Debian and ATI drivers

[AudioFox]

Just upgraded to Debian 4.0r5 and decided it might be nice to finally install the display drivers-I'd previously been running it in generic mode at 1024x768 on a 1280x800 LCD. I installed the driver package provided by AMD (Radeon X1200), ATI Catalyst v8.10 x86. The display runs in the proper resolution now, but its taking several seconds to draw simple objects like the programs menu in IceWM. Where to start....?

[iwanabeguru]

i think you are running with the vesa driver.
Configure your xserver by aticonfig it's a command line tool but it's simple.

[AudioFox]

Already done, aticonfig --initial --file=/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Here's the xorg.conf generated by that:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "aticonfig Layout"
Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
Driver "fglrx"
BusID "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
Device "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Here's the really weird set of problems:
Animations () run at the proper speed, but are missing some pixels
Pull down menus, tooltips draw and fade slowly, pixel by pixel
GIMP runs fine (except pulldown menus)
Highlighting of text draws slowly, pixel by pixel
Web pages load fine
Text in xterms loads slowly (pixel by pixel)
Mouse cursor takes time to change from one type to another, but looks fine when moving across the screen

As an interesting side note, it doesn't have any of these problems when running in VESA mode (no xorg.conf), although it runs in the wrong resolution, 1024x768 instead of 1280x800.

[iwanabeguru]

Add this to the module section

  Load  "dbe"     # Double buffer extension
        SubSection "extmod"
                Option      "omit xfree86-dga"   # don't initialise the DGA extension
        EndSubSection