Shake4 On Linux

[deke-kincaid]

The Shake team is a little less picky then places like Softimage/Alias about which distributions they support for linux. We run Debian at work and we have full support on all our nodes.

[mediasaurus]

ATI Driver Update:

In addition to the ATI driver, I was having issues with wpa_supplicant to connect to a WPA wireless network so I decided to upgrade from Suse 9.3 to 10.0. The WPA was instantly fixed upon install. I also was able to get the ATI driver to show in fglrxinfo and glxgears to a high framerate after following the basic RPM install procedure. Looks like the driver's installed. So far so good.

The only issue I'm running into is my screen is all chopped up/flickery like it has the wrong refresh rate. I've been spending some time with sax2 and manually editing my xorg.conf file to get the correct info. Anyone else had this problem?

HP zt3000 notebook
1680x1050 15.4" widescreen
ATI Radeon Mobility 9200 64mb
1.5GHz Pentium M
512mb RAM
60GB 5400rpm hd
integrated Broadcom 802.11b/g + Bluetooth (haven't tried driver under Ndiswrapper yet)
Proxim Orinoco Gold 802.11a/b/g (both Orinoco's work, obviously I don't have both installed at the same time)
Proxim Orinoco Silver 802.11b/g

Suse 10.0
kernel 2.6.13-15-default
Windows XP SP2

[user_deleted]

I've been getting the same problem with performance using a Radeon 9800 (in my case, it's XT). As of this post, the ATI drivers provided that can be used on Fedora Core 4 are :

ATI Driver Installer (.run file) Version: 8.22.5
X.Org 6.8 (.rpm file) also Version: 8.22.5

At some point I overlooked the fact that the new installer doesn't include fglrxconfig and wasted some time trying to find it/getting it to run. Now, as stated in the instructions, you have to use ATICONFIG to set up your card. However, even after reading the documentation, making sure that the default ATI drivers have been removed prior to installation and then running the installer, everything as root, I still get this when I use the fglrxinfo command:

OpenGL vendor string: Mesa project: www.mesa3d.org
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa GLX Indirect
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (1.5 Mesa 6.2.1)

Worse is the fact that when I use the ATI Control Panel, in the OpenGL section, I get 8.21.07 as the driver version. Isn't it supposed to be 8.22.50? What exactly does one have to do to get proper opengl configuration running? I know that this is the result I'm supposed to obtain (this is just an example taken from another page where a 9700 was configured properly):

OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON 9700 PRO Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.5395 (X4.3.0-8.18.8)

[mediasaurus]

This might not help you with Fedora, but for Suse this tutorial was the one that finally got the ATI drivers to show under fglrxinfo http://linux.wordpress.com/2005/10/11/suse...s-installation/. Unfortunately, I have the previously mentioned flickery screen issue as a result.

Not sure if Fedora has sax2, but this command was the one that got the drivers to change over:
sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx -b /usr/share/doc/packages/fglrx/sax2-profile

[mediasaurus]

SUCCESS!!! sorta

After months of trying, I finally got my Radeon working under Linux. Turns out I had the driver installed correctly as I suspected, Linux just wasn't generating the correct Modelines in my xorg.conf for my screen. You can read more here http://www.x1000forums.com/index.php?showtopic=5117.

Unfortunately, after getting the driver installed, Shake 4's interface still runs slow. That's the main reason I was trying to get the driver installed in the first place. If anyone has any ideas, let me know. I'll report back if I find the solution.

[deke-kincaid]

You should try different driver versions. Newest is not always the best or least buggy. Look for one on the forums that people say works best with Maya (if it works with maya, it works with shake).

[user_deleted]

I agree with the last post. ATI support for Linux is dissmal. After battling with it for days I finally got it to work with an Apple Cinema Display (no small feat), only to realize it did strange things in Maya. I ended up swapping my ATI card for an NVIDIA of lesser power everything in Linux runs a lot better. I can even see the POST when the computer boots up wich I was never able to do with ATI.

[saksrs]

Is it Working with ATI FireGL V7350 ???

Just a little question. I do not have Shake software's currently. But I'm planning to acquire it on Linux. It seems that the graphic card is important for Shake. I know the Nvidia's series are working very well. However, since ATI has released a better graphic card called the ATI FIREGL V7350 which has a memory interface of 1GB (= 41.6 GB/s for Memory Bandwidth), I was wonderning if Shake could support one of the most powerful card, eventhough it has not been certified for Shake...

Can someone help ?

View http://www.ati.com/products/fireglv7350/index.html

By the way, I just remembered that the NAB 2006 is about to begin in a few days... Which means normally something for Apple Shake, don't you think so ???

[mediasaurus]

I'm not sure if your card works, but I can tell you the speed difference is not worth the headache. A top of the line card won't make much of a noticeable difference, if any, since Shake doesn't utilize the card nearly as much as a program like Maya.

For Linux, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT choose ANY card from ATI! You will regret it.

If I wasn't stuck with an ATI in my laptop, I would've changed it out ages ago.

[deke-kincaid]

QUOTE(ThunderLight @ 04/19/06, 04:12 AM) [snapback]234765[/snapback]
Just a little question. I do not have Shake software's currently. But I'm planning to acquire it on Linux. It seems that the graphic card is important for Shake. I know the Nvidia's series are working very well. However, since ATI has released a better graphic card called the ATI FIREGL V7350 which has a memory interface of 1GB (= 41.6 GB/s for Memory Bandwidth), I was wonderning if Shake could support one of the most powerful card, eventhough it has not been certified for Shake...
This has nothing to do with how powerfull the card is. It has to do with ATI having really shitty opengl drivers. Shake uses opengl to draw it's gui. Bad ati opengl drivers = bad Shake. Just buy an nvidia card, their opengl drivers have always been pretty top notch. Though the newest drivers can be buggier then the older ones. Ati's trouble is that they are all buggy.
QUOTE(ThunderLight @ 04/19/06, 04:12 AM) [snapback]234765[/snapback]
JBy the way, I just remembered that the NAB 2006 is about to begin in a few days... Which means normally something for Apple Shake, don't you think so ???
yes, probably.

[kee-kyunghoon]

hi guys. i'm beginner on the shake. i need beginner for ebook or tutorial of shark. help me please!

[spazmonkeyy]

I 've solved this problem by another way.
I have the same problem ,An ati card with Fedora core 5. I play opengl games and maya very good ,So I think shake is not compatible with an ati driver.
Modify the file /Install Path/bin/shake with a text editor
and change from

# set env var, LD_LIBRARY_PATH
#
if ${?LD_LIBRARY_PATH} then
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/lib:${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/lib:${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/lib/mesa:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH};
else
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/lib:${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/lib:${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/lib/mesa;
endif

to :

# set env var, LD_LIBRARY_PATH
#
if ${?LD_LIBRARY_PATH} then
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/lib:${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/lib/mesa:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH};
else
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/lib:${NR_SHAKE_LOCATION}/lib/mesa;
endif

this close the opengl acceleration for shake(opengl is not very useful for shake ,only accelerate the ui) .But make shake goes fast.

[mediasaurus]

That totally works!!! Thank you so much, I can finally use Shake 4 on Linux!!!

I too was able to get my graphics drivers installed after literally months of trying. Tux Racer worked great as proof (haven't tried Maya) but Shake still refused to run without being dog slow. This totally solves the problem!