drivers CPU Graphic Card

[miloo]

Hello, I'm a new SUSE and linux user. I've successfully installed SUSE but i m stuck with graphic card drivers and CPU frequency. SUSE says that my cpu's frequency is 800 though I've a turion 64 x 2 running at 1.8 ghz on windows and i don't manage to find a tutorial or any help to fix that.
Then i find my graphic card (ati 2400 hd) not optimized, i ve installed the last flgrx driver as it s said on SUSE website and some others sources. I don't know what to choice between proprietary drivers and opensource drivers. I've installed both of them without feel any differences but i m not sure that i had succesfully done the installation of them.
Anyway I'm looking for advices and tutorials to learn how to do that properly.
Thank you.

[gogalthorp]

See if you are running a power saver option that reduces the CPU freq when high speed is not needed. Open Yast-Hardware-powersaver set the policy as you would like. If this is a notebook you might want to leave it alone since lower CPU speed will save battery life. If under a heavy load the CPU freq will increase as needed.

The open source drivers is only 2D acceleration where as the proprietary driver is 3D acceleration. If you are not running a 3D program you will not see the difference.

To see if the 3D accel is on a quick and fun way is to run a program called glxgears

open a console window type

glxgears

you will see a 3D graphic and the frames per second will be reported in the console window. If the FPS is above 1000 you have the 3D driver installed. If not get back and someone will tell you how to fix it.

[D-cat]

SUSE says that my cpu's frequency is 800 though I've a turion 64 x 2 running at 1.8 ghz on windows

This is a Powersave thing. The default settings are Performance when on AC (about middle of the road speed, auto change to high if processor peaks) and Powersave when on battery (Aggressive power saving, low power low speed mode). See the kPowersave applet (assuming KDE). You can configure the modes from Yast, or manually override the current mode with the applet. Choosing "Presentation" will max out your CPU speed and disable screen blanking.

Then i find my graphic card (ati 2400 hd) not optimized, i ve installed the last flgrx driver as it s said on SUSE website and some others sources. I don't know what to choice between proprietary drivers and opensource drivers. I've installed both of them without feel any differences but i m not sure that i had succesfully done the installation of them.

FOS (Free Open Source) drivers tend to be expansions on generic drivers. They often support 2D acceleration but 3D is lacking for lack of manufacturer specs. Proprietary drivers are written by the manufacturers and support near or all functions of the card they're written for.

To see if you have 3D drivers installed and enabled, open a terminal window (like Konsole) and type in glxgears. A box with 3 rotating gears should appear and the terminal window will keep track of the frame rate. My 1 GHz laptop pulls an average of 450 fps. If you're seeing single or low double digit fps numbers, you do not have 3D enabled.

Installing a 3D driver for your card can be done a couple of ways. SuSE typically does things by having the user add the manufacturer's repository to the Yast source list then installing them through Yast Software Management. Once installed, you go to Yast Hardware Monitor and Graphics Card (Sax2), and the "Enable 3D" check box should be available. Check it, save setting, and restart the X session, after which, you should have 3D.

Another option is downloading the latest drivers from the manufacturer and installing the "Hard Way." See: ATI Radeon™ Drivers and Support

[miloo]

Thank you very much for your help.

I've done the glxgears test and I saw the 3D animation with more that 1000 fps, but the fact is that when i was moving my Firefox windows while the animation was running the fps decreased to 400 fps. I'm pretty sure that I've installed the last FOS drivers, since I've got flgrx_pci drivers in my Hardware Informations box.

But maybe it's normal that I can't have great optimized graphics on Linux as on Windows and I don't care, I just want to be sure that my computer is working at its maximum on Linux.

SUSe recognizes my CPU in the Hardware Infos as a 1800 mhz so I think it must be because of the powersaver as you said.

I ll try to install the proprietary drivers and tell you what happens then.

[gogalthorp]

The fact that you see a decrease in FPS when you move around another window is not unusual after all the moving takes up CPU and GPU cycles to paint the moving window. Assuming you can get a good driver from the manufacturer Linux graphics are as good if not better then Windows.

For my 6800 based video I get 10,000 FPS on the glxgears test with the NVIDIA driver. Another way you can see exactly what driver you are using is to look into the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Look for the line that starts with driver. This tells you what driver is being used by the Xwindows system.

[miloo]

Thank you all! I'm pretty happy with my display config now and I ll keep it in this way untill I get more Linux skill. I ve changed my powersave settings and so it shows my correct cpu's frequency now.

If you have some advices to let me learn more about Linux such books or websites ... whatever ... that would be very helpful. I want to use Linux to do graphic and design stuffs, so I don't need extreme deep knowledges but enough to feel comfortable and be able to install drivers, configure hardware ... I hope that I m clear enough.

Thank you anyway!

ps : by the way, I have :BoardName "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 (M72 94C9)"
Driver "fglrx"
Flgrx driver is a FOS driver or a proprietary driver ?

[gogalthorp]

That is the proprietary driver

here is a link that will help with the command line

Introduction to Linux