ATI Radeon HD2400

[Woofage]

I'm having trouble with this card on Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10. The default installation uses a standard VESA driver which does not give any accelerated performance (ie no desktop effects). I loaded the linux driver from ATI, but the performance was abysmal - even scrolling pages was all jerky. So I'm back with the VESA driver.

Has anyone had any success with this card? Should I ditch it and get another?

[towy71]

Having not got an ATI card I'm not sure whether this page will be of any help

[Woofage]

Thanks, but I tried that one but it falls over at the config stage (aticonfig).

As I wrote above, the driver from ATI did load, but the performance was rubbish. I'm guessing it was wrongly configured but I haven't yet found any documentation to help me .

[Dutch_Master]

That's why Linux users are advised to buy a nVidia videocard, as their drivers perform much better. You may want to try another ATI card as this one might be faulty, but if it still fails, get a (full) refund and buy yourself an nVidia card.

[Woofage]

I'm coming to the conclusion that I might just have to ditch this one and get an nVidia .

What's a good one to go for? The ATI card I have has 256MB RAM and cost about 40-quid. I'd like something comparable but compatible!

TIA

[towy71]

did you try

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

to make sure that the card is properly configured?

[Woofage]

did you try

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

to make sure that the card is properly configured?

The aticonfig util does the same thing (but for the graphics components only). With the Ubuntu-suppled driver (fglrx) I end up with a low-res screen, even though the correct modes are listed in my xorg.conf file. With the ATI-supplied driver, the resolution is correct but the performance was abysmal.

At the mo' I'm using the standard VESA driver and it's running OK at 1280x1024/24-bit but I can't enable any 3D stuff.

[ollie]

I'd definitely complain to AMD and take the card back for a refund/swap to an nVidia card. The only way to get better support for Linux is to let manufacturers and distributors know about "faulty" or inadequate hardware drivers.

[ancientrustic]

I have this card in my Tosh P200 laptop. It took nearly three months but I eventually found 'Envy'. this is a script which will install the ATI driver. it worked wonders, correct screen resolution and all the compiz effects. The downside is that you have to uninstall before you can upgrade, but Envy will also do this for you.

[skytalker13]

If you still have problems with your card you could try a nvidia 8800gt which seems to be getting good reviews everywhere. I have a hd3870 which seems to cause a lot of problems with many of the even newest distros. I am trialling PClinuxos live gnome which actually booted ok. The others which worked for me are Fedora 9 alpha and Ubuntu 8.04alpha 6. Maybe you should try Ubuntu 8.04 as it worked ok after installing the ati drivers. I dropped it because a graphics library update killed it. My fault for choosing unsupported updates! Sabayon linux is what I really want but no matter how many "cheats" I try it still hangs after loading. It's supposed to be bleeding edge but doesn't like bleeding edge hardware if you can call an Asus P5K premium with 4gb anything but a midrange system.

[liegerm]

I have this card in my Tosh P200 laptop. It took nearly three months but I eventually found 'Envy'. this is a script which will install the ATI driver. it worked wonders, correct screen resolution and all the compiz effects. The downside is that you have to uninstall before you can upgrade, but Envy will also do this for you.

I second this! I have a Toshiba P200 as well (with ATI HD2600 video chipset). I also used Envy and the script worked perfectly. I can play Doom 3, Quake 4, Unreal 2004 (all for testing of course) with excellent frame rates. Try Envy before you buy an nVidia card (although I do think nVidia are much better) and you might find it works fine. The options I used in Envy are 1) manual setup, 2) latest ATI binaries.

[Woofage]

Well, I got me a cheap nVidia 7600GT via eBay and gave it a try. The system detected the card OK and I was prompted to load the restricted driver. However, on re-boot I only got 800x600 resolution (on a good day) . I ran sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg but without improvement.

Luckily I'd backup up my old xorg.conf file so I just put the ATI card back in and got my 1280x1024 resolution back. Life's too short sometimes. I'll try again when I have some more time to fiddle.