Linux 6.2 Will No Longer Treat Intel Arc Graphics As Experimental

[photom]

Should also note the Intel Arc graphics cards require Wayland. Having the best experience using Wayland/Sway desktop.

no it doesn't - it's just the current state of affair with a non-functional software stack (i915 backport DKMS) that Intel support says "we only support wayland" - use 6x Kernel and xorg works perfectly, I also think it's not up to a mishap i915 kernel backport driver crew to tell me, that only wayland will work in the future, that's silly - just because of a lack of testing their software - sorry for my rambling

[coder]

Finally Intel is completing their software stack after(!) launch date, so far I complained about AMD having their software not ready on release date, but now Intel showed me that they can do the same or worse....

Intel had to relocate their ARC driver development team, in the months leading up to launch. Not all of the developers wanted to relocate and had to be let go. So, aside from the disruption of moving, the remaining development work was understaffed.

https://www.semiaccurate.com/2022/09...ving-problems/

[photom]

Intel had to relocate their ARC driver development team, in the months leading up to launch. Not all of the developers wanted to relocate and had to be let go. So, aside from the disruption of moving, the remaining development work was understaffed.

https://www.semiaccurate.com/2022/09...ving-problems/

interesting read, Mr coder - thank you for that link/article :-)

but I still call BS when reading those excuses
- hardware delayed because of pandemix
- software delayed because of ukrainex

what's next? global warming? no, seriously - you don't need 1000s of people from every nation to make a working hardware/software combo - it's always the same dozens of people actively working on a product for kernel and/or software stack (you can actually talk to them 1:1 if you look close) - what did all these (other) people do the last 2 years?

[coder]

but I still call BS when reading those excuses
- hardware delayed because of pandemix
- software delayed because of ukrainex

Yeah, what it doesn't explain is why the hardware delays didn't manage to buy the software team enough time to get things in good shape. However, there's only so much you can do without actual hardware to develop against. So, I guess most of the software work was scheduled to happen once the first hardware engineering samples became available.

seriously - you don't need 1000s of people from every nation to make a working hardware/software combo - it's always the same dozens of people actively working on a product for kernel and/or software stack (you can actually talk to them 1:1 if you look close) - what did all these (other) people do the last 2 years?

The work adds up:

• Linux + Windows drivers + userspace
• Direct3D 11 & 12
• OpenGL
• Vulkan
• Ray-tracing
• XeSS
• Video codec support
• Deep learning support + backends for popular frameworks
• Game-specific optimizations

You can't do all of that with a dozen people, and have it in a timely fashion and competitive with software that was developed and tuned by established competitors over the course of many years. I'm not saying it takes thousands, but don't underestimate the amount of work they took on.

[photom]

Yeah, what it doesn't explain is why the hardware delays didn't manage to buy the software team enough time to get things in good shape. However, there's only so much you can do without actual hardware to develop against. So, I guess most of the software work was scheduled to happen once the first hardware engineering samples became available.

looking at social media pictures, the developers (mesa, kernel and such) all had their hardware in time, they even got A310 and some other stuff that didn't hit the market yet

The work adds up:

• Linux + Windows drivers + userspace
• Direct3D 11 & 12
• OpenGL
• Vulkan
• Ray-tracing
• Video codec support
• Deep learning support + backends for popular frameworks
• Game-specific optimizations

You can't do all of that with a dozen people, and have it in a timely fashion and competitive with software that was developed and tuned by established competitors over the course of many years. I'm not saying it takes thousands, but don't underestimate the amount of work they took on.

coder - I really like most of what you post all of the times here, but this time I ask myself why are you looking so desperately for excuses? All those API's were not developed with the DG2 hardware, we had those before - integrating a new hardware/software combo just means your product must be able to talk to that APIs, and there are even a lot of verifications programs around for everything you mentioned - so the reason for all the delays at launch must be elsewhere - and why release a product to the market if it's not ready to use? That's crazy.

[photom]

coder - I'm really sorry for all that rambling&rumbling, I need to go to bed now - perhaps tomorrow the world is brighter at my end, and Intel will post some new stuff at their githubs like they always did, I still trust them, that they will make it right

[qarium]

Finally Intel is completing their software stack after(!) launch date, so far I complained about AMD having their software not ready on release date, but now Intel showed me that they can do the same or worse....after buying the DG2 hardware... hmmm, nice move
atm. you get new Intel beta drivers every few days/weeks, mostly some 5-10% performance boost for some windows games nobody really plays and some bigger blob for Intel ARC Control software, as if 1GB of driver download/Autostart software with admin rights is not enough - good job
but the really good intel (multi-platform) software on github like media-driver, vaapi, onevpl and onevpl-gpu stuff has to run up a score for letting those silly windows-gaming-optimizations getting through in the first place. nice move, Intel management.
I just start regretting buying Intel hardware for Linux, Windows is running really fine btw.

for me it looks like AMD is still better for linux support than intel. amd is also better than nvidia in my point of view.

