Crocus: Working On Gallium3D For Old Intel Graphics

[ms178]

My Sandy Bridge notebook is still good enough for office work and if my experience doesn't regress from this split, fair enough. The experience with GPU support there wasn't great at all (partly due to the buggy Intel iGPU/AMD dGPU combination). OpenGL support on Windows is even behind Linux. Driver support is one area where I expect Intel to improve tremendously when entering the discrete GPU market with DG2. AMD and Nvidia set the benchmark which means well over four years of driver support.

[ShFil]

Big thanks for Ilia Mirkin, David Airlie and Eric Anholt. This driver can put new life into all these iGPUs.

Most people here forget about Gallium Nine. GMA 4500 and above are able to handle d3d9 games on windows, but not with wine on linux.

[darkbasic]

Most people here forget about Gallium Nine

Exactly, that's one of the reasons why I would love to see a Gallium driver!

[enigmaxg2]

What are the implications of older drivers getting dropped in Mesa? the affected hardware will stop working under Linux entirely?

I have a IGPU + DGPU setup (2nd gen i5 Intel HD Graphics + Nvidia GTX 1060), with the Nvidia card driving my 1080p monitor, which is used almost exclusively for gaming, and the iGPU driving a 768p monitor for browsing and watching youtube videos. So if certain hardware (in my case, the "vintage" iGPU) stops working I will have a problem.

[siyia]

Amazing i still use a sandybridge laptop!

[AJenbo]

Going out of your way to develop drivers for undesirable GPUs is like driving an hour to a grocery store so you can pick up plain oatmeal and eat it in a bowl with cold water. Yeah, you'll get sustenance, but was it worth it?

You learn how to cook, but maybe your analogy isn't reflecting this well...

[pkunk]

What are the implications of older drivers getting dropped in Mesa? the affected hardware will stop working under Linux entirely?

As many people already said implications are that affected hardware will work better because its drivers will not be accidentally broken anymore ever by refactoring/optimizations for newer hardware.
Basically it is win-win for both users and developers.

[Leopard]

For people who says "what is the point?" , there is a possibility of Gallium 9 usage with those gpu's on Crocus.

1-) They don't have Vulkan support so they can't use DXVK.

2-) WineD3D is not good.

With Gallium 9 those gpu's comes to a really sweet point with d3d9 games where they have never there before.

[schmidtbag]

You learn how to cook, but maybe your analogy isn't reflecting this well...

Each of the devs involved in this are renowned chefs. All the more reason why it's weird they're making cold plain oatmeal.

For people who says "what is the point?" , there is a possibility of Gallium 9 usage with those gpu's on Crocus.

1-) They don't have Vulkan support so they can't use DXVK.

2-) WineD3D is not good.

With Gallium 9 those gpu's comes to a really sweet point with d3d9 games where they have never there before.

Both are valid points, but it still begs the question:
Who was asking for this today? Even if this were done 5 years ago, it'd be rather late to get started.
Obviously, there will be some people using this - I don't doubt that. But this isn't put together by some random hobbyist.

[M@GOid]

Intel hardware of the era this driver is covering, sold a Lot. And that is a capital L. You can even buy brand new motherboards for that stuff, because it still works great in today's software. and people out there are in a combination of less disposable cash/unemployed, plus new stuff being sold overpriced.

I'm on that boat, with a i5 and i7 Sandbridge APUs and not willing to pay double of what that stuff cost just a year ago. So I'm sticking with this for at last a couple years more, until prices settle at more reasonable levels.

Also, my fear in this "classic driver" is it to be left to rot, making them a nuisance in a era were you need good OpenGL drivers if you want to use a modern Linux desktop. Even web browsers use GPUs now, so it is important to have a actively maintained driver.