VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 20 2009 - 15:15:14 CST

Dan,
  Good point, I had forgotten about things like the compiz extension
that can cause problems. I think there are X server options to disable
these things, but I'm running an older distribution that has all of that
disabled by default so I don't know the specific options either.

Cheers,
  John

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 03:13:21PM -0600, Dan Wright wrote:
> I have seen similar problems with OpenGL apps (including but not
> limited to VMD, and not specific to ATI boards) when using the X
> server's compositing and rendering extensions to do fancy window
> effects on Linux. You could try turning that stuff off and see if it
> fixes the problem. Unfortunately, I don't use OpenSUSE and can't tell
> you how to do it on that distribution.
>
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 10:36 AM, John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> >
> > 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
> > 

-- 
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