Linux drivers for old graphics card?

T

Threepwood

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2007
Messages
806
Reaction score
0
I have recently installed xubuntu on an old machine, it's a Duron 800Mhz, 384mb Ram, some old AMD chipset motherboard, the graphics card is marked "ATI Rage Mobility-P".

There are no drivers on ATI's site for that card that I can see, the legacy drivers are only windows, and the linux drivers listed don't seem to include this thing.

Is there some special driver package or "generic" driver for old cards that might work? Also what's the easiest way to install graphics drivers?

My previous experience was with Fedora Core 1 (different GPU though), which was a reletively involved process, and when I tried instructions that I had found for the same drivers on Ubuntu 6.06 I think it was, it was a disaster.

BTW, the card is working fine, it's just that 3D stuff isn't so great, not that I intend to use heavy 3D on this box, I just noticed the reletively simple 3D screensavers are quite slow and jerky. Just want the system to run better if it can.

Another thought was is it easy to bugger up the OS by installing wrong drivers? Is it easy enough to fix/remove them if I do?
 
Doesnt it install? Its an older card..

If not, the advice I found here was:

The correct driver is "r128" not "ATI".

The X11 system detects this incorrectly.

I noticed that Windows also detected some of these cards incorrectly as well. This leadi to crashes and errors in windows if you didn't manually specify the correct driver for your card, or download the "detonator" driver pack from ATI (which detects the correct card and installs it in windows automatically).

You have to manually edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. (you need root/su privileges)

Change the "Device" Section as follows: (This is mine, change yours to suit. My comments are in { } )

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Boardname "ATI Rage 128" {Change this to your card name}
Busid "PCI:1:5:0" {This was detected before. Don't change yours}
Driver "r128"
Screen 0
Vendorname "ATI"
Option "MergedFB" "off"
EndSection

Anyway, Google earth and some 3D screen savers still make my machine hang, and the 3D is really choppy when it does work. I know this is an old card, but I got better performance out of it on window 2000 and XP, so there must still be configuration issues.
Click to expand...
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-help/120520-ubuntu-hardy-heron-8-04-ati-rage-128-a.html
 
Well like I said it does work, it's just not very good 3D performance, i.e. low frame rates.

I had the same problem with Fedora Core 1 when I first tried that, which was cleared right up by installing proper drivers for the card, so I am assuming that if I can find the right driver it will work, I don't know that the solution in that post will help as I don't have a rage 128 card, but maybe there will be an equivalent for mine.

How can I see a list of drivers that are in my install of xubuntu? I'll keep searching for drivers anyway.

All my xorg.conf has is this;

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Like w1z4rd said, install the r128 drivers (should be in the repositories) and change your xorg.conf accordingly.

I have no idea how Ubuntu does this, whether they have a GUI or not, but change it to reflect the following:
Code: 
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Boardname "ATI Rage Mobility-P"
Driver "r128"
Screen 0
Vendorname "ATI"
Option "MergedFB" "off"
EndSection

You can add the BUSid, but is is not essential.
 
Unfortuneately it didn't help, I added those lines exactly, but not the BUSid, don't know exactly how to find that.

Actually it runs much worse after that. On startup a windows said something aobut a problem with the configuration or the card, and gave me the option of running in low graphics mode, troubleshooting the problem or I think editing the configuration file.

I chose low graphics, went in, made sure the xorg.conf lines were entered correctly, rebooted to try again, same thing.

So do you reckon that the other driver is actually the best available? This is a hell of an old card so maybe it can't even run 3D screensavers.

I removed the lines from xorg.conf and I think it's back to normal.
 
ATI you say? Good luck... Linux only recently started supporting ATI with more compatibility. I'm not sure if there are decent drivers available for old ATI cards.
 
I'm with froot ati is a problem as i recently discovered i would suggest you use the vesa driver as that handles most things very Well
 
Will try that.

Googling vesa drivers for linux now, is there a specific one or something though I should try?

How do I install a vesa driver anyways?
 
The vesa driver is an Xorg driver that is used as a "catchall" for adapters that are VESA compliant.

Could you post the output of "lspci" just so we can see what we're dealing with. The relevant output would be the lines starting with VGA.
 
I have an old Compaq P3 with an onboard ATI Rage XL, and I see the Xorg driver I'm using is "ati".

I had a look at the "Alternate Operating System Driver Support Chart", http://ati.amd.com/developer/altoschart.pdf, and here's what it says:
3D support is not available for RAGE PRO derivatives, including MOBILITY P/M/M1 under XFree86 4.x
Open source drivers have pre-RADEON 8500 3D support.
Click to expand...
 
i have two old p3 motherbooards which dont have on board graphics cards now when i use an old pci card i can install vector and ubuntu even had fedora 8 running . now i got my hands on an agp card ati 128mb now with this card everything installs properly works real smooth but just hangs i dont use alot of graphics jus console and webbrowser not even a screen saver but both mother boards all operating systems they just hang after a while i really think its the ati graphics card as i dont get the same problem with the pci card only problem with pci card is it limits what i can install ie i can only install vector and ubuntu
 
fskmh said:
I have an old Compaq P3 with an onboard ATI Rage XL, and I see the Xorg driver I'm using is "ati".

I had a look at the "Alternate Operating System Driver Support Chart", http://ati.amd.com/developer/altoschart.pdf, and here's what it says:
Click to expand...

Don't have int. right now so I can't look at that, but anyway looks like I'm boned, it's not the end of the world though. Thanks for the help anyway guys.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X