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X.Org Server Gains Support For Auto-Binding Secondary GPUs To The Screen

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  • #11
    Originally posted by brent View Post
    It's sad to see X being neglected so much.

    After all these years, Wayland is *still* not there. It's better, but still not even close. With latest GNOME on Fedora 30, I still see major glitches: mouse still isn't smooth (even if gnome-shell isn't busy), XWayland integration is shoddy (graphical glitches when resizing windows, clipboard issues), etc. Plus there's the general lack of configurability. For instance, I attached an external monitor and the GPU driver incorrectly chose limited RGB color range, resulting in washed-out colors. It's easy to change this with xrandr. On Wayland though? It's not possible to change it at all. Games and other fullscreen apps also can't unredirect properly, so you won't be able to disable Vsync or use variable refresh.

    And on two occasions I experienced strange freezes with the only option being killing my session and restarting gdm. Unacceptable, and much better with X.
    Actually this isnt a wayland issue at all. The issue is how is wayland implemented in mutter and i can tell you that it sucks ! If you use Sway or weston for a day you will see that its much better then most users give it credit for. Most users judge Wayland based on Mutter implementation and TBH thats very bad example of good wayland implementation.
    Few issues with mutter wayland:
    Xwayland apps render at 58 fps and not 60. (Known bug for ages and well OK its xorg bug and not mutter but still a huge bug)
    Mouse feels like its slow and jumps and doesnt move smoothly.
    Firefox Wayland has graphical artifacts when resizing Window or even making video fullscreen.
    And thats just few issues of it.
    And Sway doesnt have most of them.
    So its just bad wayland implementation.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by aufkrawall View Post
      It might work with a custom EDID for that device, but that's of course not user friendly at all.
      And while custom EDID works nicely with discrete AMD GPUs and external displays, it doesn't work at all on my Intel IGP notebook (read: only on Windows).
      Custom EDID works on AMD APU too. Thats how i got Freesync working on my non freesync laptop. (Panel supports Freesync technically but doesnt show it in EDID so i just helped it to show it. Works perfectly fine)

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      • #13
        Wow, so much FUD...

        Originally posted by 9Strike View Post
        Afaik there is no solution for hybrid gpu users on wayland.
        What do you mean, “no solution”? It’s working out of the box with gnome-shell, probably better than it ever could with Xorg in fact.

        Originally posted by brent View Post
        XWayland integration is shoddy (graphical glitches when resizing windows,
        That can probably be improved indeed, but TBF the horror show that is window resizing with X doesn’t make it easy.

        Plus there's the general lack of configurability. For instance, I attached an external monitor and the GPU driver incorrectly chose limited RGB color range, resulting in washed-out colors. It's easy to change this with xrandr. On Wayland though? It's not possible to change it at all.
        That’s up to the compositor. Has someone filed a feature request for this?

        Games and other fullscreen apps also can't unredirect properly, so you won't be able to disable Vsync or use variable refresh.
        Many Wayland compositors can use client buffers for scanout directly, what’s not “proper” about that? It’s definitely possible to make variable refresh work, probably just a matter of time (and someone tackling it, most of all). Disabling sync-to-vblank would probably be possible as well, though there might be some resistance there.

        And on two occasions I experienced strange freezes with the only option being killing my session and restarting gdm. Unacceptable, and much better with X.
        Surely it’s pretty much the same when Xorg freezes.

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        • #14
          Hybrid GPUs shouldn't be a thing. I consider them to be a mistake that adds unnecessary complexity to modern laptops, and lets manufacturers get away with shoving a crappy Nvidia chip down your throat when Intel hardware is more than enough. Make it possible to pick a GPU with a kernel option on boot, and it's the perfect solution.

          I dodged a bullet when I picked my laptop with integrated only, as it's from the dark era of mux chips, where a dGPU provides a significant disadvantage to users, and takes digital outputs hostage.

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          • #15
            Originally posted by MrCooper View Post
            That’s up to the compositor. Has someone filed a feature request for this?
            Well, the usual problem with Wayland of course is that this is not considered Wayland's problem by the Wayland protocol developers. There are no standard interfaces to configure output properties. Even if GNOME comes up with some interface to do it, it will be proprietary. I cannot consider this problem solved until there is something similar to xrandr on Wayland.

