Making G3s and Radeon graphics great again

[sparty411]

There are two viable options of going about this effortlessly...

Stay on Wheezy / 12.04. I've done the best I can to make those two usable with modern software.

OpenBSD.

I can’t use OpenBSD without a functional web browser. I tried, and failed to build Arctic Fox the other day.

 

[wicknix]

Holy balls! Thanks @sparty411 for showing me this! I just did the mesa downgrade on my powerbook running ubuntu 12 remix. What a difference. Before glxgears showed roughly 60fps, and now.....

 

[z970]

@wicknix What did you do?? Is there any actual difference in webpage rendering, or video playback? Other applications?

 

[wicknix]

Rendering in InterWeb is insanely better, page scrolling is smooth as butter, compositing works, videos seem the same as before. I have no trouble with 720p videos using xine. All in all... a nice experience for an old powerbook.

Cheers

 

[z970]

You mean rendering is faster? What about Arctic Fox? And again, how did you get this result? What version does mesa get downgraded to?

 

[sparty411]

What version does mesa get downgraded to?

7.11, from 2007 🤣

 

[pochopsp]

Holy balls! Thanks @sparty411 for showing me this! I just did the mesa downgrade on my powerbook running ubuntu 12 remix. What a difference. Before glxgears showed roughly 60fps, and now.....

It is similiar to what I did on my MDD three years ago on Debian 7:

Debian 7.11 "Wheezy" on my PowerMac G4 MDD - In action video!

As promised, here's a "short" video of the "Universal operative system" in its version 7 running on my MDD with 3D HW acceleration from video card: EDIT: Due to enthusiasm I missed some important information: I have the stock Ati Radeon 9000pro which shipped with my MDD, and Debian is the...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[sparty411]

Holy balls! Thanks @sparty411 for showing me this! I just did the mesa downgrade on my powerbook running ubuntu 12 remix. What a difference. Before glxgears showed roughly 60fps, and now.....

View attachment 903220

Have you tried playing any games? Building the latest versions of a few popular open source games would be neat, but they probably depend on newer versions of Mesa.

 

[wicknix]

Not yet. It was late last night. Didn't really get to test much. Will experiment after work tonight.

 

[sparty411]

Not yet. It was late last night. Didn't really get to test much. Will experiment after work tonight.

I was fiddling with Ubuntu Lucid I have on my iBook A1134 this morning, and installed OpenArena, as well as Minetest from the Precise repo's. OpenArena runs flawlessly, while Minetest is pretty choppy, due to what I believe is a CPU bottleneck. Both would likely run quite well on a dual core G5 machine.

 

[wicknix]

Well...after some fiddling, the downgrade is a 50/50 win/lose. Gaming-wise colors and polygons are wonky in the 3D games i tested like bzflag. On the upside glxgears output is impressive, and all 3 web browsers seem a bit more nimble. So for non-gamers like me its a win.

Cheers

 

[z970]

Well...after some fiddling, the downgrade is a 50/50 win/lose. Gaming-wise colors and polygons are wonky in the 3D games i tested like bzflag. On the upside glxgears output is impressive, and all 3 web browsers seem a bit more nimble. So for non-gamers like me its a win.

Cheers

Well, consider the following; there wasn't much to go around in the way of games for the PowerPC Linux space, anyway.

 

[Dronecatcher]

.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Holy balls! Thanks @sparty411 for showing me this! I just did the mesa downgrade on my powerbook running ubuntu 12 remix. What a difference. Before glxgears showed roughly 60fps, and now.....

Just done this on my Powerbook too...glxgears is up...but video playback is non-functional...let update manager restore to previous mesa but still no video.
Any easy way out of this?

 

[wicknix]

I've never tried to upgrade back from the downgrade myself as I keep installing test builds of v4/macbuntu.

I have noticed however... with v4/macbuntu and the 3.13 kernel there is no need to downgrade mesa. With the proper yaboot boot params 3d still works (on our PowerBooks anyway). I get around 850-900fps in glxgears. Sure it's not 1500fps, but it's not a hack either.

Cheers

 

[Dronecatcher]

I have noticed however... with v4/macbuntu and the 3.13 kernel there is no need to downgrade mesa.

Before I downgraded, my v4 with 3.13 was peaking 70FPS in glxgears and OpenGL renderer reported as software rasterizer - after the downgrade, 1500FPS and OpenGL renderer correctly identified as hardware.

Now I'm back at the original mesa the broken video is down to mplayer library mismatches - is there a method for moving the files from the install disk?

 

[wicknix]

Try this: vblank_mode=0 glxgears
That will give you a better reading.
To enable 3d you'll have to disable kms and radeonfb in yaboot otherwise it will use software rasterizer (which I find works just fine other than 3d gaming)

video=offb:off video=radeonfb:off radeon.agpmode=-1

You could boot the live disk and mount your install and copy files over that you may need, sure. You'll probably be looking at /usr/bin and /usr/lib for the majority of the binaries and libs.

Cheers

 

[z970]

This Mesa downgrade sounds like something destined for the Wiki.

When I get time, that is...

 

[swamprock]

This Mesa downgrade sounds like something destined for the Wiki.

When I get time, that is...

