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#1 2009-04-12 09:17:18

jw
Member
Registered: 2005-01-08
Posts: 88

[UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

After upgrading to kernel 2.6.29 the UXA performance on my 945gm really took a nosedive. We've seen lots of threads discussing various problems, but because it is not always clear what hardware everyone is using, it is difficult to tell if anyone has actually been able to resolve these issues.

So, if there is anyone who has a 945gm and is running UXA on kernel 2.6.29 with good performance, could you please reply and post your xorg.conf/menu.lst and the version of xf86-video-intel you have installed?

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#2 2009-04-12 09:18:29

Allan
Pacman
From: Brisbane, AU
Registered: 2007-06-09
Posts: 11,365
Website

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

I swapped to xf86-video-intel-legacy to get any sort of performance...

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#3 2009-04-12 11:19:39

aapzak
Member
Registered: 2007-04-13
Posts: 8

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Most important, I think the current Intel drivers have a huge memoryleak problem. Does not really matter how you config it, it will increase in memory usage. I think this driver is unuseable.

Therefor I expres my interest in the legacy driver, no memleak or other problems? I had my work laptop crash on me 4 times the last 4 days, I cannot have that.

Last edited by aapzak (2009-04-12 11:20:11)

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#4 2009-04-12 11:23:18

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

As it isn't already obvious but I'm really hating Intel for this...


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#5 2009-04-12 11:26:35

Damnshock
Member
From: Barcelona
Registered: 2006-09-13
Posts: 414

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

aapzak wrote:

Most important, I think the current Intel drivers have a huge memoryleak problem. Does not really matter how you config it, it will increase in memory usage. I think this driver is unuseable.

Therefor I expres my interest in the legacy driver, no memleak or other problems? I had my work laptop crash on me 4 times the last 4 days, I cannot have that.

The memory leak is being tracked at http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20704 . It seems to be solved already, further testing is needed though.

Anyway, the memory leak only happens when you have compiste enabled (I'm running 2.6.99 without composite just fine)


My blog: blog.marcdeop.com
Jabber ID: damnshock@jabber.org

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#6 2009-04-12 12:06:12

Zariel
Member
Registered: 2008-10-07
Posts: 446

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Am I the only on not having problems?

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#7 2009-04-12 14:15:37

aapzak
Member
Registered: 2007-04-13
Posts: 8

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

I think the memory leak happens on all opengl and/or dri actions. Not just compositing.

I think the drivers are a mess, you cannot have any 3d handling without X taking more and more memory, EXA acceleration results in scrambled window parts in KDE.

Why is my 5-year old mobility radeon much better at this stuff than my reasonably new GM965? I'm stuck with this onboard laptop chip and its very, very annoying that I have to go back to a full 2d desktop to get a stable system (I use this laptop for work, cannot have those semi-random lockups)

It took me a while before I found out it was compositing that made my machine unuseable. 4 freezes, while working, before I found out ...

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#8 2009-04-12 14:34:45

Damnshock
Member
From: Barcelona
Registered: 2006-09-13
Posts: 414

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

aapzak wrote:

I think the memory leak happens on all opengl and/or dri actions. Not just compositing.

I think the drivers are a mess, you cannot have any 3d handling without X taking more and more memory, EXA acceleration results in scrambled window parts in KDE.

Why is my 5-year old mobility radeon much better at this stuff than my reasonably new GM965? I'm stuck with this onboard laptop chip and its very, very annoying that I have to go back to a full 2d desktop to get a stable system (I use this laptop for work, cannot have those semi-random lockups)

It took me a while before I found out it was compositing that made my machine unuseable. 4 freezes, while working, before I found out ...

It's actually pretty sad, the things are improving much though. I feel we are on the good way now, there's a lot of movement on the intel driver specially since the KMS and GEM introduction into the linux kernel.

Damnshock


My blog: blog.marcdeop.com
Jabber ID: damnshock@jabber.org

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#9 2009-04-12 15:24:33

Wilco
Member
Registered: 2008-11-09
Posts: 440

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

It runs stable for me with KMS enabled and instant tty switching is cool too. However, performance had decreased a lot with the new xorg+intel drivers+2.6.29. Especially urxvt terminals with transparency are so slow it's unusable.

[wilco@wilco ~]$ glxinfo | grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GME GEM 20090326 2009Q1 RC2 x86/MMX/SSE2

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#10 2009-04-12 15:27:47

MarCustomized
Member
From: Detroit, MI
Registered: 2008-09-05
Posts: 116

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

On my AAO I enabled KMS, deleted my xorg.conf, and now I'm getting much better performance in Mupen64 compared to how it was behaving with the previous xorg and Intel driver.  I haven't tested compositing tho.

