Radeon HD 6850 in X1000

[mbrantley]

I did indeed utilize the excellent guide by the dynamic Hans/Trevor duo, but I will carefully go through the process again this evening in case I missed something. It wouldn't be the first time! I suspect the problem of the 5770 not being recognized in a dual card configuration with the 6850 is in the naming guessing game. Calling it Radeon HD 5 worked in a dual-card configuration with a 9250 PCI card, but I bet I need it to be named something else now. I do wish this part of the process was a bit more straightforward, but it is what it is.

Main thing is to report that the performance of the 6850 card is very, very good. I submitted the GfxBench2d benchmark data to Hans' site last night and got a score of 5,870.75. Pretty good?

Workbench operations seem quite snappy, and playback of standard-def video is super smooth -- even in full frame without any overlay support (or its modern equivalent). I will see what happens with 720p video tonight, though I expect some trouble there. But we shall see. The composting demo Hans did with the boing ball in the 3D room is just amazingly smooth. I was mesmerize for long minutes, just flipping that room around with the cursor keys while the animated ball and the sound effects never missed a beat.

Running Blender with wazp on the 6850 card is acceptable, though particles do not show in the wireframe animation previews they way they do when using the normal warp3d.library and the 9250 card. My big test -- loading a large Klingon battlecruiser blend file and rotating the complex mesh -- remains frustratingly slow in Blender on AmigaOS no matter how it's run. One day, one day...

By the way, I also ran GfxBench2d on the 5770 card and got a score of 3,849.22. That data has been uploaded to Hans' site.

[mbrantley]

I had a better go at it tonight, getting the 5770 and 6850 cards to be recognized at the same time for a dual-monitor system. To get it to work (and I read the guide until it became clear to me) I have these monitors in devs/monitors:

Radeon HD 5
Radeon HD 6
PCIGraphics

The 5770 would not show up without the last one.

I could not stumble across a way to get a three-card combination of 6850, 5770 and 9250 to work. With all three cards installed, the 5770 disappears as an option. I'm not sure I am going to pursue this further, in any case. The advantage for me of having the 9250 fitted is I can run Blender in 3D and see particles in the wireframe previews of my animations. But with wazp and the 6850 the interface speed now seems comparable -- just no visible particles. It's a toss-up until I factor in that with the 9250 installed I have to give up either sound or ethernet. A tough choice!

So for now, the 9250 goes back on the shelf and the ethernet card is back in the X1000, which happily has two Radeon HD cards -- including one with very nice performance indeed!

With two cards/monitors I can have LightWave Modeler and Layout visible at the same time, or have the ADPro render screen visible on the second screen, or have WookieChat showing on one screen while Blendering on another, etc. If you have the desktop real estate and the screens, there are lots of possibilities.

Thanks again, Hans and Trevor.

[trevordick]

I'm glad you got it sorted. In theory we should be able to install the 3 cards. I did a little testing but decided it was not worth the extra complexity.

I also picked up a PCIe to PCI converter and was going to try the 9250 in one of the PCIe x1 slots, but after receiving the part I was not to impressed about the build quality or componets used and would rather not risk inserting it in my A1-X1000.

Trevor

[Hans]

I had a better go at it tonight, getting the 5770 and 6850 cards to be recognized at the same time for a dual-monitor system. To get it to work (and I read the guide until it became clear to me) I have these monitors in devs/monitors:

Radeon HD 5
Radeon HD 6
PCIGraphics

The 5770 would not show up without the last one.

That is correct. If you read the dual graphics card guide, you'll see that the primary graphics card's settings are loaded by name (e.g., "Radeon HD 5770"), and the secondary graphics card is loaded by the PCIGraphics monitor.

I could not stumble across a way to get a three-card combination of 6850, 5770 and 9250 to work. With all three cards installed, the 5770 disappears as an option. I'm not sure I am going to pursue this further, in any case. The advantage for me of having the 9250 fitted as I can run Blender in 3D and see particles in the wireframe previews of my animations. But with wazp and the 6850 the interface speed now seems comparable -- just no visible particles. It's a toss-up until I factor in that with the 9250 installed I have to give up either sound or ethernet. A tough choice!

Try creating a copy of the PCIGraphics monitor file called PCIGraphics2. However, this time don't change the BOARDNAME or CMPLENGTH. You can also try just double-clicking on the PCIGraphics monitor after Workbench has loaded.

With two cards/monitors I can have LightWave Modeler and Layout visible at the same time, have the ADPro render screen visible, have WookieChat showing one one screen while Blendering on another, etc. If you have the desktop real estate and the screens, there are lots of possibilities.

I've heard that you only need a second monitor if you want to feel like an evil genius.

Hans

[mbrantley]

I also picked up a PCIe to PCI converter and was going to try the 9250 in one of the PCIe x1 slots, but after receiving the part I was not to impressed about the build quality or componets used and would rather not risk inserting it in my A1-X1000.

I was looking at one of those on Amazon earlier and thinking about whether it would work with the ethernet card. But given your observation of the build quality of the converter you looked at it, I'll wait for somebody else to blaze this trail!

[mbrantley]

Try creating a copy of the PCIGraphics monitor file called PCIGraphics2. However, this time don't change the BOARDNAME or CMPLENGTH. You can also try just double-clicking on the PCIGraphics monitor after Workbench has loaded.

Ah, that's good stuff. I never would have figured that out on my own. I'll have to see if this works. Just when I thought I had the machine all buttoned up for good...

I've heard that you only need a second monitor if you want to feel like an evil genius.

Haha! That's funny. I'm definitely in evil lair mode here in my home computer lab.

[mbrantley]

Try creating a copy of the PCIGraphics monitor file called PCIGraphics2. However, this time don't change the BOARDNAME or CMPLENGTH. You can also try just double-clicking on the PCIGraphics monitor after Workbench has loaded.

Finally got around to trying this and it didn't work. The 9250 and the 6850 showed up, but the 5770 card still was not appearing in Ranger or ScreenMode prefs.

It's mostly an academic exercise at this point, however, as three display cards in one AOS4 machine can be a tad unwieldy even for an evil genius.

[kicko]

Just want to let you know im fine with firmware and latest Radeon drivers. Now all windows/apps has right shades when in composition mode. Before it looked little weird like part of shade if windows was not there. Thanks.

[ddni]

@mbrantley

I just installed a 6850 in my X1000. The monitors tab in screenmode prefs is greyed out. Is it the same for you?

[mbrantley]

This happened to me before. I will try to remember what I had to do to get the tab to not be greyed out. That caused me some frustration so you would think I would either remember the solution or write it down!