Wow... not being a hipster or anything, but that downgrade has been around for years. I haven't been around here much lately, but now that @wicknix has remixed 12.04, I see that it's getting attention again. Cool stuff.

EDIT: I just checked my server, and I still have the files there, dated 12/13/2016

 

[Dronecatcher]

To enable 3d you'll have to disable kms and radeonfb in yaboot otherwise it will use software rasterizer (which I find works just fine other than 3d gaming)

I had to copy the entire usr/lib from the live disk to restore video playback and although setting the suggested yaboot parameters seems to lever the GPU more, it returns poor video playback.
So...all in all, no to downgrading mesa for me.

 

[wicknix]

Ditto. Out of the box settings seem to work the best all around. Except gaming, which I don't really do. Ltris is about the extent of it for me, and maybe some snes9x games.

Cheers

 

[fra9000]

Hi @juancarlosonetti, @sparty411, @Dronecatcher, @z970mp & co,

I am trying to do the same process you have described here but with an ATI Rage 128 pro (r128 drivers). Do you know how to enable the UMS for this card in the kernel? I have found in your config file, close to the:

CONFIG_DRM_RADEON=m
CONFIG_DRM_RADEON_UMS=y

a flag for DRM for R128:
CONFIG_DRM_R128=n

I have changed to:
CONFIG_DRM_R128=m

Will that enable the possibility to use again ATI Rage 128 in UMS mode?

Thank you for your time to check on that
/Francesco

 

[anbos]

Hi @juancarlosonetti, @sparty411, @Dronecatcher, @z970mp & co,

I am trying to do the same process you have described here but with an ATI Rage 128 pro (r128 drivers). Do you know how to enable the UMS for this card in the kernel? I have found in your config file, close to the:

CONFIG_DRM_RADEON=m
CONFIG_DRM_RADEON_UMS=y

a flag for DRM for R128:
CONFIG_DRM_R128=n

I have changed to:
CONFIG_DRM_R128=m

Will that enable the possibility to use again ATI Rage 128 in UMS mode?

Thank you for your time to check on that
/Francesco

Francesco, I am also trying this on an iMac g3 with an R128 card but I am still stuck at a blank screen, I have been experimenting with Xorg.conf files but not very successfully. I am trying to use LXDE. Do you have any suggestions? Antonio

 

[fra9000]

Francesco, I am also trying this on an iMac g3 with an R128 card but I am still stuck at a blank screen, I have been experimenting with Xorg.conf files but not very successfully. I am trying to use LXDE. Do you have any suggestions? Antonio

Ciao Antonio,

I have analysed several scenarios during the last months.

Having an iMac G3 with ATI Rage 128 working properly & with hardware acceleration enabled it's a matter of a delicate combination between xorg version, r128 driver version, kernel version and mesa driver version + extensive tuning of the xorg.conf.

I am going to create a specific guide for enabling it so that everyone can follow it.

For the moment the most recent system you can install with a decent speed and acceleration enabled is the combination: Ubuntu LXDE 12.04 + kernel 3.19 with security patches from 2019 followed by downgrading of MESA to version 7.11 and xorg.conf heavy tuning.

You can download the 12.04 mini netboot iso from ubuntu site and then select the Lubuntu desktop as package to install, or you can try the Lubuntu Remix 12.04 live cd/usb. I have posted here some of the steps where I explain part of the process:

Lubuntu 16.04 Remix (updated)

It was a hell of a job but as I was thinking yesterday, I managed to force the start up of X/lightDM :). If you have an iMac G3 (slot loading version) follow this procedure just for the installation via live CD. Boot the live CD/USB in recovery mode with yaboot parameters: live...

forums.macrumors.com

Hope it helped .
Francesco

 

[anbos]

Ciao Antonio,

I have analysed several scenarios during the last months.

Having an iMac G3 with ATI Rage 128 working properly & with hardware acceleration enabled it's a matter of a delicate combination between xorg version, r128 driver version, kernel version and mesa driver version + extensive tuning of the xorg.conf.

I am going to create a specific guide for enabling it so that everyone can follow it.

For the moment the most recent system you can install with a decent speed and acceleration enabled is the combination: Ubuntu LXDE 12.04 + kernel 3.19 with security patches from 2019 followed by downgrading of MESA to version 7.11 and xorg.conf heavy tuning.

You can download the 12.04 mini netboot iso from ubuntu site and then select the Lubuntu desktop as package to install, or you can try the Lubuntu Remix 12.04 live cd/usb. I have posted here some of the steps where I explain part of the process:

Lubuntu 16.04 Remix (updated)

It was a hell of a job but as I was thinking yesterday, I managed to force the start up of X/lightDM :). If you have an iMac G3 (slot loading version) follow this procedure just for the installation via live CD. Boot the live CD/USB in recovery mode with yaboot parameters: live...

forums.macrumors.com

Hope it helped .
Francesco

Francesco,
Grazie, I did manage to install Lubuntu 16.04 with no issues and a working desktop environment. A month ago I also managed a Mint installation using an xorg.conf file which I am using now after having upgraded the RAM of my G3. The problem I have is that I can’t install the xserver-xorg-video-r128 package: do you know which source should I use? I have installed bullseye on my machine and the firmware-Linux-nonfree package. Antonio