Last edited by MarCustomized (2009-04-12 15:28:33)

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#11 2009-04-12 22:58:04

Zariel
Member
Registered: 2008-10-07
Posts: 446

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

How can you see what render accel is running? I have it set to uxa in xorg.conf and have no performance issues, get 800fps in glxgears, compiz runs without lag, on intel GM965 with KMS enabled

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#12 2009-04-13 01:01:46

jwcxz
Member
Registered: 2008-09-23
Posts: 239
Website

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

EXA is finally working reasonably well with my 965.  Compiz is slightly smoother than with XAA, 3D games are actually playable (e.g. Nexuiz with medium/low settings), the video overlay works fine (finally, I don't need to boot a VM to play a video non-fullscreen), and the KDE system tray isn't garbled.

However, Compiz randomly crashes now, which has left me stranded more than once...  I've setup a hotkey to restart the window manager though.

EDIT: forgot to talk about UXA...
UXA is just absolutely horrible.  Transparency is very buggy (e.g. transparent menus come up strange colors) and 3D games are more-or-less unplayable...  I guess I have to wait a while before I can get KMS working.

Last edited by jwcxz (2009-04-13 01:02:56)


-- jwc
http://jwcxz.com/ | blog
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#13 2009-04-13 02:18:44

SomeGuyDude
Member
Registered: 2008-10-09
Posts: 271

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Compiz as my standalone WM became pretty draggy after the recent rash of upgrades. I'm back on OpenBox now but not entirely happy about it.


And in the midst of such perfection,
I can't help but feel diseased.

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#14 2009-04-13 03:27:40

leeyee
Member
From: Kingston, Canada
Registered: 2009-01-07
Posts: 150

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

With new X server and xf86-video-intel dirver, either UXA or EXA, my intel GM45 integrated card (X4500MHD) works fine with compiz and smoothly when playing OpenArena. glxgears output about 1200FPS compare to former 700FPS or so.

However, glxinfo told me

glxinfo | grep render
direct rendering: No (LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT set)

That's confusing, it should already have hardware-accelerated. I've setup a post here: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=69774


Archlinux x86_64 on Thinkpad T400
Intel X4500MHD / ATI HD3470 Graphics, 2G RAM, 160G HD

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#15 2009-04-13 11:19:42

jw
Member
Registered: 2005-01-08
Posts: 88

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Thanks for all the replies. I downgraded to xf86-video-intel-legacy and this works reasonably well. I get window redrawing issues in various KDE windows though.

Just to return to the original topic: Anyone with 945gm out there that confirm they are not having problems with 2.6.29 and the latest driver? If so, please post your configuration settings -- cheers!

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#16 2009-04-13 12:57:27

Nepherte
Member
From: Singapore
Registered: 2008-09-09
Posts: 427
Website

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Zariel wrote:

How can you see what render accel is running? I have it set to uxa in xorg.conf and have no performance issues, get 800fps in glxgears, compiz runs without lag, on intel GM965 with KMS enabled

What does your Device section looks like in xorg.conf (if you are using any that is)? I have the same card with uxa and kms and get around 600fps.

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#17 2009-04-13 12:58:39

Aktau
Member
From: Antwerp, Belgium / BCN, Spain
Registered: 2009-04-04
Posts: 19
Website

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Nepherte wrote:
Zariel wrote:

How can you see what render accel is running? I have it set to uxa in xorg.conf and have no performance issues, get 800fps in glxgears, compiz runs without lag, on intel GM965 with KMS enabled

What does your Device section looks like in xorg.conf (if you are using any that is)? I have the same card with uxa and kms and get around 600fps.

You could also perhaps try to resize the windows in which glxgears displays, in my experience this has some wild effects on fps. This might just be me though.

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#18 2009-04-13 13:00:53

Nepherte
Member
From: Singapore
Registered: 2008-09-09
Posts: 427
Website

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Hehe, well it's not that I care that much about fps that I'm going to resize windows. I simply figured I might have overlooked some setting or alike.

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#19 2009-04-18 09:28:15

jxhcc
Member
Registered: 2009-03-29
Posts: 10

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Im running a Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07) (lspci output). Im not really sure what that corresponds to in the 965gm, 945gm numbering (or if its something completely different)

I am using an xorg.conf - here is my "Device" section:
Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Card0"
        Driver          "intel"
        VendorName      "All"
        BoardName       "All"
        Option          "DRI"           "true"
        Option          "RenderAccel"   "True"
        Option          "AccelMethod"   "UXA"
EndSection

glxgears gives me about 1150 fps right now
and glxinfo tells me:
direct rendering: No (LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT set)
Im not sure what KMS is, or how to tell whether or not its set.

UXA seems a bit buggy in compiz - things that should fade to nothing fade to white instead, then disappear.
EXA doesnt do that, and gets a similar framerate from glxgears, but the animation is incredible choppy. The only way to fix that is by unsetting LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT, which enables DRI. This fixes the choppiness and gives me about 100 more FPS.

What I cant figure out is why LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT is being set in the first place. Anyone know why that might be?
Edit: Looks like Compiz is doing that.

If anyone wants more info, just let me know.

Hope that helps someone :-)

Last edited by jxhcc (2009-04-18 09:37:36)

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#20 2009-04-18 12:53:36

.:B:.
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2006-11-26
Posts: 5,819
Website

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

I am running 2.6.29.1 here with KMS enabled. X would not come up with my (legacy) Xorg.conf, so I tossed it out the window and behold - it runs.

