[solved]X11: MGA driver issues: video playback (mplayer) and 3D

Question

Hello,
I am new to Arch, but I am not new to Linux. I installed Arch yesterday, before I was experimenting with it in VirtualBox and -to test the compatibility with my real hardware- I also tried the "Archie" live CD.
But there was one thing that the combination of VirtualBox and Archie could not test: the X Window System itself, because in Archie there was an older and VESA-only version and you could not upgrade it and VirtualBox was, well, virtual.
I have a Matrox card G550, so I installed the xf86-video-mga package. At first it did not work at all (blank screen), but when I switched the console from framebuffer to "normal" text mode it started working, but...
1) the 3D performance (glxgears) is about half of the FPS I got on my previous Linux system
2) when I tried to play video with mplayer, xine or vlc, there was blue screen instead of the picture. - I can send you a screenshot, but it's just a blue box where the picture should be
I discovered, that this bluescreen thing is "solved" with some arcane xorg.conf option I discovered with "man mga" - in fact, I tried each of the options in hope for this to fix:
Option "ShadowFB" "on"
but this thing slows the 3D performance even more, so the OpenGL version of Doom is not playable any more :(
Also the mplayer itself behaves differently than on my old Linux: When I resize the window or go fullscreen, on the old system it resized or fullscreened the entire picture and now just the window is bigger and the picture remains the same. I solved this with -vo sdl, but it seems the picture has poorer quality in this case
at all, I think something is missing in the xorg configuration, because the mplayer and 3D behavior suggest so.
here is my config:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/artwiz-fonts/"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "xtrap"
Load "dbe"
Load "GLcore"
Load "extmod"
Load "record"
Load "dri"
Load "glx"
#Load "freetype"
#Load "type1"
#Load "v4l"
#Load "drm"
#Load "type1"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbLayout" "us,cz_qwerty"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp:switch,grp_led:scroll"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
DisplaySize 380 300 # mm
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "BNQ"
ModelName "BenQ FP91G+"
### Comment all HorizSync and VertRefresh values to use DDC:
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 43.0 - 76.0
Option "DPMS"
UseModes "Modes[0]"
EndSection
Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "HWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "PciRetry" # [<bool>]
#Option "SyncOnGreen" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "Overlay" # [<str>]
#Option "MGASDRAM" # [<bool>]
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "UseFBDev" # [<bool>]
#Option "ColorKey" # <i>
#Option "SetMclk" # <freq>
#Option "OverclockMem" # [<bool>]
#Option "VideoKey" # <i>
#Option "TexturedVideo" # [<bool>]
#Option "Int10" # [<bool>]
#Option "AGPMode" # <i>
#Option "AGPSize" # <i>
#Option "DRI" # [<bool>]
#Option "OldDmaInit" # [<bool>]
#Option "ForcePciDma" # [<bool>]
#Option "AccelMethod" # [<str>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "mga"
VendorName "Matrox Graphics, Inc."
BoardName "MGA G550 AGP"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "HwCursor" "off" #protoze jinak tam neni
Option "DRI" "on"
Option "ShadowFB" "on" #jo ale pomalejsi 3D
#Option "OldDMAInit" "on"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
#Option "TexturedVideo" "on" #nefunguje
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Group "video"
Mode 0666
EndSection
Section "Modes"
Identifier "Modes[0]"
Modeline "640x480" 25.20 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -hsync
-vsync
ModeLine "1280x1024" 108.00 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection
I use 16bpp because 24bpp is slower...
thank you in advance,
   Daniel
Last edited by danielsoft (2008-03-04 16:21:17)

Answer 1

the solution was to downgrade the x server and matrox drivers
(I found the old packages at http://mir2.archlinuxfr.org/archlinux/c … i686.old/)
the following packages were downgraded:
xf86-input-keyboard-1.1.1-1.pkg.tar.gz
xf86-input-mouse-1.2.1-1.pkg.tar.gz
xf86-video-mga-1.4.6.1-1.pkg.tar.gz
xorg-server-1.2.0-5.pkg.tar.gz
xorg-xkb-utils-1.0.2-2.pkg.tar.gz