i'm having graphics problems and i've been told to check my openGL setup. i don't know what openGL is and i don't know if i even have it. how do i access this setup if i do have it, and if not, how do i get it?

OpenGL is a graphics package that handles a lot of the dirty work for 3d graphics, anti-aliasing, and other stuff like that. Quake is one of the more popular packages that uses it.

do you happen to know what graphics card you have? most newer cards have hardware acceleration support for OpenGL. it makes things faster, but it's not neccesary.

check in your /usr/lib directory for any file named libGL.so, libGLU.so, or a variant on that name. it might be named libGL.so.3.7 or something like that. if you have these libraries, then you have openGL

i have an ATI Rage Pro AGP card. i see the libGL files, but still, my performance in graphics programs lags horribly... how do i get to my openGL setup?

thanks for your help

Some cards do not have full acceleration in Linux just yet, but I am not sure what the stage of your card is at. You should check with the mesa website first, which I think is at Freshmeat.net or sourceforge.net, not too sure.

Also try Xfree's page for info on whether or not your card will accelerate. But I have tried to get info from their before and have got lost with the amount cards they support!

the ati rage pro hardware should be supported. what version of x are you running? it might be a problem with your XF86Config file.

these are all the Xfree RPMs i have installed:

# rpm -qa | grep -i xfree
XFree86-libs-4.0.3-5
XFree86-100dpi-fonts-4.0.3-5
XFree86-devel-4.0.3-5
XFree86-75dpi-fonts-4.0.3-5
XFree86-4.0.3-5
XFree86-tools-4.0.3-5
XFree86-xdm-4.0.3-5
XFree86-xfs-4.0.3-5
XFree86-FBDev-3.3.6-38
XFree86-twm-4.0.3-5

thanks.

ok... first thing that jumps out at me is the XFree86-FBDev-3.3.6-38. offhand, i'm not sure what that packages is, but i'm guessing that it's frame buffer development tools or libraries, and it's an older version than all the other rpms. that could be what's causing the openGL problems. how was your X installed? did you download the updated 4.0.x or did it come with your distro?

possible. i guess i can uninstall that cuz i probably don't need it.

and yes, i think all of this came with my distro or must've been upgraded by rpms along the way...

ok, uninstalled... will have to check if it does anything.

is there an actual config file (the setup for openGL) that we can get to? Xconfiguratior isn't it, is it? (cuz if so, it's not doing much for me...)

ok... i should have already asked this, but do you have the

Section "Modules"
...
load "glx"
...
EndSection

in your /etc/XF86Config file?

and, no, XConfigurator doesn't do anything to setup opengl, as far as i know. opengl is pretty much a hand-installation job so far.

no, i don't... should i just put that in there? does it automatically work after that?

yes!! put it in there. you'll need to restart X before it will load it tho. i should have told you to check that first thing, but it slipped my mind. gl won't work unless the gl extension (glx) is loaded.

if you get an error where the programs will run, but crash when you try to exit, then you need to add:

load "extmod"

to that same section.

if you have version 403 of x you will need to edit

xf86config-4 not xf86config as that is the one for version 3 i think

-4 is the one you need to add
load "glx"

well, believe it or not: load "glx" is already in my XF86Config-4 file, so that's not the problem. what would be contributing to the horrible lag on my system?

depending on your setup, XF86Config-4 may or may not be the file that X4.x uses. by default, it uses the XF86Config-4 file, but if the file isn't present, then it uses the XF86Config file. this is what causes a lot of problems in the upgrade from 3.x to 4.x - the installer doesn't install the XF86Config-4 file in the /etc directory by default. so, many users are left with the old XF86Config file as what is being used.

i'll check around to see if i can find anything else on the ati setup. does the XF86Config-4 file specify the "ati" driver?