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More options may be required for you (ie setting pal/ntsc) but these are all the options I have running on my box (mythtv 0.20, ubuntu feisty, radeon 9550).
 
More options may be required for you (ie setting pal/ntsc) but these are all the options I have running on my box (mythtv 0.20, ubuntu feisty, radeon 9550).
 
This allows you to use the real video overlay on the tv without having the slowdown of opengl or texturedvideo, but it also forces your monitor to use 800x600 if you want one connected, but for myth-only boxes it works well.
 
This allows you to use the real video overlay on the tv without having the slowdown of opengl or texturedvideo, but it also forces your monitor to use 800x600 if you want one connected, but for myth-only boxes it works well.
 +
 +
Update: I first used this procedure to get the above ubuntu system working, it was running xorg 7.1 by memory. I've just tried duplicating it with a 9250 on a knoppmyth box running xfree86 and fglrx 8.28.8 and had no luck whatsoever.
  
 
= User experiences =
 
= User experiences =

Revision as of 06:32, 6 June 2007

Introduction

The ATI/AMD Proprietary Linux driver, or fglrx is the name of the Linux display driver used for ATI Radeon and FireGL family video adapters It contains open source and closed source parts. It can be downloaded from the AMD website.

ATI cards are not recommended at this point in time. ATI currently does not support running MythTV on their hardware, and have no timeline for when this might change. See http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=26907 for more information.

Version Information

Version:
8.37.6
Released on 29th May 2007

Catalyst™ Control Center version 1.0, bug fixes

Version:
8.36.5
Released on 18th April 2007

Support for 2.6.20, additional languages for Catalyst Control Centre v0.9

Version:
8.35.5
Released on 28th March 2007

Beta version of the AMD Catalyst Control Centre: Linux Edition to replace the FireGL Control panel.

Version:
8.34.8
Released on 21th February 2007

It adds support for the ATI Xpress™ 1250 IGP for AMD based motherboards.

Version:
8.33.6
Released on 10th January 2007

It adds support for X.Org 7.2 and Linux Kernel 2.6.19.

Version:
8.32.5
Released on 13th December 2006

It adds support for the ATI Radeon® X1650 and X.Org 7.2 RC2.

Version:
8.29.6
Released on 20th September 2006

It adds support for Linux kernel 2.6.18.

Version:
8.28.8
Released on 18th August 2006

This is the last version to support Radeon 9200 and 9250 series

Download.png - Download the latest driver from ATI

TV-Out

Check if your card is supported by the driver (read the release notes). Also check the specs of your card, some integrated ATI cards do not support dual screen, so it's either your monitor or your tv but not both.

You need to userstand what interface you are using to connect to your TV. See the list below..from the digital HDMI standard (best quality) to the analog Composite standard (lowest quality) more about this: Highly_Technical_Details

Attaching a computer monitor

When having a computer monitor attached, use the following in the 'Device' section of xorg.conf:

Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"

This will enable VideoOverlaying, thus allowing you to watch TV and DVDs without any problem! Of course it is possible to enable OpenGLOverlay, but the driver will enable either one or the other. Turning both on does not work (strange but true...)

Attaching a TV

It is possible to attach a TV (using the TV-Out connector), but a bug in the driver makes the VideoOverlay mode useless :-(
Therefor, the only option left (for acceleration) is to use OpenGL. This gives the whole picture during TV or DVD playback, but needs a really fast box to be usefull. For those willing to give it a try... Use the following in the 'Device' section of xorg.conf:

Option "VideoOverlay" "off"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "on"

To use a (wide-screen) TV as monitor, please configure the 'Monitor' section of your xorg.conf to get it working. See XorgConfMonitorSectionForTV.

Common problems and solutions

Black-and-White output

For users experiencing black-and-white TV output: please verify if the TVFormat option is set to the one valid for your country. All ATI cards I have seen default to the American TVStandard 'NTSC'. For a mythtv box in the Netherlands use the following option in the Device section in xorg.conf:

Option "TVFormat" "PAL-B"

Wrong colors

Until at least fglrx-8.33.6 there are wrong colors with xv playback, E.g. faces look blue. In libs/libmythtv/videoout_xv.cpp you can uncomment

#define USE_ATI_PROPRIETARY_DRIVER_XVIDEO_HACK

Enabling overlays with tvout

ATI proprietary drivers do have a bug in them which makes the combination of VideoOverlaying and TV-Out useless. If you have a display attached to the vga output connector, you will find the VideoOverlay mode fully functional. However when the TV-Out connector is used, you will see the top-half of the actual TV/DVD signal. Disabling this feature in the xorg.conf file (or use OpenGLOverlay instead) gives the whole TV/DVD signal, but may work slowly depending on the overall speed of the system you are using.

This bug can be worked around by forcing the driver to think that a crt is plugged into the primary, and mirror that onto the secondary (tv). To do this use these options in the device block in you /etx/X11/xorg.conf:

       Option      "ForceMonitors" "crt1,tv"
       Option      "NoTV" "no"
       Option      "OverlayOnCRTC2" "1"
       Option      "DesktopSetup" "mirror"
       Option      "VideoOverlay" "on"
       Option      "OpenGLOverlay" "off"

More options may be required for you (ie setting pal/ntsc) but these are all the options I have running on my box (mythtv 0.20, ubuntu feisty, radeon 9550). This allows you to use the real video overlay on the tv without having the slowdown of opengl or texturedvideo, but it also forces your monitor to use 800x600 if you want one connected, but for myth-only boxes it works well.

Update: I first used this procedure to get the above ubuntu system working, it was running xorg 7.1 by memory. I've just tried duplicating it with a 9250 on a knoppmyth box running xfree86 and fglrx 8.28.8 and had no luck whatsoever.

User experiences

Michel has experiences are with driver revision 8.28.8:

  • ATI Radeon 9200SE (both composite and S-Video): partially works.
  • ATI Radeon 9250 (composite): partially works.

On my personal (Athlon XP 1800+) mythtv system the TV/DVD playback functions are too slow, even with OpenGLOverlay mode active on the binary drivers. So for normal TV-Out functionality I went to the store and bought a NVidia card instead. My desktop system however (the 2nd mythfrontend :-) still functions perfectly with the ATI Radeon 9250. Attached to a monitor and with VideoOverlay active...

Moosylog worked with the ATI driver for more than two years. First did research on XGL / compiz and ATI and later got involved in the TV-OUT thing. In feb 2007 moosy gave up and switched to nvidia because of the buggy tv-out support from ati/amd. The TV-Out experience ends at version 8.33.6 on a ATI Radeon Xpress 200 (on board): partially works, frustrated, switched to Nvidia, read more Also check the user comments on this blog post about ATI and this one

Moloth worked on this over the past 7 hours trying to get it to work. Did succeed with ATI X300 + Proprietary Driver + Modified Myth Code DViCO_FusionHDTV_DVB-T_Dual_Digital_Installation#ATI_Radeon Here Although either the driver or the libmyth change caused unexpected X crashes and segfaults. So I am switching to NVidia Card.