This GLX Patch Can Really Boosts The FPS (~ +60%)

[przemoli]

Can any one enlighten the differenc between direct indirect rendering? And when they are used?

[misiu_mp]

Using padman@1024x768 locally:

                  i5-2500   c2q/g45    c2q/q35
Direct:             145        94         66
Indirect:            74        35         42

Is this with or without the new patches?

[ickle]

Impact of using indirect GLX vs DRI

Using padman@1024x768 locally:

                  i5-2500   c2q/g45    c2q/q35
Direct:             145        94         66
Indirect:            74        35         42

[xeros]

Does anyone know what values would be on the same hardware with direct rendering?
I mean, what's the difference in speed with indirect rendering and this patch and direct rendering?

[elanthis]

To those making fun of Michael... he did clearly state it was a GLX patch and not a general Mesa patch. GLX is the "GL over X11" protocol which is mainly just used for creating contexts in the direct rendering world. It's only actually used for everything else when doing indirect rendering.

While he probably should've clearly stated that it's for indirect/networked rendering in the title given how many readers of the site still don't seem to comprehend half the technology they're reading about daily, he certainly didn't claim this patch did more than it does.

[daniels]

he gets 30fps without direct rendering? what the hell!?
just to make sure im not lacking information. indirect rendering is softpipe right? if so, even llvm didnt get that on some freaking core i7 940. or would that be beneficial for wine maybe?

accelerated indirect rendering has been available for the past five years or so.

generally though, lack of direct rendering means lack of gl acceleration too, unless you've either forced indirect rendering, have screwed up your permissions, or are on a remote machine.

[jakubo]

he gets 30fps without direct rendering? what the hell!?
just to make sure im not lacking information. indirect rendering is softpipe right? if so, even llvm didnt get that on some freaking core i7 940. or would that be beneficial for wine maybe?

[Plombo]

Not anymore, applications can use direct rendering to render to an offscreen buffer.

Ah, I thought I might have been missing something like that.

[rohcQaH]

Don't composited windows use indirect rendering?

Not anymore, applications can use direct rendering to render to an offscreen buffer.

[Plombo]

/me wonders if Michael reads these commit msgs before going nuts.

Its only on indirect rendering, and I seriously doubt anyone uses that to play games.

Don't composited windows use indirect rendering? If so, I use indirect rendering to play games quite often. Linux games, especially games using SDL, usually implement fullscreen in a way that changes the screen resolution and grab the input so that it's impossible to recover if something goes wrong.

Speaking of fullscreen, speed improvements for games in composited window managers could make it more practical to use the NetWM fullscreen request for games, which could lead to a much nicer fullscreen gaming experience with working Alt+Tab, volume control, desktop notifications, etc.