Intel Sandy Bridge Speeds Up On Linux 3.1 Kernel

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Sandy Bridge Speeds Up On Linux 3.1 Kernel

Last week the DRM pull went in for the Linux 3.1 kernel. For the Intel DRM graphics driver in the Linux kernel there is frame-buffer compression clean-ups, high color support, ring frequency scaling, shared LLC support, and hang-check module disabling. Compared to the Linux 3.0 kernel, the driver improvements significantly boost the open-source graphics performance for Intel Sandy Bridge hardware.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=16278

[Znurre]

As an owner of a Sandy Bridge laptop this is great news for me.
Thanks for the benchmark.

[elanthis]

As someone who is not a Sandy Bridge owner (well, not one that's actually using its integrated GPU, anyway), I have to say: damn, them's some good improvements! Rock on, Intel devs!

[sabriah]

Really impressive!

[przemoli]

Hip Hip hurray!

This only prove that Linux Intel strategy is on pair with Win/Mac !

However I wonder how Intel will behave when mess will pass OpenGL 3.1 mark. Will intell devs try to backport modern OpenGL to SNB?

[smitty3268]

This only prove that Linux Intel strategy is on pair with Win/Mac !

However I wonder how Intel will behave when mess will pass OpenGL 3.1 mark. Will intell devs try to backport modern OpenGL to SNB?

I'm sure they'll attempt to support whatever the hardware is capable of. SNB doesn't implement GL 4 features, so no way it gets that. From what i can tell, the hardware is supposed to implement the full DX10 feature set, which I believe means they should be able to finish through OpenGL 3.4. However, I'm not 100% sure about that.

Ivy Bridge is supposed to support more features, though, and it will be using the same Mesa driver so added support there will trickle back down to Sandy Bridge when the hardware supports it.

[Drago]

AMD, we have a problem!
Soon in Linux world, your APU will mean nothing.

[Shining Arcanine]

This only prove that Linux Intel strategy is on pair with Win/Mac !

However I wonder how Intel will behave when mess will pass OpenGL 3.1 mark. Will intell devs try to backport modern OpenGL to SNB?

I would not be surprised if this puts Linux graphics performance well ahead of Windows graphics performance on Sandy Bridge.

I'm sure they'll attempt to support whatever the hardware is capable of. SNB doesn't implement GL 4 features, so no way it gets that. From what i can tell, the hardware is supposed to implement the full DX10 feature set, which I believe means they should be able to finish through OpenGL 3.4. However, I'm not 100% sure about that.

Ivy Bridge is supposed to support more features, though, and it will be using the same Mesa driver so added support there will trickle back down to Sandy Bridge when the hardware supports it.

By the time Mesa supports OpenGL 3.4, the hardware will probably be too old for Intel to still care. I don't expect to see them implement support.

[xpressrazor]

I am happy

I had been struggling to have good graphics in Linux. Now with 3.0 kernel it has improved greatly(I can finally play supertuxkart, alienarena) on 11.04. I installed 11.10 beta (buggy) and quickly reinstalled 11.04. I thought I could not get good graphics support until 11.10 but, Ubuntu added update for xorg 1.7.6. I am waiting for Ubuntu to add vanilla implementation of 3.1. I am so happy, finally my sandy bridge is supported in Ubuntu.

[smitty3268]

By the time Mesa supports OpenGL 3.4, the hardware will probably be too old for Intel to still care. I don't expect to see them implement support.

When Mesa finally supports OpenGL 3.4, Intel will want to have support for their current hardware. And that means that 95% of the work to get it on SNB will already be done, so I'd expect them to do it. The current GL 2 extensions that support is added for aren't limited to just SNB, after all, they add support to the i965 driver and all the hardware running that driver can take advantage.