Hi,

I've done a lot of searching on here, on unichrome project sites, EPIA howtos, everywhere. When I install KM R5A30.2 or R5B7 I can't get hardware 3D working right. I've tried installing unichrome drivers etc, but all the time I get "direct rendering: no" from glxinfo and fps below 100 from glxgears.

The wiki tells me that "EPIA mobos should work out of the box now". But are there extra steps I need to take to get fast gl? Indeed, should I be able to get accelerated 3D? I don't have a TV card, I just want it for games and the like. I'm tearing my hair out after several attempts to get this right, includuing a few reinstalls. I have a VIA EPIA M10000 with CLE266 chipset.

So, my question is, has anyone got fast 3D working on Knoppmyth with this mobo without having to make changes? If there are changes, could anyone point me to useful material? Or am I trying to fix something that cannot be fixed? Many thanks.

I don't have a epia board, and thus haven't looked into any of this, but as I remember via did not release the source to the 3d portion of their graphics drivers, so the open source drivers are 2d only, and you have to go download the via drivers to get 3d. As I said this is from memory, so don't quote me on it.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Thanks. Having looked at the VIA driver and finding no built files for Debian, I figured I'd have to step through the Wiki instructions and install the 2.4 EPIA patched kernel, add modues, copy in an VIA driver etc etc. So I did that - missing out ivtv steps as I don't have a TV card - and lo & behold, it worked!

A few things broke, however - rebuilding myth lost me all the plugins like mythtgame & gallery - I suspect I have to build these too from source, the wiki didn't mention that. But the wiki page was intended for 0.15. Since I don't use capturing, maybe I don't need to rebuild mythtv. Mplayer crashes X completely, I'm currently building from source to see if it fixes it. Logging into gdm as root was also key. But when I did that, glxinfo showed "Direct Rendering: Yes", and tuxracer runs at an acceptable pace! So thanks for providing the clues. I'll try updating the Wiki when I find out what exactly is broken, though with no TV card I can only provide some help. I could also do with building a 2.6 EPIA kernel, but I have no idea what is patched in the 2.4 EPIA blend.

Well, I finally got to the bottom of what is needed. If I use the 2.4 EPIA kernel from the wiki page, and I apply the two X drivers via_dri.so and via_drv.o also mentioned on that page, I can get 3d working properly as root. So I guess I need to downgrade to 2.4 EPIA, then recompile to give mouse support and install alsa & lirc separately, or I work out how to patch the current 2.6.13.2 kernel with EPIA changes. I think I also need to build a new via_drv.o as the one used above crashes XFree86 when in Mplayer. Sadly it's very hard as several key EPIA links like http://www.epiawiki.org and http://epia.kalf.org have died recently, and I'm having to rely on archive.org. I think I bought the wrong motherboard.

If you bought it for a gaming machine I would probably say you are right. The epia boards are very nice for standard def video boards though.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets