Checking the log file a bit more....

It ends after 

(II) resource ranges after preInit:
... (a bunch of ranges)
(WW) NV(0): set MTRR e4000000 - e5000000
(WW) NV(0): remove MTRR a0000 - b0000

On a working monolithic xorg server, I see

(II) RADEON(0): BIOS HotKeys Disabled
(II) RADEON(0): Memory manager initialized to (0,0) (1600,8191)
(II) RADEON(0): Reserved area from (0,1200) to (1600,1202)
(II) RADEON(0): Largest offscreen area available: 1600 x 6989
(II) RADEON(0): Render acceleration unsupported on Radeon 9500/9700 and
newer. (II) RADEON(0): Render acceleration disabled
(II) RADEON(0): Using XFree86 Acceleration Architecture (XAA)
...

after that.  This is presumably a clue as to how far it's gotten.