I have a fancy and quite new E5 processor server system that has a Matrox VGA port in it:
e:04.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. MGA G200eW WPCM450 (rev 0a)
This appears to use the mgag200 kernel module.
When this module is loaded, the Xorg log complains saying the module must be unloaded and I end up running 'llvmpipe' and performance is horrible.
If I blacklist the module, it still runs in emulation mode and performance is horrible.
Here is what I think is the interesting part for the black-list variant:
[ 26.079] (II) Module vgahw: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 26.079] compiled for 1.14.2, module version = 0.1.0 [ 26.079] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 14.1 [ 26.079] (--) MGA(0): Chipset: "mgag200 eW Nuvoton" [ 26.079] (--) MGA(0): Linear framebuffer at 0xF9000000 [ 26.079] (--) MGA(0): MMIO registers at 0xFB800000 [ 26.079] (--) MGA(0): Pseudo-DMA transfer window at 0xFB000000 [ 26.150] (II) MGA(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section "Default Screen Section" for depth/fbbpp 24/32 [ 26.150] (==) MGA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 [ 26.150] (==) MGA(0): RGB weight 888 [ 26.150] (**) MGA(0): Enabling KVM [ 26.150] (==) MGA(0): Using HW cursor [ 26.150] (**) MGA(0): Using "Shadow Framebuffer" - acceleration disabled [ 26.150] (--) MGA(0): Video BIOS info block at offset 0x07D60 [ 26.150] (==) MGA(0): VideoRAM: 16320 kByte
So, first question: Should I be blacklisting the driver?
And second, any idea on how to either get the acceleration working, or make gnome work OK w/out it? I don't care at all about 3D affects, I just need basic desktop functionality to work w/out too much overhead.
Thanks, Ben
On Thu, 15 Aug 2013 16:36:24 -0700 Ben Greear greearb@candelatech.com wrote:
I have a fancy and quite new E5 processor server system that has a Matrox VGA port in it:
e:04.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. MGA G200eW WPCM450 (rev 0a)
This appears to use the mgag200 kernel module.
When this module is loaded, the Xorg log complains saying the module must be unloaded and I end up running 'llvmpipe' and performance is horrible.
If I blacklist the module, it still runs in emulation mode and performance is horrible.
Here is what I think is the interesting part for the black-list variant:
[ 26.079] (II) Module vgahw: vendor="X.Org Foundation" [ 26.079] compiled for 1.14.2, module version = 0.1.0 [ 26.079] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 14.1 [ 26.079] (--) MGA(0): Chipset: "mgag200 eW Nuvoton" [ 26.079] (--) MGA(0): Linear framebuffer at 0xF9000000 [ 26.079] (--) MGA(0): MMIO registers at 0xFB800000 [ 26.079] (--) MGA(0): Pseudo-DMA transfer window at 0xFB000000 [ 26.150] (II) MGA(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section "Default Screen Section" for depth/fbbpp 24/32 [ 26.150] (==) MGA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32 [ 26.150] (==) MGA(0): RGB weight 888 [ 26.150] (**) MGA(0): Enabling KVM [ 26.150] (==) MGA(0): Using HW cursor [ 26.150] (**) MGA(0): Using "Shadow Framebuffer" - acceleration disabled [ 26.150] (--) MGA(0): Video BIOS info block at offset 0x07D60 [ 26.150] (==) MGA(0): VideoRAM: 16320 kByte
So, first question: Should I be blacklisting the driver?
And second, any idea on how to either get the acceleration working, or make gnome work OK w/out it? I don't care at all about 3D affects, I just need basic desktop functionality to work w/out too much overhead.
While I know basically nothing about Matrox cards, the log line
[ 26.150] (**) MGA(0): Using "Shadow Framebuffer" - acceleration disabled
apparently says that acceleration was deliberately disabled in the config file (i.e. somewhere inside /etc/X11/xorg.conf or inside xorg.conf.d directory). This is the meaning of the (**).
Also, AFAIK Gnome3 requires accelerated graphics (at least it did last time I checked). You may be better off trying Mate, XFCE, LXDE, KDE, or some lightweight window manager without a full DE.
HTH, :-) Marko
On 08/15/2013 06:37 PM, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
[ 26.150] (**) MGA(0): Using "Shadow Framebuffer" - acceleration disabled
apparently says that acceleration was deliberately disabled in the config file (i.e. somewhere inside /etc/X11/xorg.conf or inside xorg.conf.d directory). This is the meaning of the (**).
Also, AFAIK Gnome3 requires accelerated graphics (at least it did last time I checked). You may be better off trying Mate, XFCE, LXDE, KDE, or some lightweight window manager without a full DE.
Ahh, Mate looks very nice, and seems to use less CPU than Gnome-3.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks, Ben
HTH, :-) Marko
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Ben Greear -
Marko Vojinovic