Re: radeon r300

[Michael <macallan1888%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hello,

On Mon, 19 Jan 2026 22:56:10 -0700
Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling%kev009.com@localhost> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 19, 2026 at 3:47 PM Michael <macallan1888%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > On Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:59:35 -0700
> > Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling%kev009.com@localhost> wrote:
> >  
> > > With the modesetting default of AccelMethod "glamor", X will not start with:
> > > glamor requires at least 128 instructions (64 reported)
> > >
> > > So it seems the older EXA radeon might be preferable, but something is
> > > going wrong in the kernel.  Has anyone looked into this drm stuff
> > > recently?  
> >
> > Do you actually care about DRM? If all you want is 2D accelerated X
> > with xrender and a fast console you may be better off with radeonfb and
> > the old, pre-KMS radeon driver. This is the default on macppc and
> > sparc64 but hasn't been tested much on anything else.
> > Will need
> > options         RADEONFB_BIOS_INIT
> > if your card's connectors aren't the usual VGA and DVI.  

> I am just experimenting with a sentimental laptop and seeing what it
> can do.  The device under test is a ThinkPad T42p.  I have a sister
> system, an X40, with fairly less specs (low voltage Dothan CPU, Intel
> Extreme graphics while the T42p is the maximum config of that era)
> running XP and it can plausibly browse the web using a vintage Firefox
> derivative like Mypal browser.  I am trying to see if I can get the
> firefox52 in pkgsrc to work at similar or better speed.  I think it
> needs full hw accel or opengl to have a chance to perform.

I found palemoon quite usable on a 1.6GHz powerbook which has a
mobility 9600 with 64MB, with xrender enabled, and 2GB RAM. Not sure
what they mean by 'full hw accel' these days but I bet most of it is
either xrender / alpha blending or video decoding. The old radeon
driver will do at least xrender.
Firefox52 was always rather sluggish by comparison.

This is what it looks like:
[     1.000000] radeonfb0 at pci0 dev 16 function 0: ATI Technologies Radeon Mobility 9600/9700 (M10/11) NP (rev. 0x00)
[     1.000000] trying to read disabled BIOS...
[     1.000000] radeonfb0: No video BIOS, using default clocks
[     1.000000] radeonfb0: refclk = 27.000 MHz, refdiv = 12 minpll = 125000, maxpll = 400000
[     1.000000] radeonfb0: 64 MB aperture at 0xb8000000, 64 KB registers at 0xb0000000
[     1.000000] radeonfb0: display 0: initial virtual resolution 1280x854 at 8 bpp
[     1.000000] radeonfb0: using 32 MB per display
[     1.000000] radeonfb0: port 0: physical 1280x854 60Hz
[     1.000000] radeonfb0: port 1: physical 1280x854 60Hz
[     1.000000] wsdisplay0 at radeonfb0 kbdmux 1: console (fb, vt100 emulation)
...

[  2419.385] (II) RADEON(0): TOTO SAYS 00000000b0000000
[  2419.385] (II) RADEON(0): MMIO registers at 0x00000000b0000000: size 64KB
[  2419.385] (II) RADEON(0): PCI bus 0 card 16 func 0
[  2419.386] (==) RADEON(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
[  2419.386] (II) RADEON(0): Pixel depth = 24 bits stored in 4 bytes (32 bpp pixmaps)
[  2419.386] (==) RADEON(0): Default visual is TrueColor
[  2419.386] (II) RADEON(0): VGAAccess option set to FALSE, VGA module load skipped
[  2419.387] (==) RADEON(0): RGB weight 888
[  2419.387] (II) RADEON(0): Using 8 bits per RGB (8 bit DAC)
[  2419.387] (--) RADEON(0): Chipset: "ATI Radeon Mobility 9600/9700 (M10/M11) NP (AGP)" (ChipID = 0x4e50)
[  2419.387] (--) RADEON(0): Linear framebuffer at 0x00000000b8000000
[  2419.387] (II) RADEON(0): AGP card detected
[  2419.464] (II) RADEON(0): Attempting to read un-POSTed bios
[  2419.539] (WW) RADEON(0): Unrecognized BIOS signature, BIOS data will not be used
[  2419.540] (II) RADEON(0): Generation 2 PCI interface, using max accessible memory
...
[  2420.302] (II) RADEON(0): Render acceleration enabled for R300/R400/R500 type cards.
[  2420.302] (II) RADEON(0): Setting EXA maxPitchBytes
[  2420.302] (II) RADEON(0): num quad-pipes is 1
[  2420.303] (II) EXA(0): Offscreen pixmap area of 60522496 bytes
[  2420.303] (II) EXA(0): Driver registered support for the following operations:
[  2420.304] (II)         Solid
[  2420.304] (II)         Copy
[  2420.304] (II)         Composite (RENDER acceleration)
[  2420.304] (II) RADEON(0): Acceleration enabled
[  2420.304] (==) RADEON(0): DPMS enabled
[  2420.304] (==) RADEON(0): Silken mouse enabled
...
[  2420.312] (II) RADEON(0): Set up overlay video
[  2420.313] (II) RADEON(0): Set up textured video
[  2420.314] (II) RADEON(0): [XvMC] Associated with Radeon Textured Video.
[  2420.314] (II) RADEON(0): [XvMC] Extension initialized.

have fun
Michael