Tweet
After getting burnt with distributions claiming that "so-and-so" graphics cards are supported under a certain driver only to find out that said driver only provides basic modesetting support and dumps all forms of rendering (2D and 3D) to the CPU, i need some experts' opinion in understanding how Nouveau works.
Basically, I have plans to purchase a Kepler notebook some time this year. Naturally, where possible I will like to use the Nouveau driver since I am not going to use my notebook for gaming. But support is a big issue, so these are some questions i need answered:
1) By default, when used with Kepler, will the Nouveau driver offload desktop rendering to the graphics card, or will it dump it all to the CPU?
2) I read that in some cases, acceleration in Nouveau needs to be turned off before X can start. If the acceleration is turned off, does it mean that rending X and the desktop environment on top of it is now the CPU's job, or does the Kepler GPU still handle it?
3) If Nouveau reports "Yes" to glxinfo | grep direct and "Software Rasterizer" to glxinfo | grep renderer, does it mean that desktop rendering and drawing is offloaded to the Kepler GPU, or is it still the CPU doing these tasks?
4) I read that Nouveau requires DRM. Can I take this to mean that it automatically ensures that the Kepler card does the rendering task and not the CPU?
Thanks much!
Basically, I have plans to purchase a Kepler notebook some time this year. Naturally, where possible I will like to use the Nouveau driver since I am not going to use my notebook for gaming. But support is a big issue, so these are some questions i need answered:
1) By default, when used with Kepler, will the Nouveau driver offload desktop rendering to the graphics card, or will it dump it all to the CPU?
2) I read that in some cases, acceleration in Nouveau needs to be turned off before X can start. If the acceleration is turned off, does it mean that rending X and the desktop environment on top of it is now the CPU's job, or does the Kepler GPU still handle it?
3) If Nouveau reports "Yes" to glxinfo | grep direct and "Software Rasterizer" to glxinfo | grep renderer, does it mean that desktop rendering and drawing is offloaded to the Kepler GPU, or is it still the CPU doing these tasks?
4) I read that Nouveau requires DRM. Can I take this to mean that it automatically ensures that the Kepler card does the rendering task and not the CPU?
Thanks much!