg.conf and let Xorg autodetect your display and video card? Please also attach the /var/log/Xorg.0.log from this attempt. Thanks in advance.

Please also try to obtain a backtrace following the instructions at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash and upload the backtrace (as an attachment) to the bug report. This will greatly help us in tracking down your problem.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thanks. Can you please try:
 Option "BusType" "PCI"

Can you also attach Xorg.0.log.old (the one from the crash) if X crashes?

[Freyr Gunnar Ólafsson (gnarlin)]

I'm not quite sure which log file it is that you want. I tried running openarena. It completely crashed my system after a few moments. Here is the Xorg.0.log.old. Is that it? I'll also run a strace on openarena and output everything into a file. Would that help?

[Freyr Gunnar Ólafsson (gnarlin)]

I tied adding Option "BusType" "PCI" and restarting X.org to no avail. Everything happened the exact same ways. Openarena crash everything. I can't get out of X, get to a console (ctrl-alt-F1) or anything. I had to hard-reboot it :-(
I'm not very experienced with debugging, sorry.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thanks for the extra information. Does it always freeze the system completely? I understood "games crash X" as if X was crashing, in which case some information can end up in the X server log. In the case of total system freeze it is often difficult to find any information at all.

There are some information on debugging such problems on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingXorg and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/AtiDriver

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I don't know if this will fix this specific issue, but I've backported a bunch of high importance patches that upstream recommended, that fix problems sort of like this one, so I think it would be worth the time to test. Please try this .deb and report what you find:

http://people.ubuntu.com/~bryce/Testing/ati/

If we can determine that the patches in this deb fix this bug, they may be candidates for backporting to Hardy.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. In the development cycle for Intrepid there have been some vast improvements in the open source ati video driver and we could use your help testing them. Could you please download the latest Alpha CD image of Intrepid and test this particular bug just using the Live CD? You can find the latest image at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . Your testing can help make Ubuntu and the open source ati driver even better! Thanks in advance.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Based on the description of the symptoms, it sort of sounds like this might be caused by an incorrect AGPMode setting, which is relevant when DRI (3d) is enabled. You should test if changing this makes the issue go away. In your /etc/X11/xorg.conf set AGPMode to various values like this:

Section "Device"
   ...
   Option "AGPMode" "2"
EndSection

Possible values include 1, 2, 4, 8. You can see what it's currently set to by looking in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. It's worthwhile to test all four values even once you find one that works. If this takes care of it for you, we may be able to establish a quirk to set it for your hardware combo, if you can provide the following data:

  * AGPMode value(s) that work
  * Make/Model of laptop or motherboard
  * Output of lspci -vvnn
  * Is the system all factory hardware, or have any parts been replaced?
  * Is there an AGP Mode in the system BIOS?
    - If so, is it set to the factory default?

For more details on this, please see the "ATI AGP Mode Quirk" section at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Quirks

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

Hello Bryce,
I am also affectd by this, I tried all the AGP modes (8 is actually not allowev for this card), but it did not help.
Regardless what AGP I set
OpenArena does not crash X for me, it just sets it to 640x480. Also glxgears run OK with compiz for me. I have got the same card as the original reporter (according to what lspci).
Currently I am running uptodate Hardy, will try Intrepid Alpha 5 today or tomorrow.

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

Hm, I have only 1GB of RAM, so I was unable to install and test openarena (is not there a smaller package that triggers this bug? Google earth works fine with compiz and I do not know about any other 3D software) under the liveCD.
Compiz works well though - althoug it does not work by default for my card, probably due to this bug:-/.

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

in intrepid, this is no longer an issue (I have the same setup, compiz on and 10 minutes of open arena did not crash anything)