[stijn@hermes ~]$ glxinfo |grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GM GEM 20090326 2009Q1 RC2 x86/MMX/SSE2
[stijn@hermes ~]$ glxgears 
2038 frames in 5.0 seconds = 407.479 FPS
2028 frames in 5.0 seconds = 405.433 FPS
2023 frames in 5.0 seconds = 404.573 FPS
2091 frames in 5.0 seconds = 418.063 FPS
2127 frames in 5.0 seconds = 425.280 FPS

That is with no xorg.conf - so as far as the X log tells me, no UXA either.

Report on the chip by Xorg:

(II) intel(0): Integrated Graphics Chipset: Intel(R) 945GM
(--) intel(0): Chipset: "945GM"

With an xorg.conf specifying UXA for the GPU:

[stijn@hermes ~]$ glxgears 
2819 frames in 5.0 seconds = 563.765 FPS
2825 frames in 5.0 seconds = 564.948 FPS
2766 frames in 5.0 seconds = 553.090 FPS
2815 frames in 5.0 seconds = 562.991 FPS
2646 frames in 5.0 seconds = 529.138 FPS
2759 frames in 5.0 seconds = 551.716 FPS

Edit: don't know what happened but the config file didn't get saved, new values above, and it is an improvement (for glxgears at least tongue). I still get screen corruption though... I'll have to try that tile option somebody suggested.


Got Leenucks? :: Arch: Power in simplicity :: Get Counted! Registered Linux User #392717 :: Blog thingy

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#21 2009-04-18 13:14:09

Wilco
Member
Registered: 2008-11-09
Posts: 440

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Wilco wrote:

...

I was a bit too fast with this. It is *very* unstable with KMS enabled, but it runs fine with xorg-server 1.6.1 with EXA (yep that's not UXA) and the new intel drivers.

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#22 2009-04-18 13:58:54

Trent
Member
From: Baltimore, MD (US)
Registered: 2009-04-16
Posts: 990

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

I have a 945gm and no problems whatsoever with the new driver.  I don't think compositing is enabled (how to tell?)  Here is the Device section of my xorg.conf (generated by Xorg -configure, with the three bottom lines added by me)

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Card0"
        Driver      "intel"
        VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
        BoardName   "Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller"
        BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
        Option      "DRI"               "true"
        Option      "RenderAccel"       "true"
        Option      "AccelMethod"       "UXA"
EndSection

This is without UXA.

1535 frames in 5.0 seconds = 306.854 FPS
1529 frames in 5.0 seconds = 305.710 FPS
1524 frames in 5.0 seconds = 304.723 FPS
1525 frames in 5.0 seconds = 304.849 FPS
1506 frames in 5.0 seconds = 301.120 FPS

I added UXA to my xorg.conf, and frame rate went up considerably:

4178 frames in 5.0 seconds = 835.503 FPS
4196 frames in 5.0 seconds = 839.002 FPS
4181 frames in 5.0 seconds = 836.083 FPS
4183 frames in 5.0 seconds = 836.588 FPS
4188 frames in 5.0 seconds = 837.473 FPS

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#23 2009-04-19 17:44:53

filoktetes
Member
From: Skien, Norway
Registered: 2003-12-29
Posts: 287

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Just a reminder, which has been stated lots of times before:
glxgears is not a good benchmark to decide if UXA og EXA works best. UXA works in a way that gives a lower frame rate in glxgears than with EXA, and it's supposed to be like that. In most other cases UXA should be better. glxgears is such a simple program that it doesn't test much really, and you shouldn't use it to measure the performance of your driver or configuration.

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#24 2009-04-19 18:08:16

jxhcc
Member
Registered: 2009-03-29
Posts: 10

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

Wilco wrote:

I was a bit too fast with this. It is *very* unstable with KMS enabled, but it runs fine with xorg-server 1.6.1 with EXA (yep that's not UXA) and the new intel drivers.

UXA with KMS doesnt seem unstable here at all, just a little buggy. The only problem Ive found with it is that some of the fading effects in compiz fade improperly and look terrible as a result (they fade to white rather than fade to nothing).

Other than that though, everything seems fine. Maybe im just lucky wink

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#25 2009-04-19 20:20:15

Schneibster
Member
Registered: 2008-12-20
Posts: 32

Re: [UXA] Anyone getting good perfomance on Intel 945gm?

I'm going with the legacy Intel drivers for now. I'll wait a while and see if KMS gets less buggy, and once it is, I'll check out enabling it, then try UXA vs. EXA. But I'm getting what I need, and there are no rendering flaws in Compiz and movies run fine; also no apparent memory leak in X, and lower memory usage in X than I've seen in a long time. I'm running with no xorg.conf, and setting touchpad options in hal using an fdi policy file. Works great. glxgears (yes, yes, I know... but it's a good way to get a feel for the order of magnitude of things) runs around 750fps.

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