Intel Releases Its 2.12 X.Org Driver, 2010Q2 Package

While Intel had only released its xf86-video-intel 2.12 release candidate ten days ago and there was only one RC, yesterday afternoon they decided to go forward and make the final release. The xf86-video-intel 2.12.0 DDX driver is now available and they have also tagged their 2010Q2 driver package.

The Intel 2.12 driver is their quarterly X.Org driver update and it focuses on delivering bug-fixes, improved overlay and XvMC with GEM support, and major performance improvements. Just last night a Phoronix article was published that shows the major Intel 2D performance improvements with this newest DDX driver compared to the older xf86-video-intel 2.11.0 driver from last quarter and then also the Intel Linux graphics driver stack found in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

The release announcement for xf86-video-intel 2.12.0 can be found on the intel-gfx mailing list.

Intel has also released their 2010Q2 package, with that release announcement being found here. What Intel is calling their 2010Q2 package is the xf86-video-intel 2.12.0 driver, Mesa 7.8.2, and libdrm 2.4.21. Intel also recommends using a Linux 2.6.35 kernel (a release candidate for now) for the latest DRM, which allows Intel Ironlake customers to benefit from H.264 VA-API decoding.