Re: amdgpu driver

Rhialto wrote:

> On Wed 01 Jul 2026 at 12:13:51 -0400, MLH wrote:
> > 
> > I have been using an ATI Radeon HD 5450 since 2020 and my original xorg.conf
> > from then didn't specify a Device section and it worked fine up until about
> > two years ago when several programs started trashing the window they were
> > operating in (but not the rest of the display though).
> 
> I have the same card, and I have used it mostly successfully up to
> NetBSD 9; with 10 I started to have complete display corruptions and
> stalls after a few weeks of uptime (i.e. very hard to debug). I never
> used the amdgpu driver, as I understand it it is for newer AMD cards.
> 
> Up to 9.x I used Driver "radeon".
> 
> From 10.0 on I used Driver "modesetting", which potentially needs Option
> "kmsdev" "/dev/dri/card0" when I enable both the Radeon and the
> on-board Intel graphics chipset in the "BIOS".

My motherboard also has on-board Intel hdmi and dvi gfx but I never
could get it to work properly.

> The reason to switch to modesetting was that something didn't quite work
> any more, but it seems I didn't write down what it was.
>
> I am curious if you also get the corruptions with the "radeon" driver. I
> had to switch to the integrated Intel graphics, but that lacks support
> for whatever x11/redshift does, and also I can't use mpv in gpu mode,

With no Device section it uses 'ati' and then auto loads 'radeon' (and then
'modesetting') and it works the same if I specify 'ati' in a Device section.

[  4022.876] (II) LoadModule: "ati"
[  4022.876] (II) Loading /usr/X11R7/lib/modules/drivers/ati_drv.so
[  4022.876] (II) Module ati: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[  4022.876]    compiled for 1.21.1.23, module version = 22.0.0
[  4022.876]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[  4022.876]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[  4022.876] (II) LoadModule: "radeon"
[  4022.876] (II) Loading /usr/X11R7/lib/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so
[  4022.876] (II) Module radeon: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[  4022.876]    compiled for 1.21.1.23, module version = 22.0.0
[  4022.876]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[  4022.876]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[  4022.876] (II) LoadModule: "modesetting"
[  4022.876] (II) Loading /usr/X11R7/lib/modules/drivers/modesetting_drv.so
[  4022.876] (II) Module modesetting: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[  4022.876]    compiled for 1.21.1.23, module version = 1.21.1
[  4022.876]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[  4022.876]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[  4022.876] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"
[  4022.876] (II) Loading /usr/X11R7/lib/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so
[  4022.876] (II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[  4022.876]    compiled for 1.21.1.23, module version = 2.6.0
[  4022.876]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[  4022.876]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[  4022.876] (II) LoadModule: "wsfb"
[  4022.877] (II) Loading /usr/X11R7/lib/modules/drivers/wsfb_drv.so
[  4022.877] (II) Module wsfb: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[  4022.877]    compiled for 1.21.1.23, module version = 0.4.0
[  4022.877]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[  4022.877] (II) RADEON: Driver for ATI/AMD Radeon chipsets:

I don't use mpv for much and I often have to restart it maybe five times
before it operates correctly.

> but I have to use "vo=xv" in ~/.config/mpv/mpv.con. Likewise, wip/golly
> doesn't display its life world. So I'd rather switch back. 

Wow. I just tried that and it is far more stable. It still sometimes
gets shading incorrect though.

I decided it is time to update the gfx and found a new Radeon R7
350 2G that the amdgpu docs and wikipedia indicate is amdgpu-supported
so just ordered that.  Hopefully it will work properly.

Thanks for the response!