SiS Video card 3D acceleration (SOLVED)

Linux Support
1

Hi guys

last night my Grand-daughters PC refused to boot, the problem was the graphics card which was an nVidia, so I’ve removed the card and reverted back to the onboard card which an SiS I know SiS cards can be a problem in Linux but it’s actually working fine except when I try to open XBMC a error message pops up saying XBMC needs 3D acceleration which presumably the onboard card doesn’t have, so my question is is there any way to enable 3D acceleration with this card or make XBMC run without 3D acceleration

chloe@Linux3 ~ $ lshw -c display WARNING: you should run this program as super-user. *-display UNCLAIMED description: VGA compatible controller product: 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter vendor: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0 version: 03 width: 32 bits clock: 66MHz capabilities: vga_controller cap_list configuration: latency=0 resources: memory:d8000000-dfffffff memory:febe0000-febfffff ioport:e800(size=128) WARNING: output may be incomplete or inaccurate, you should run this program as super-user. chloe@Linux3 ~ $

Many thanks

Graeme

2

Distro / version / architecture ?

3
Distro / version / architecture ?

Sorry
Peppermint 5 32bit

Graeme

4

I seriously doubt if this’ll work, but after reading the postings at the end of this:

and this:

you could TRY downloading the driver from this PPA:

direct download link:
https://launchpad.net/~michael-heide/+archive/ubuntu/ppa/+files/xserver-xorg-video-sisimedia_0.9.1-1_i386.deb
which was compiled for 14.04 using the latest source from Arch.

Then possibly (if necessary) add an /etc/X11/xorg.conf fie with these contents

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Driver		"sisimedia"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Configured Monitor"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
	DefaultDepth 	24
EndSection

But don’t blame me if things go wrong :wink:

5
But don't blame me if things go wrong

How wrong can it go ? :slight_smile:

Graeme

6

Unbootable system requiring you to delete the xorg.conf file … that’s about it really :slight_smile:

Or the world could fall off the turtles back and disappear up its ****…

7

ok i installed the SiS driver as per your link and created the xorg.conf file and the world never shifted on it’s axis in fact nothing noticable really happened at all so it looks like i’m in the market for another pci express graphics card

any suggestions ?

Graeme

8

just as a matter of interest, what’s the output from:

sudo lshw -C display

now ?

Are you sure it’s PCIe and not AGP ?

Maybe just luck of the draw, but every motherboard I’ve ever seen with SiS graphics was pre-PCIe

9 
chloe@Linux3 ~ $ sudo lshw -c display
[sudo] password for chloe: 
  *-display UNCLAIMED     
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter
       vendor: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: 03
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: pm agp agp-3.0 vga_controller cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:d8000000-dfffffff memory:febe0000-febfffff ioport:e800(size=128)
chloe@Linux3 ~ $
Are you sure it's PCIe and not AGP ?

I’m pretty certain it’s pci-e, I have at least half a dozen AGP cards lying around and this one is different, anyway I’ve uploaded an image of 2 video cards the card on the left (Asus) is the card that fits into the motherboard which I’m assuming is pci-e and the other is an AGP

http://imgur.com/99tN19s

Many thanks

Graeme

10

Yep, you’re right.

That driver never got loaded ??? … did you check if it got loaded without an xorg.conf fie ?

11
did you check if it got loaded without an xorg.conf fie ?

I checked in as much as rebooting without the xorg.conf file and it made no noticable difference then I created the xorg,conf and rebooted again but still no difference

However this morning I was a local boot sale and there’s a guy there every week who sells second hand PC’s and parts and he let me rake through a box of cards that he had and I got 3 PCIe cards to try one is a ATI Radeon but I don’t know what the other 2 are hopefully at least one of them is an nVidea because in my experience ATI is a problem, anyway I’ll try them out and let you know

Many thanks

Graeme

12

Further to my last post

2 of the cards are ATI, I cant figure out the make of the other as the PC wont boot with it inserted so whatever it is it’s a complete non starter

Both ATI cards appear to work ok untill I try to open XBMC where it just freezes on the start screen, I’ve checked Additional Drivers for both cards and none are offered

Graeme

13

does xbmc have a config file somewhere ?

14
does xbmc have a config file somewhere ?

If there is I can’t find it, there is a .XBMC folder in the Home directory and I’ve searched through but no xbmc.conf file that I can see, there’s also an XBMC folder located in /usr/share but no xbmc.conf file there either

If there was one where would it most likely be and what’s the best way to find it ?

EDIT

There is a bunch of xbmc crash log filer in the home directory maybe that will help

Graeme

15

Really I doubt you’re going to get this working with a legacy ATI card

But …

Have you tried kodi instead of xbmc ?
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=174854

Purge xbmc and xbmc.bin

sudo apt-get remove --purge xbmc xbmc.bin

then add the kodi repo:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

update the package cache:

sudo apt-get update

then install kodi

sudo apt-get install kodi kodi.bin

it should then be in the menu at

Sound & Video > Kodi Media Center

16

Ok I followed your instructions but Kodi is doing exactly the same thing as XBMC

I looked online for ATI drivers and there is a proprietary driver available here http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=Legacy1&os=Linux%20x86

I don’t know if it’s any use to me but I downloaded it and it’s a .run file which attempts to open in gedit but wont there’s no clues anywhere what I do with this file

I also tried following the instructions here Install ATI AMD Catalyst drivers in Ubuntu 13.04/12.10/12.04/Linux Mint 14/13 (Screenshots Demo) - NoobsLab | Eye on Digital World

but although I have a menu entry the control centre wont open up it gets as far as asking for the password then nothing happens

Any ideas ?

Many thanks

Graeme

17

I don’t think you’re not going to get this card to work with new versions of xbmc/kodi … you’re not going to get 3d acceleration working.

Why not just get a cheap nvidia card, such as this from Dabs:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MSI-GeForce-GT-210-1GB-Graphics-Card-Low-Profile-PCI-Express-2-0x16-589MHz-HDMI-/331328684791

18
I don't think you're not going to get this card to work with new versions of xbmc/kodi .. you're not going to get 3d acceleration working.

Yeah you’re right I’ve just wasted the past 3 hours of my life trying to prove you wrong by following a Spatry tutorial on how to install proprietary ATI drivers, never again

I was actually looking at that very card you posted the link for a couple of days ago so I’m glad you posted it as it confirms it’s the right card for me

Thanks for your help

Graeme

19

I could have told you the proprietary ATI drivers are unlikely to help you … if the drivers you linked to earlier are the only ATI drivers that support your card

a) the newer AMD drivers probably won’t support it as the cards are probably considered “legacy” … otherwise the fglrx driver would likely be being offered to you by “Additional Drivers”
and
b) the drivers you lkinked to will not work with modern versions of Xorg

20

Yep, AMD really did a number on ATI customers :frowning:
Considering the higher end ATI cards (4850/4870/4890) can STILL outperform new cards despite being 6-7 years old (well, not in the power stakes!), yet AMD decided to drop support like a brick >:(
Good enough for me to never buy AMD again.

Edit: OP - you should be able to get 3D acceleration working on the open-source xorg drivers if the cards are recent enough (should perform well enough for XBMC). Which ATI cards are these?