"Intel is completing their software stack after(!) launch date"

they did blame AMD a lot for this to. but as a linux user we have to admit that linux is second class citizen compared to windows. this means the companies always are in favor of windows because they make more sales on windows.

the only exception to this rule is the valve steam deck.

people like Quackdoc are angry about AMD because AMD did drop active support of polaris (rx580) hardware and people in this forum also report that Vega64 is next and i have a vega64 so it will hit me next. thats because AMD only makes money at the sale of the hardware compared to this valve steam deck in this case valve would not have the interest to drop support of the hardware because they make money by the sales of their steam store instead of hardware sale money.

Quackdoc i think is completly wrong about DG2 hardware because in 4-5 years intel will drop the support to and if intel is not successfull in this space they will drop it in 2 years.
Quackdoc is wrong because on linux intel right now is worst compared to amd on Vega64 or newer hardware.

[coder]

coder - I really like most of what you post all of the times here, but this time I ask myself why are you looking so desperately for excuses?

I guess I'm just sympathetic, because I know what it's like to work under strenuous deadline pressure and I have some inkling of just how much work Intel undertook, with this latest generation of hardware. Part of that is how their ambitions extended well beyond consumer gaming, and into the datacenter.

All those API's were not developed with the DG2 hardware, we had those before - integrating a new hardware/software combo just means your product must be able to talk to that APIs,

It's a lot more than that. For things like deep learning & ray-tracing, the hardware blocks were entirely new. Not only do you have to wire them up, but then you have to optimize the codepaths using them. It's a lot of work.

As for the rest, we know they've had issues with dGPU memory management. Even though they had DG1 to practice on, there are performance bottlenecks you can't really find until you actually try to scale up.

Finally, this is their first hardware generation with AV1 encode acceleration. That code doesn't write itself. I also don't know how much their codec block differs from previous iterations, in which case they possibly had to port & re-optimize encode/decode for legacy codecs.

and why release a product to the market if it's not ready to use? That's crazy.

They have 3rd party board partners, with inventory on hand, who had expected to start selling it in a certain time window. Intel can only delay them for so long, before incurring penalties and destroying relationships they need to help them capture a significant amount of the gaming market.

BTW, I forgot to include XeSS in the list, above. It takes time & resources to develop, refine, and optimize it. Then, you have to work with game developers to help them use it.

[coder]

coder - I'm really sorry for all that rambling&rumbling, I need to go to bed now - perhaps tomorrow the world is brighter at my end, and Intel will post some new stuff at their githubs like they always did, I still trust them, that they will make it right

Your complaints are legitimate. I don't mean to take away from them. I just wanted to try and give another perspective on why this has been such a frustrating journey.

Ideally, this will get sorted out a lot quicker than AMD's ROCm transition! And, for another datapoint, also look at how long it's taking Nvidia to stand up their open source driver!

[Quackdoc]

It finally is \ o / , both encoding and decoding, tested with VLC, Firefox and Chromium on XFCE/X11.

However, for me, in Chromium (and derivatives), Vulkan needs to be disabled, as well as UseChromeOSDirectVideoDecoder; otherwise the video will become a garbled mess. This appears to be a known issue already.

Let's hope these issues will be sorted soon

Nice, Love to hear it

just tell me is this intel arc gpu really what you hoped for ?

i hope for an honest answer.

Hoped for? not at all, it did however exceed my expectations. the A380 isnt the greatest card by far, but at the very least, I do have big expectations from intel after using it.

Finally Intel is completing their software stack after(!) launch date, so far I complained about AMD having their software not ready on release date, but now Intel showed me that they can do the same or worse....after buying the DG2 hardware... hmmm,
...
I just start regretting buying Intel hardware for Linux, Windows is running really fine btw.

This is one of the massive issues I have had so far, It turns out that intel had GREAT launch support.. for rhel ubuntu and suse. why they didn't backport to the latest LTS baffles me. at the very least, I was able to get it more or less working using the ubuntu kernel on arch, but man, its not something that should have needed, just backport the the latest LTS and it would have been fine.