X.Org Server 21.1 Released With Variable Rate Refresh In Modesetting Driver, Other Work

[wooptoo]

https://lists.x.org/archives/xorg/2021-October/060799.html

modesetting: Lie less in the man page

Nice

[jrgiacone]

Would this mean Gsync could possibly work with multiple monitors? Or does this only allow for mixed monitor refresh rates?

[DanL]

i have a freesync monitor but i have freesync disabled in it because freesync doesn't work on wayland at the moment (at least on gnome) but i wonder if it works inside xwayland. isn't the modesetting driver what's used with wayland? as far as i'm aware, there isn't a "amd wayland" driver like there is for userspace with xorg.

This thread/news isn't talking about Wayland. You took a wrong turn somewhere.

[intelfx]

i have a freesync monitor but i have freesync disabled in it because freesync doesn't work on wayland at the moment (at least on gnome) but i wonder if it works inside xwayland.

isn't the modesetting driver what's used with wayland? as far as i'm aware, there isn't a "amd wayland" driver like there is for userspace with xorg.

No, because "modesetting" is a DDX driver (device-dependent X) and as should be obvious from the name, those aren't used with Wayland at all.

[Jhackler]

Oh good, meanwhile I am still waiting for gnome to add VRR to mutter instead of breaking my extensions and removing features so I can install more extensions lol. Any news on mutter wayland vrr ?

[oiaohm]

As a Radeon owner, why would I run modesetting driver instead of radeonsi?
It seems Michael sometimes runs this driver in tests but I've never understood why.

Long term there may be advantage. The original goal of the mode-setting driver in X.org is one userspace driver to rule them all. In theory if modesetting driver ever got fully complete you should be able to have like AMD next to Intel next to some other GPU and everything work.

It's modesetting instead of xf86-video-amdgpu. But yeah. I guess xf86-video-amdgpu is too boring and you need some bugs of modesetting DDX to spice things up.

To be correct the original goals was that the xf86-video-xxxx drivers would all be replaced by xf86-video-modesetting with all your vendor particular stuff moved either into the graphics drivers like Mesa or into the kernel mode drivers for KMS/DRI.

isn't the modesetting driver what's used with wayland? as far as i'm aware, there isn't a "amd wayland" driver like there is for userspace with xorg.

No modesetting driver is something bare metal X11 x.org server. Xwayland driver is related to modesetting but not the same. Wayland compositors use the mesa and the kms/dri bits directly so the same interfaces as the X11 x.org server modesetting driver.

So modesetting driver and way wayland compositors do thing have the vendor particular code outside the x.org X11 server or the wayland compositor. So vendor particular code under this model is in the opengl/vulkan... libraries or in the KMS/DRI kernel mode drivers. So unified driver solution between wayland and x.org X11 server. This was also a plan to remove drivers from hooking into X11 server core as well.

[oiaohm]

https://lists.x.org/archives/xorg/20...er/060799.html

modesetting: Lie less in the man page

Nice

https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/commit/?h=server-21.1-branch&id=0dc2c419e11cf28b8fa1e607d4cf2d15f2eb2306

Really that description part of the picture. What was in the man page corrected when the modesetting driver was first made was fact correct. Yes modesetting driver use to support 8bpp and use to be not accelerated at all but for over 10 years now that has not been the case. Yes this is the classic problem of documentation not matching the software.

Yes there are most likely more bits in the modesetting man page that are old and no longer match the software. X.org X11 server does not have a person who job it is to make sure the documentation is somewhat current.

[ridge]

In a shocking turn of events, X delivered to ya, after three years of insisting it was gon' give it to ya.

[smitty3268]

As a Radeon owner, why would I run modesetting driver instead of radeonsi?
It seems Michael sometimes runs this driver in tests but I've never understood why.

As I recall, modesetting got popular as an alternative back in the day when the native hardware drivers tended to be buggier, and there wasn't much downside to it.

More recently AMD has supported xf86-video-amdgpu a bit better and actually has driver specific functionality included, so in most cases you are probably better off using it.

[Teggs]

I have no way to reward those involved other than to say that I think Povilas is a king for this, and I appreciate the efforts of others who helped with the release and all those who submitted patches.

Cheers.