            Many Wayland compositors can use client buffers for scanout directly, what’s not “proper” about that? It’s definitely possible to make variable refresh work, probably just a matter of time (and someone tackling it, most of all). Disabling sync-to-vblank would probably be possible as well, though there might be some resistance there.
            I'm not saying it's impossible to make it work. However, the fact is, it doesn't work with the most mature Wayland-enabled desktop environment right now.

            Surely it’s pretty much the same when Xorg freezes.
            Which is incredibly rare because X just implements a low-level display server. GNOME's gnome-shell (on Wayland) on the other hand is a combined display server, window manager and desktop environment shell. It does sometimes crash or behave erratically. With X, it'll crash and I can keep my session running. Or I can manually restart it. With Wayland, it's not possible to restart it while keeping the session.

            Now you could claim that all of this is an implementation problem or whatever. I honestly don't care. There are serious issues with Wayland from an end-user POV. They've been there for many years and they are not going away.

            The most sever issue IMHO is that Wayland tried to oversimplify the problem: a separate display server is a *good* thing. We'd have had a whole lot less issues if the Wayland architecture included a display server, running as a separate process, just like X.

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            • #16
              Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
              I thought that these things were not actual "GPU"s in the same sense that the older USB-VGA ones (or SIS ones) were and rely on the system's own GPU to exist and do the rendering.

              Can this work even if the devices aren't actual GPUs but just doing display output?
              Maybe I need a little more information for what you are referring to, but here is a Phoronix review using one of Plugable's USB adapters. I have one of these plugged in right now, it still works as expected on the newest distros.

              Making A Easy-To-Setup $50 Linux Multi-Seat Computer
              Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite


              Besides, there is still an issue of where someone uses another videocard for multiseat. I haven't tried it with hardware this expensive, but I don't see why someone couldn't use two Titan RTX or Radeon 7s to create multiseat. Here is a video where I use three videocards on a 2x 16x PCIe slot motherboard for three seats.

              As you can see from the output of the command neofetch when issued, my motherboard is accurately reported as a Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD2H. This motherboard only ...

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              • #17
                Originally posted by brent View Post
                It's sad to see X being neglected so much.

                After all these years, Wayland is *still* not there. It's better, but still not even close. With latest GNOME on Fedora 30, I still see major glitches: mouse still isn't smooth (even if gnome-shell isn't busy), XWayland integration is shoddy (graphical glitches when resizing windows, clipboard issues), etc. Plus there's the general lack of configurability. For instance, I attached an external monitor and the GPU driver incorrectly chose limited RGB color range, resulting in washed-out colors. It's easy to change this with xrandr. On Wayland though? It's not possible to change it at all. Games and other fullscreen apps also can't unredirect properly, so you won't be able to disable Vsync or use variable refresh.

                And on two occasions I experienced strange freezes with the only option being killing my session and restarting gdm. Unacceptable, and much better with X.
                No replacement for xrandr on wayland is a huge issue for me.

                Comment


                • #18
                  Originally posted by Haxk20 View Post
                  Custom EDID works on AMD APU too. Thats how i got Freesync working on my non freesync laptop. (Panel supports Freesync technically but doesnt show it in EDID so i just helped it to show it. Works perfectly fine)
                  Good to know. There is something fundamentally wrong with my Gemini Lake notebook on Linux, I can't even successfully switch from 60Hz to the 48Hz that are offered by the display's default EDID.
                  Though I remember the last time when I tried custom EDID with a stationary Intel "APU", it was a fiasco as well.

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                  • #19
                    Now, if only Gnome didn't completely fail to display anything on any GPU, if you start it in Wayland mode when you have an AMD GPU as primary and a BMC (such as ASPEED or Matrox) as secondary...

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by ezst036 View Post
                      Maybe I need a little more information for what you are referring to, but here is a Phoronix review using one of Plugable's USB adapters. I have one of these plugged in right now, it still works as expected on the newest distros.
                      I was thinking about the modern DisplayLink devices (i.e. 2013 onwards). They need a blob and they are not "true GPUs", in the sense that they won't work if you don't have at least one Intel or AMD GPU running open drivers in the system (and if the blob does not like the more updated Mesa/Xorg/whatever you have in the system).

                      From the link and the description, yours is a DisplayLink 1.0 or 1.5 device, which is a standalone device that is seen as a "GPU" for the Linux system, and imho the only good DisplayLink devices.

                      Afaik anything newer (especially all USB 3.0-HDMI/whatever devices) are not supported by open drivers and need a blob, or don't work at all (if they are not DisplayLink).

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