Enabling DRI3 Is Still An Easy Performance Hack Relevant For Ubuntu 16.04 Systems

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Enabling DRI3 Is Still An Easy Performance Hack Relevant For Ubuntu 16.04 Systems

While some distributions like Fedora have opted to enable DRI3 by default with their (mostly Intel) X.Org driver packages, Ubuntu 16.04 didn't pursue such behavior. But that just means with an easy xorg.conf tweak you can generally get better performance unless you happen to hit one of the few remaining DRI3-related issues...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-16.04-Enable-DRI3

[Mez']

Thanks for the great tip.
I'm not used to the open driver yet (after 10 years of the no longer supported fglrx), so as a remainder of how to configure my system with DRI3, I usually search for your previous articles mentioning how to set up r.conf to get there.

Very helpful.

[tjaalton]

DRI3 on intel ddx was just too buggy to be enabled on 16.04

[caEmber]

Unfortunately I cannot get it to work right now...
All of those won't work:
Option "DRI3" "on"
Option "DRI3" "1"
Option "DRI" "3"

I always get
modeset(0): Option "DRI3" is not used
or
modeset(0): Option "DRI" is not used

I'm looking at the proper log btw, the time/dates match.

GPU is radeonsi on Tahiti, newest padoka

cae@cae-P55M-UD2:~$ glxinfo | grep Open
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD TAHITI (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.9.0)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.2 (Core Profile) Mesa 11.3.0-devel (padoka PPA)
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.20
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 11.3.0-devel (padoka PPA)
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.1 Mesa 11.3.0-devel (padoka PPA)
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.10
OpenGL ES profile extensions:

cae@cae-P55M-UD2:~$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep DRI
[  1695.055] (II) glamor: EGL version 1.4 (DRI2):
[  1695.287] (WW) modeset(0): Option "DRI3" is not used
[  1695.287] (II) modeset(0): [DRI2] Setup complete
[  1695.287] (II) modeset(0): [DRI2]   DRI driver: radeonsi
[  1695.287] (II) modeset(0): [DRI2]   VDPAU driver: radeonsi
[  1695.291] (II) GLX: Initialized DRI2 GL provider for screen 0

cae@cae-P55M-UD2:~$ cat /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf
Section "Device"
   Identifier "Radeon"
   Driver "radeon"
   Option "ColorTiling" "on"
   Option "DRI3" "on"
EndSection

Anyone have an idea?

[ResponseWriter]

Unfortunately I cannot get it to work right now...
All of those won't work:
Option "DRI3" "on"
Option "DRI3" "1"
Option "DRI" "3"

I always get
modeset(0): Option "DRI3" is not used
or
modeset(0): Option "DRI" is not used
...

cae@cae-P55M-UD2:~$ cat /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf
Section "Device"
Identifier "Radeon"
Driver "radeon"
Option "ColorTiling" "on"
Option "DRI3" "on"
EndSection
[/CODE]

Anyone have an idea?

Fairly sure `Option "DRI" "3"` is the correct one.

It used to be the "DRI3" but that was changed a few weeks ago, IIRC. That said, it doesn't enable it on my Intel work machine but does on my AMD box.

[Kemosabe]

My /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/radeon.conf looks like this:

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "HD7850"
        Driver "radeon"
        option "swapbufferwait" "0"
        Option "ColorTiling" "on"
        Option "DRI3"        "1"
        option "AccelMethod"  "glamor"
Endsection

Perhaps it's an starting point for you

[oxwivi]

My /etc/X11/ looks so:

$ ls -al /etc/X11/
total 88
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Apr 21 02:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 130 root root 12288 Apr 22 16:47 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 21 02:15 app-defaults
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 21 02:15 cursors
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18 Apr 21 02:14 default-display-manager
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Apr 21 02:13 fonts
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17394 Nov 10 16:34 rgb.txt
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Apr 22 16:08 xinit
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 22 12:38 xkb
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 709 Nov 10 16:34 Xreset
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 21 02:14 Xreset.d
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 21 02:14 Xresources
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3730 Mar 4 18:49 Xsession
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 21 02:15 Xsession.d
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 265 Nov 10 16:34 Xsession.options
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 21 02:15 xsm

I can't find any .conf file anywhere.

[Nille_kungen]

Unfortunately I cannot get it to work right now...
All of those won't work:
Option "DRI3" "on"
Option "DRI3" "1"
Option "DRI" "3"

I always get
modeset(0): Option "DRI3" is not used
or
modeset(0): Option "DRI" is not used

I'm looking at the proper log btw, the time/dates match.

GPU is radeonsi on Tahiti, newest padoka


Anyone have an idea?

Don't guess the right option, instead read "man radeon" or "man amdgpu" and you will see that it's Option "DRI" "3".

[LeJimster]

Don't guess the right option, instead read "man radeon" or "man amdgpu" and you will see that it's Option "DRI" "3".

This is how it is in my xorg.conf and I've been using it for the last year no problems. Worthwhile for sure.

[LeJimster]

Well coming from Windows where I could play lots of games smoothly no problem to Linux needing wine for some of my fav games. Any kind of performance boost is welcome.

I started using DRI3 at the same time as gallium-nine and depending on the game 2-5% more fps I would say.