Graphical Problems on Dell Inspiron 1420N

[foxxtrot]

First, I want to congratulate Basilisk on an excellent game, I played the demo through for a few hours and immediately went on to buy the full version.

I've tested both the demo and full version on two systems, both running Ubuntu. My desktop, is an Ubuntu 8.04 Beta1 amd64 system using an nVidia GeForce 8800, on which is runs flawlessly. The second system is a Dell Inspiron 1420N laptop, which uses an Intel Mobile GM965/PM965/GL960 Express Integrated Graphics Controller.

On the Laptop, the game runs fine, for a while. At some point during the execution, there does not seem to be a discernible pattern as to when, and it occurs in fullscreen or windowed mode at 16 or 32-bit color depths. Eventually the graphics freak out, causing the screen to go black and switch to the system cursors, displaying the loading and normal cursors in succession.

Each time this has happened, I've had to use the Magic SysRq keys to reboot this system, as I can not get to either the GUI or any of the terminal windows. Regrettably, since the system has hung up so hard, I can not get any additional error messages or data. I'm going to try to get an strace of the error.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Intel Mobile chipset? Hmm, coincidently it is the mobile ATI chipset that causes problems on other laptops. I would recommend disabling all desktop enhancements (Compiz), and perhaps try using another available graphics driver for that video chipset. I will pass this information on to the company who produces the compiler so that they can investigate it on their end.

I have not yet used 8.04, so I am pleased to hear you are running it successfully there.

[foxxtrot]

Compiz is already disabled, it doesn't work with the chip set in this laptop. I am wondering if it's just a OpenGL problem with these drivers.

I got an strace of the game running from the beginning, until the crash (it seems to happen after a certain amount of time into the game). It's 1.2 GiB uncompressed, but gzip can get it down to 18 MiB, which goes to show how much repetitive data there is there. I can put it online if you'd like, but my cursory glance through it suggested there wasn't too much of interest to see.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Thanks foxxtrot- I've already looked at dozens of traces, crash logs, mem dumps, etc. and it doesn't help very often. When it comes to crashes and Linux, wonky video drivers are almost always the culprit.

Some of these issues may also be traced back to video RAM size- do you know how much your laptop has? I believe we calculated VRAM requirements to be in the neighborhood of 64mb (128mb recommended). Most modern video cards in the past 5 years should have this, but I wonder if some aging laptops may possess less than that? Hitting a VRAM limit, using drivers that can't texture swap efficiently could make the game crash.

[acoustibop]

Additionally, the memory allocation for an integrated videocard may be adjustable, and some manufacturers will set it low by default. However, one other problem with laptops is always heat: how do other graphics intensive applications work over a period of time, foxxtrot?

Although Hardy beta 1 (I was planning to install it myself over the next few days, but dual booting with my present Gutsy installation) is a beta, the performance of your desktop would seem to indicate there isn't really any fundamental problem with that.

Are you using the proprietary driver for your Intel integrated card?

[foxxtrot]

Some of these issues may also be traced back to video RAM size- do you know how much your laptop has? I believe we calculated VRAM requirements to be in the neighborhood of 64mb (128mb recommended). Most modern video cards in the past 5 years should have this, but I wonder if some aging laptops may possess less than that? Hitting a VRAM limit, using drivers that can't texture swap efficiently could make the game crash.

The Laptop was purchased eight or so months ago, though I'm not quite sure how old the specific model has been available. Anyway, according to lspci on the video hardware, it should have a 256M region for video memory.

Additionally, the memory allocation for an integrated videocard may be adjustable, and some manufacturers will set it low by default. However, one other problem with laptops is always heat: how do other graphics intensive applications work over a period of time, foxxtrot?

I haven't really done deep testing with other programs, but the error does seem to crop up after ~15 minutes of game play, even after an immediate reboot (in which there would have been insufficient time for appreciable heat dissipation). While I'm not ready to write this off completely, my gut reaction is that this isn't the culprit.

Although Hardy beta 1 (I was planning to install it myself over the next few days, but dual booting with my present Gutsy installation) is a beta, the performance of your desktop would seem to indicate there isn't really any fundamental problem with that.

The laptop is using 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). I threw the part about Hardy Heron is as an aside, and to show that it was definitely a hardware issue.

Are you using the proprietary driver for your Intel integrated card?

I'm using the experimental intel modesetting driver. I haven't run a test with the i810 driver, as DRI didn't initialize when I switched to that driver. Since the i810 driver is supposed to provide basic 3d-support. Incidentally, this driver will be the supported standard for Intel based cards in 8.04

[acoustibop]

I'm using the experimental intel modesetting driver. I haven't run a test with the i810 driver, as DRI didn't initialize when I switched to that driver. Since the i810 driver is supposed to provide basic 3d-support. Incidentally, this driver will be the supported standard for Intel based cards in 8.04

I've never used an Intel chipset video driver, but I can't help wondering that, if DRI doesn't initialise if you install the i810 driver, you may have a problem somewhere - and if you're using an experimental driver, you also have to consider this may be causing the problem.

It would probably be a good idea to post this in the Ubuntu forums.

Edit: was just looking through the Hardy section of the forum prior to going for it and noticed this.

[foxxtrot]

Unfortunately, some of the extensions available by default in Hardy with this driver were not in Gutsy (which the laptop is still running). I'm not going to update the laptop until Hardy is released. It does seem that Hardware 3d was not well refined in Ubuntu 7.10 with this chipset.

[foxxtrot]

Wrangler:

The Penny Arcade Adventures game reported that the laptop in question doesn't have the GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc OpenGL Extension available. Would this potentially be the problem with Eschalon not running on my video chipset?

[BasiliskWrangler]

foxxtrot- I'll look into that. Thanks for the info.