Intel's Linux Sandy Bridge Graphics Still Troubling

[89c51]

How would you port them ? Most of the older hardware is fixed function (no shaders).

The Gallium3D API is shader-only, no fixed function support. Calls to the API make use of GPU functionality which is not present on the older hardware.

The classic Mesa HW driver API, on the other hand, was designed around fixed function hardware and supports it natively.

There was some discussion about faking support for fixed function hardware in Gallium3D by recognizing shader programs which corresponded to specific fixed-function operations then setting the fixed-function hardware accordingly... but nobody is really excited about that approach.

splitting the drivers in something like legacy (classic) and new (G3D) would make things worse wouldn't it?????

[bridgman]

splitting the drivers in something like legacy (classic) and new (G3D) would make things worse wouldn't it?????

That's pretty much how things are today. Classic mesa hw drivers are here...

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/tree/src/mesa/drivers/dri

... while Gallium3D drivers are here...

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/tree/src/gallium/drivers

[89c51]

That's pretty much how things are today. Classic mesa hw drivers are here...

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/tree/src/mesa/drivers/dri

... while Gallium3D drivers are here...

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mes...allium/drivers

OOOOK

in a previous comment you mentioned that the gallium3d was wrapped around classic (or something like that) and assumed that splitting could be an option.

excuse my ignorance towards the technical stuff

[indezign]

Two issues you may run into:
1. Mesa doesn't provide fully compliant GLSL 1.20 shader functionality yet (WIP).
2. No support for OpenGL 3.3 extensions in Linux/Win Intel driver yet for Sandy Bridge GPUs (i.e. GLSL 3.30.6 support in closed-source/open-source drivers).

So, you may not have real rendering and performance issues with hardware but with the current driver capabilities at the moment. Intel and open source developers are working hard to make things happen. Give them a chance.

[jalyst]

I hope this solidifies much more quickly than it took clarkdale

[blaze33]

[about Gallium3D] It's an API designed around newer GPUs, which allows a single driver to be used for more interesting things (things like compute, which fixed function hardware could never do) but the cost is that support for older GPUs without shaders is difficult-to-impractical.

Thanks for the explanations.
I never really understood if it would be possible to have GPU accelerated video decoding with an old R300 chip (mobility x600)... Is the hardware just too old for this, or would it be too complicated to implement it for so few users ?

Besides that, I noticed ubuntu users wondering about the Sandy Bridge support, so I'm glad to see Phoronix being always a useful resource to help answering those questions !

[E_lexy]

beefy dev machine

I am looking to replace my turion tl60 Ubuntu development notebook with a beefy Ubuntu desktop.
-> I need several VM's to test different browsers and run lots of server stuff, all on the same machine

So far your setup seems to be the only one I seen that has been sailing smooth on an H67 mobo. I assume you are using the on board video (correct?) does dual screen work? And even nicer will compiz support dual screens?

I'm not gaming just don't want to wait for my machine while I could be working....

I have had none of the problems mentioned in this article. I wonder if the author has made some mistake with the build of X in some way.

I have an i5-2500K cpu on an asus p8h67-m pro motherboard with 8gb of ram.

using ubuntu maverick, there is no need to compile a newer intel Xorg driver. Just use the xorg-edgers ppa - all the hard work done for you - including a kernel 2.6.37.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Compiz was a slight annoyance since the blacklist is compiled in, but it didn't take long to fix. to save some time, you can just download the modified maverick compiz from my ppa.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:jools/sandybridge
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Compiz seems to be working mostly fine. Had a few minor graphical glitches with areas of the screen not being upated properly, but only happened once or twice, and no crashes.

i can run nexuiz fine at 1920x1080. no crashes (although it was only 30fps or so, but i didnt tweak any settings apart from resoluton)
openarea also worked, no glitches or crashes.
compiling a kernel with -j5 etc was also no problem.

this article does seem to spread a little fear to anyone thinking to upgrade, which is unfortunate, and I would recommend the author to perhaps have another as something certainly wasn't quite right with his setup.

I'm happy to test any software if someone is interested to know how it runs. I've been very please so far with the setup. The only thing not currently working is the machine doesn't wake up correctly from being suspended. But I can live without suspend for now.