Help with Installation of Matrox G550 in Debian

After reading up on RTAPI errors and how integrated graphics can play a role, I picked up a low-profile Matrox G550 off Ebay for $14 shipped.

I'm not a Linux pro. Heck, I'm not even a Linux average user. I'm pretty much a noob when it comes to this OS.

So, my question is this: when I install the G550 into my little Intel D525MW LinuxCNC computer, what commands should I execute to get Debian and the card to play nice with each other?

Is there a package I should get from Synaptic that contains the open source drivers this GPU uses?

Thanks!

After reading up on RTAPI errors and how integrated graphics can play a role, I picked up a low-profile Matrox G550 off Ebay for $14 shipped.

It probably won't hurt, but unless you have established that your latency spikes are video related, it may do nothing.

The driver package is xserver-xorg-video-mga
It is probably already installed, but check.

You need to disable on board graphics in BIOS and / or select the card specifically, depending on the BIOS.

regards

@ArcEye

I checked on Synaptic and saw that the driver package xserver-xorg-video-mga is indeed already installed. Great!

My little CNC computer is running an Intel D525MW atom board, using onboard graphics. That probably doesn't help with LinuxCNC. I'm hoping this G550 install will improve matters. If not, at least I know the issue isn't with the graphics!

Regards,

The card arrived and I've got it installed into my CNC control computer. I've adjusted the BIOS to point at PCI video instead of auto-detect. Video is coming through the G550, and when I run lspci for the card, it displays the following:

06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. Millennium G550 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. Device 0f42
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 20
Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
Memory at e2800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
Expansion ROM at e2820000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [f0] AGP version 2.0

Question: How do I know for sure the G550 is using the xserver-xorg-video-mga driver?

Is it proof enough that the video is displaying properly at the resolution I've set? Or is there an additional step where I activate the driver? I suspect it is the former.

Thanks,

Hi

lspci -k will show you which kernel driver is in use for each card

lspci -vv will show all the information plus the driver

The driver in use is the last line of each section

You will need to switch off the on board video in BIOS and set the AGP memory settings to match the card (ie to 32MB, 64MB or whatever matches)

regards

The output of lspci -k:

06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. Millennium G550 (rev 01)
Subsystem: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. Device 0f42

I see no mention of it using the xserver-xorg-video-mga driver. I'll dig into the BIOS and see if there's a setting I can adjust for AGP memory.

Thanks,

Well crap. I checked in the BIOS and I am unable to change the AGP memory. According to the documentation, the G550 is listed as having 32MB of memory. The BIOS indicated the integrated graphics as 128.

Also, just to be sure, I ran an apt-get and install of the MGA driver and it indicated the package was already up to date and installed. So I guess I've got the Matrox card working properly with Debian Wheezy?

I am also running with the 07_RTAI fix so I've got isolcpus=1 going.

I'll also point out (though it may not matter) that this particular G550 is the kind with the D59 port on the rear. This requires me to connect a D59-VGA splitter cable so I can interface with the monitor. Could this have an impact?

I'm currently running HAL Latency Test, and with just standard browing, Dropbox web interface and downloading a 700MB reference book, my Max Jitter is:

Servo thread 1.0ms - 49716(ns)
Base thread 25.0us - 58234(ns)

That's a lot worse than when I was running LinuxCNC 2.5 through the integrated graphics (where I was around 19000(ns) on the base thread).

Not sure what to do at this point, other than remove the Matrox card and see how the integrated graphics performs in a Latency Test.

Thanks,

It's been an interesting afternoon!

Out of curiosity I pulled the G550 out of my Intel D525 CNC control computer and set the BIOS to point to the internal graphics adapter. Re-running the Latency Test I got max jitter values in the mid 30,000 ns range. I checked to see if I would get an error message when running a g-code (in my case one that has a lot of nested parts to be cut from sheet material), and all was well. I can live with mid-30K.

I also dusted off an old AMD Barton 2500+ machine running an A7N8X Rev2.0 motherboard, inserted one of the AGP full-size Matrox G550 cards I'd got from Ebay ($16 shipped), and fired it up. I heard a loud POP! from somewhere inside, but no smoke, and the computer spun up normally. I did smell something, though. Not sure what it was that blew, but apparently it's not critical. I'm nervous to keep this machine up for long periods of time, given that loud POP! I heard.

Installed the hybrid ISO onto the old AMD Barton machine, no problems. Running a latency test, and it's returning a very nice max jitter of 13215 ns while I'm web surfing, running GLXGears, moving files around. However there were a few times when it spiked at over 3-million ns. This happened when I first loaded Iceweasel, and again when I first loaded File Manager. I've written those off as one-off events. Gotta say, I'm really impressed with the latency results on this old beast!

So. Yeah. Things seem to be running okay. I've got two CNC control machines now (one reliable, one maybe).

Thanks for the help!