VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 20 2009 - 10:36:12 CST

Ramon,
  VMD is already executing with "VMDSIMPLEGRAPHICS" mode, as it detected
your ATI driver and reduced functionality to a "safe subset".
The ATI drivers have had a long history of stability issues on
Linux, which is somewhat surprising since their corresponding
Windows drivers have typically worked well. My suggestion is to try
various different versions of the ATI drivers, both newer, and older
than the one you're using presently. There's a chance that the problems
you're having are specific to particular driver versions, so aside
from waiting for a response from AMD/ATI, I would strongly recommend
experimenting with other driver versions. Perhaps others on VMD-L
with AMD/ATI hardware can comment on their experiences?

Cheers,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 04:52:06PM +0100, Ramon Crehuet wrote:
> Hi John and Axel,
> You are right. Other OpenGL applications show the same problem...
> I have used the newest driver from ATI... I guess I should post my bug
> there. What kind of information do you think I should post? For example,
> how do I know the bit-depth I am running at?
> I tried 'export VMDSIMPLEGRAPHICS=1' but didn't change anything. A part
> from the (slow?) solution from ATI, do you think I can get VMD running
> somehow. Should I still try the alpha version binaries?
> Cheers,
> Ramon
>
>
> John Stone wrote:
> > Hi,
> > Have you tried updating your ATI driver, this definitely sounds
> > like some sort of new driver bug I haven't seen previously. You might
> > try either a newer or older driver version and see if that affects the
> > behavior you're experiencing. Do any other OpenGL programs run on your
> > system? What color bit-depth are you running at?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > John Stone
> > vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 01:09:27PM +0100, Ramon Crehuet wrote:
> >> Der VMD users,
> >> I've recently installed VMD on an Opensuse 11.1 box with an ATI HD 2400
> >> card using the ATI driver.
> >> When I open the VMD, the OpenGL window (where molecues are displayed) is
> >> transparent. I see the background windows. When I move the molecule then
> >> it shows its content, flickering. Has anybody encountered this problem?
> >> It is really annoying!
> >> Here are the first welcome lines in the console:
> >>
> >> Info) VMD for LINUXAMD64, version 1.8.6 (April 6, 2007)
> >> Info) http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
> >> Info) Email questions and bug reports to vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >> Info) Please include this reference in published work using VMD:
> >> Info) Humphrey, W., Dalke, A. and Schulten, K., `VMD - Visual
> >> Info) Molecular Dynamics', J. Molec. Graphics 1996, 14.1, 33-38.
> >> Info) -------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Info) Multithreading available, 4 CPUs detected.
> >> Info) Free system memory: 3476MB (87%)
> >> Info) ATI Linux driver detected, limiting features to avoid driver bugs.
> >> Info) Set the environment variable VMDDISABLEATILINUXWORKAROUND
> >> Info) to enable full functionality on a known-safe driver version.
> >> Info) OpenGL renderer: ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT
> >> Info) Features: STENCIL MSAA(4) MDE CVA MTX NPOT PP PS GLSL(OVF)
> >> Info) GLSL rendering mode is NOT available.
> >> Info) Textures: 2-D (4096x4096), 3-D (8192x8192x8192), Multitexture (8)
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks for your attention,
> >> Ramon
> > 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078